Recap: Cavs 101, Detroit 91 (Or, Trusting Movement)

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The Cavs came to the Palace and showed Detroit how veteran teams get a win. Throughout the night, the game was closely contested with neither team establishing a lead larger than six until the fourth quarter. In the fourth, the Cavs tightened up their defense and managed to get a nine point lead in the opening minutes.

Cleveland got their lead due to excellent ball movement. Cleveland had 24 assists on 39 made shots tonight. As the fourth quarter went on, the Cavs went to isolation ball. Their lead dwindled to just two after Detroit went on an eight point run. In typical fashion, the Cavs recovered their lead when they started to move the rock again. With 3:30 left, James caught the ball moving towards the paint. He tossed it to J.R. in the corner for a 3-pointer and a five point lead. The Cavs held the Pistons to just one point the rest of the game. Kyrie dagger/d the game by hitting a corner 3-ball with just .7 left on the shot clock off an inbounds play. Tyronn Lue had Delly inbound the ball so both Irving and James could be on the floor. Irving ran to the opposite side of court as James so he could get open. His shot put the Cavs up eight with 43 seconds left.

The Cavs had multiple players perform well. LeBron James had seven assists, 13 rebounds, and 20 points. Kevin Love was 7-10 for 20 points, and 12 boards. Kyrie Irving was 11-20 for 26 points and hit 3-6 from deep. Tristan Thompson was the real star, though. He had eight offensive rebounds, and held Andre Drummond to just seven boards and 17 points.

Detroit was led by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was 7-14 for 18 points. Reggie Jackson had 12 assists.

Both teams started the first quarter out with clear game plans. The Pistons wanted to post Andre Drummond up, and the Cavs were hunting for open 3-pointers. Out of the gate, Drummond posted up and scored an easy hook shot. The King came down the lane the first Cavs’ possession for a dunk from Irving. Unfortunately, the Cavs had trouble converting 3s. J.R. missed his first two.

The Pistons decided to double Love in the quarter, and he made them pay. Love made his first shot of the night, a turnaround fader, and he was very aggressive passing out of the double teams to create easy action for his teammates. After one James miss early on, he grabbed an offensive board and got two foul shots when he tried to put it back.

With the 3-ball not dropping, Irving really helped the Cavs midway through the quarter. He scored all eight of his points in the span of three minutes, getting a layup, a floater, and two mid-range jumpers. After KCP got two layups in a row to put the Pistons up four with 5:01 to go, the Cavs called a timeout.

Out of the timeout, the Cavs traded baskets with the Pistons. TT was very helpful. He grabbed two offensive boards, he got blocked on one put back and converted the other. Love also hit another tough jumper and Drummond had a hook shot. After one the Cavs trailed, 27-24.

The Pistons started the second quarter trying to play Aron Baynes on Iman Shumpert. The Cavs rolled out Shumpert, Delly, RJ, LeBron, and Frye. Detroit’s strategy seemed to be working early on, as Shump missed his first two shots. Then it failed. Shump air balled a shot, then stole the ball back. Delly quickly hit him for the long-ball. The next possession Shump dribbled baseline and got the ball out to the perimeter where it zipped around to Delly for a 3-ball.

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The Pistons also left Drummond on LeBron for a few plays. James went 1-2 on mid-rangers with Drummond on him. Thankfully, Stan Van Gundy didn’t realize that Drummond could probably bait the King into jumpers the whole night if he was covering him. Overall, the Cavs moved the rock, and the Delly-James pick and roll was tearing Detroit apart. Anything with those two in it gave Detroit fits. Delly scored eight in the quarter, two threes and a floater.

The Pistons tried to capitalize on the Cavaliers’ trapping. They tried to find Drummond down low out of the trap with a guard on him (he got an and-1 when Irving landed on him), or find an open 3-pointer when the Cavs were starting to rotate back to their original assignments.

With three to go in the quarter, Stanley Johnson hit a 3-pointer, and then got a layup in transition to put the Pistons up by four. The Cavs finished the quarter on a 7-2 run. James got a nice dunk when J.R. drove to the paint, and he cut into the lane. All of which was possible because TT got an offensive board.

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The Cavs were 5-8 from deep and had seven assists on 11 buckets in the quarter. They entered the locker room up, 54-53.

The third quarter started slowly with both teams scoring just seven combined points in the first two minutes. The Cavs forced a 24-second violation and benefited from a technical free throw, after Drummond shoved the King when he was shutdown down low.

Drummond got fired up after the foul. The next play he got an and-1, which he did not complete. A few plays later, he blocked TT and ran the floor to tip in a Reggie Jackson miss. After that play, he helped Detroit get another offensive rebound, which led to Jackson driving in while keeping Irving on his back the whole time, so he could get an easy floater.

The Cavs called timeout after that sequence to steady themselves. They finished the quarter strongly, utilizing Love a lot. Love set a nice screen for Irving before rolling to the rim for an easy floater to give the Cavs the 63-62 lead. On that play, KCP was on Irving and Morris was on Love. Love attempted to set several screens for Irving. Irving kept baiting Morris closer to the action, and Morris eventually committed to him. Love then rolled to the hoop for an open shot and Kyrie hit him with the bounce pass, while KCP and Morris tried to figure out what was going on with.

With 3:03 left, Love caught the ball in the post and was double-teamed. He found James who then hit Smith in the corner for a 3-pointer. The next play, Love used two off-ball screens from Smith and TT to get open for a 3-pointer. TT also contributed. He got a tip back and a nice dunk. Irving dribbled towards the baseline and TT just filled the lane with Canadian TnT. The Cavs entered the fourth up, 79-73.

The fourth quarter started out beautifully for Cleveland. Delly penetrated and hit the King coming down the lane for an and-1. A play later, Delly ran a pick and pop with James, who drained the 3-pointer. LeBron drew a charge after just two more possessions. Up seven, with about eight left, the Cavs started to crack. The King started to Le-Iso, and his misses combined with some others allowed the Pistons eight quick points. Irving stemmed Detroit’s run with a 3-pointer off a TT handoff.

After Irving missed a 3-pointer with 4:01 left, Jackson threw a touchdown pass to KCP for a dunk to bring the Pistons within two points.

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The Cavs came down the floor, and J.R. Smith showed just how cold blooded he is. He caught the ball in the corner from LBJ, dribbled once, so Jackson would fly by, and then hit a 3-pointer. The Cavs held Detroit to just one point the final 3:30 of the game. Irving completely finished the game when he hit a 3-pointer off a baseline inbounds play with just .7 left on the shot clock. That put the Cavs up eight with 43 seconds left to go. The King made sure Detroit left the arena with no good feelings by getting a chase down block on Jackson the final seconds of the game.

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Gripes

1.The Cavs seemed to fall in Love with the 3-ball when it wasn’t dropping, and forgot to move the ball when the game was on the line. In the third quarter, the Cavs could have closed the game out. They were 2-8 from deep, even though all of those were pretty open shots. They should have worked the ball inside a little more to try and finish the game off.

2.In the fourth quarter, Cleveland went iso too much, despite getting their lead through great ball movement. This is a habit and it’s going to take some time for them to break out of it. The last two 3s of the night showed they’re making progress towards trusting each other at the end of games.

3. Detroit shot 48.6% from the field. That’s absurdly high. Yet, I think they got lucky on some shots and just beat the trap a few times. Detroit’s starting to figure out that if they can keep their dribble alive long enough when the trap comes, they can feed the ball to open shooters on the outside when the defense starts to recover to their original assignments.

4.

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5.Drummond doesn’t like LeBron. He kept taking shots at him whenever he had a chance too. He’s also not that bad at covering the King. I’m hoping SVG fuels this rivalry a little bit. The Cavs could see Detroit a lot of the coming years.

6.James was 1-6 from deep. He needs to cut the 3-pointer from his game for now.

Hypes

1.TT is a straight animal. The Cavs had 14 more boards than Detroit. TT had eight offensive rebounds, and that’s much of the reason why Detroit couldn’t rebound. He made Drummond miserable. The Cavs had 17 second chance points, while Detroit had just nine.

2.Delly had 12 points on 4-5 shooting to go with five assists. He had eight points in the second quarter alone. Jeff Van Gundy mentioned that Delly is going to probably get an offer of $1o million this off-season. Delly was great tonight. When he runs the pick and roll with LeBron, teams are terrified. LeBron does what Draymond Green does in a pick and roll (survey the defense, make the right pass,etc…),only fifty times better. In the fourth, I was ecstatic when Delly and LBJ had their two man action in the opening minutes to get a nine point lead. That’s how the Cavs need to finish games. The ball just moves so well when those two work together.

3.Irving is finding his space on the floor. He’s working in the offense when the offense is humming, and he’s getting points when the teams needs a boost.

4.Shumpert finally hit some threes. Detroit tried to forget about him and he made them pay by going 2-3 from deep.

5.Love, Irving, and James all played more than 38 minutes. I’m okay with that. The Cavs should have some rest before the next round.

6. The Cavs hacked Drummond at the perfect time in the fourth quarter. With six minutes to go and up by four, the Cavs went after him. The Pistons had just gone on an eight point run. This killed their momentum and SVG had to pull Drummond.

7. The Cavs hit 12-29 3s and were 48.7% from the floor.

7.The Cavs play again on Sunday.