Recap: Cleveland 100, Detroit 98 (or, Cleveland beats the buzzer, and the buzzer beat Detroit)

Kyrie and Dahntay Jones celebrate after one of three Cavs buzzer beaters (Gus Chan / The Plain Dealer)

At the Palace of Auburn Hills, Cleveland barely outlasted a gritty Pistons squad, to earn a four game sweep in the first round of the 2016 NBA Playoffs. The Cavs won on the strength of a 35 point scoresplosion from Kyrie Irving, three ridiculous buzzer beaters, and 0-6 night from downtown (including the final shot) by “YOLO to ‘Oh No'” Reggie Jackson.

LeBron added a much needed 22 points, 11 rebounds, and six dimes, and the Cavs overcame a bad shooting night from Kevin Love (3-15 from the floor)because they got great offensive nights from J.R. Smith (5-7 from three), and Delly (11 points) to give the Cavs five guys in double digits.

First Quarter

The Cavs started very slowly again, getting in a 12-3  hole when Marcus Morris canned two treys, Andre Drummond dominated the Cavs inside for a pair, and Tobias Haris beat K-Love on a drive. Four quick points by Love out of the post, and a JR Swisher made for a quick Cavs run. The Pistons kept taking advantage of Kevin Love and Kyrie on defense, feeding the ball to Harris and Reggie Jackson for dribble drives. When the Cavs started collapsing, the Pistons kicked out for Blake and Harris treys. Fortunately, the Cavs had a couple treys of their own and a steady diet of LeBron to close the gap. Oh, and a couple of old man mid-rangers by Uncle Drew.

The Cavs, Kyrie Included, did a very nice job of icing and blitzing Reggie Jackson, and forcing him to hit very tough mid-range shots from the left side. He hit a nifty And-one, but the Cavs baited him into bad threes. The Cavs worked to establish Kevin Love, but he struggled shooting, going 1-7, but grabbed eight rebounds in the quarter. Cleveland weathered the storm and ended the period just down 25-28.

Second Quarter

The period started when Cleveland fired LeBron out of a cannon after a Delly dig down double team, to force a steal and a pitch ahead to a tomahawking king.

https://vine.co/v/iUH0ntlvPb3

A few plays later, we all held our breaths after LeBron went down to the ground after getting fouled by three pistons on a transition Drive, but despite rolling his ankle, he showed few ill effects for the game’s remainder. The man is made of tungsten. The early second also saw a frenetic Cavs’ defense, and the return of the Shumpert/Dellavedova back court which gave opposing offenses so many nightmares last year. Cleveland kept trapping on Reggie Jackson high on the wing and he refused to throw the skip pass. The move junked up the Detroit offense and the Delly/Shump/RJ/Frye/LeBron lineup was flying around on D and desperately trying to close out the Pistons in the second quarter.

Curiously, Ty Lue called off the defensive duo, replacing Dellavedova with Irving at the 7:50 mark, despite the three point lead the junk yard dogs had managed to eke out. Cleveland seemed about to break the game open before Irving and the starters returned and the see-saw offensive battle resumed. Marcus Morris scored seven points as the Cavs continued to lose him on defense. Fortunately, J.R.  needs about a millimeter of open space to swish a catch-and-shoot a jumper, and he did just that for two plays in a row.

Coach Lue was periodically mixing in some intentional fouling on Andre Drummond, but the fact that he’d returned the starters’ so early meant that he couldn’t do it as much as we might have wanted, because he couldn’t risk getting Cleveland’s starters in trouble foul-wise. So Drummond stayed and dominated the inside of the paint for Detroit, and Kyrie Irving dominated the Piston’s guards on nasty little drives and pull-ups. Oh, and the Cavs’ starters seemed pretty gassed with the long minutes.

The quarter also saw lots of Kyrie Irving pick-and-roll with both Tristan and LeBron as the roller screener to decent effect. The teams traded the lead until a James quietly scored his 16th points of the half of an KI dime and Harris clanked a well defended jumper to leave Cleveland up 54-53.

Third Quarter

Cleveland started out going to the post with LBJ and Love knocking in fadeaways. Then Kyrie went on a one man 10-2 run in 41 seconds. You read that right.

I put in the start time, but only run it for 42 seconds if you don’t want to spoil the ending. First, Kyrie canned a 3-Ball off a right wing pin-down in Jackson’s grill, then he knocked the rock away from Reggie from behind and ran out for a transition lefty layup, then he dribbled into a right baseline fadeaway, and then YOLO-ed an “I’m gonna dribble around forever then knock one in” Y-Ball special. Kyriediculous indeed!

Sprinkled in between those were a couple of Morris long range deuces that Cleveland was content to concede. And down 11, Detroit pistoned their way back into the game behind Jackson getting into the teeth of the defense and scoring or finding open shooters. After Loved netted a three-ball from straight on out of a K.I. pick-and-pop, Cleveland went on a 3.5 minute scoring drought, and Detroit retook the lead on a pair of Tobi Harris free throws.

Matthew Dellavedova came in to stop the bleeding, and fortunately was guarded by this year’s winner of the Shawn Marion Memorial, “Toast” award for the player most needing to retire, Steve Blake. Matty-D put Steve in the pick-and-roll, drove hard to the rack, and scored a layup and four free throw attempts (of which he made three) on three consecutive possessions. Blake was hapless and helpless to defend him. Detroit wouldn’t go away though, and kept finding ways to score as Tobias Harris drove to tie the game as the quarter closed tied at 78…

But, he left 2.9 seconds on the clock and Kyrie calmly dribbled to half court before tickling the twine, playing 47-feet worth of string music as the buzzer sounded. I almost woke the whole neighborhood as I screamed “YES!!!” The look on SVG’s face said it all, and that was just the first Cleveland buzzer beater. Cavs 81-78.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8yf9t65dDM

Fourth Quarter

Delly Took Blake to the rack again, shut down Steve in the post, and then stacked three slices of Delly ham on toast as he canned a triple on an RJ swing pass. Reggie Jackson subbed back in for the toasted one, and Irving came in for Shump, and then they went mano-a-mano-a-mano-a-mono: back and forth all quarter, an an old-school combo guard’s duel. After feeding Tobias, Reggie drove and scored, and cut Cleveland’s lead to just one at the 8:30 mark.

The game’s most hilarious stretch came a couple plays later, when Reggie Jackson clanked a trio of three-balls in less than a minute, including one possession where he and Harris combined for three misses. It left Fred and A.C. happy yet incredulous on the FoxOH broadcast. They were in disbelief at Jackson’s propensity for chucking in such a big game. Meanwhile, the King passed up a wide open left wing triple to settle for a handoff three clanker from the right wing, but he made up for it by hustling on the break and tipping it in. After a little hack-a-Dre, Kyrie banked home a filthy disgusting bank shot pull-up from an impossible angle over Reggie Jackson that nauseated Detroit fans everywhere.

Stan Jeremy called “uncle” and subbed out Drummond for Johnson, to go with a lineup that featured Morris at the five. But Cleveland defended their way into a pair of Detroit misses before J.R. Smith hit buzzer beater number two, a 30-footer off an inbound as the shot clock expired, which stretched Cleveland’s lead to nine. Stan will wake up in a cold sweat for months, with this vine running through his skull: stanky pipe nightmares.

https://vine.co/v/iUwpt9dLadY

But Detroit would not die. A Harris three followed by a Morris fadeaway were mixed with a pair of Cavs “walk-it-up and miss” possessions. But fortunately, the Cavs had one of those plays we’ve started to come to expect from Kevin Love, as he got on the floor after an Irving miss to force a jump ball with Stanley Johnson. We spent some time on the Live Thread coming up with nicknames for Kevin. I call him the Galvanizer.

Kevin won, and LeBron cantankerously barrelled his way to a layup to put Cleveland back up six. Tobias Harris scored his 23rd point, and Cavs fans everywhere were happy he hadn’t played this well in the rest of the series. If he figures it out, the Pistons will be deadly. Then Cleveland wasted a clock wringing a possession that saw two offensive rebounds, too much LeIso and KyIso (is that a thing?), and ended with an LBJ turnover. Kyrie played some particularly bad defense on an inbound play that let Kantavious Caldwell-Pope score a three on a screen curl, and the Cavs’ lead was just one with a minute and change left.

Cavs wound down the clock, isolated Kyrie on the right wing, and he dribbled, dribbled, and launched a no-no-no YES! three, for the Cavs’ third back-breaking buzzer beater.

https://vine.co/v/iUwtp9eM9zD

Reggie Jackson drove the lane and THUMPED to cut the Cavs lead to two with the 32 seconds left. Detroit had one possession to play defense, and Kyrie did the thing that drives 7th grade basketball coaches everywhere nuts, as he dribbled to the right corner and launched a contested airball over Jackson. “DON’T DRIBBLE TO THE CORNER!” I yelled. Kyrie, you’re a torturing artist.

But Uncle Drew redeemed as he picked up Reggie Jackson at half court as Detroit had no timeouts and 12 seconds to score. Kyrie gave no quarter as Reggie twisted and tried to launch himself into KI to simultaneously try to score and draw the foul. Sorry, Reggie, you’re not getting the foul there. You should’ve played for the shot, not the bailout. The buzzer beat you. Cavs win, 100-98. Beliebers rejoice.

https://vine.co/v/iUwUgl13uUj

Conclusions

Reggie Jackson had some sour grapes about the officials after this one, and it’s part of a developing theme with him in 2016. Good luck getting a call next season, Reggie. See you then

Kyrie’s 31 point, five dime night was brilliant, and the Cavs were able to isolate him late, because unlike the Byron Scott and Mike Brown years, the other Cavs on the floor were unleavable. His final defense on Reggie Jackson was everything you could ask for.

People get incredulous at the talk that the team plays better at times with Delly at the point than Kyrie. They use games like this to justify why that isn’t true, when a season’s worth of math supports the opposite conclusion. (though as I’ve admitted, I’m throwing most of that math out the window this playoffs). Basketball isn’t a binary equation, and when all the Cavs’ parts are working in symphony, like tonight, it’s a beautiful thing to watch, and an impossible thing to defend. No one wants Kyrie to play poorly. On the contrary, what makes basketball great is when players sublimate their egos for the greater good of the team. When one man struggles, his team picks up the slack. Irving picked up the slack for everyone tonight, and the next time he struggles, our hope is they’ll pick up his. And yes, there will be nights when Delly is better than Kyrie, because they’re both very good players with very unique skill sets.

No one is denying that Irving can be a singularity of great basketball play, but for every time his shot falls it seems as if there’s a moment where he inexplicably dribbles for 20 seconds or goes right into the corner for no reason. Similarly, Delly had an airball game winner late in the season and tonight was guilty of passing up a wide open three for a contested one.

I hate the idea that there is a “Delly camp” and a “Kyrie camp.” To pretend that either of these guys is somehow always better than his teammate and is above criticism or critical analysis – and that those teammates can’t also be great – is what galls people who watch the whole game. It’s particularly infuriating when everyone wants to be happy for Kyrie and Delly, and a Cavs’ victory while selection biasers are screaming, “I TOLD YOU SO!” But I don’t care on a night like this, when everyone played well. Let’s celebrate them both and worry about who should be starting and playing with whom and put all the talk of “well, next year, if the Cavs don’t win it…” off till next year. Cause the ultimate goal for the Cavs is to, you know, win it all.

But let’s not ignore that the Cavs needed no less than three miracle shots to win this one. There’s room on this team for everyone to be great and to improve. To cliché it up, if you’re not getting better, you’re moving backwards. Cleveland got a lot better this series, and are at their absolute best when their top six guys: Delly, Bron, J.R., Kevin, TT, and Kyrie are all bringing something to the table. It was a great closeout victory and a great game. With the Hawks and Celtics looking to go seven, we’ll see you in a week, Cavs.

Update:

I was quite remiss in not reporting some great research from Tom “Elias” Pestak about the Cavs’ record breaking accomplishment versus the Pistons. It’s truly impressive.

https://twitter.com/tompestak/status/724436732188459008

https://twitter.com/tompestak/status/724443367489327104