Recap: Cavs 104, Hawks 93 (Or, Canadian Dynamite Hands Out Mulligans)

The Cavaliers remained unbeaten against the Hawks and in these 2016 Playoffs. LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Tristan Thompson led the Cavaliers to an uneven win over their growing playoff rival. Let’s get to it.

1st Quarter: 

The Cavaliers began the game with some beautiful horn action that has become increasingly utilized in recent weeks. LeBron ran point while Kyrie set up on the right elbow and Tristan on the left. After making the entry pass to TT, LeBron crossed to set a soft screen for Irving. Kyrie high looped around the screen and picked up the dribble hand-off from Tristan, effectively picking up a second screen. Kyrie didn’t settle for the jumper with Teague on his hip and Millsap couldn’t risk helping off Love in the short corner. The Cavs have started almost every game this season with a Kyrie side pick-and-roll to get him a right wing 20 footer. Starting the game with a layup was a pleasant surprise. On the defensive end, the Cavs made it clear that Korver was their top priority. The Hawks got on the board when Kent Bazemore made a perfectly timed baseline cut with LeBron and J.R. in between switch action on Korver. As many of us anticipated, Love started the game on Horford which left Tristan to torment Paul Millsap.

The Cavs went right back to the same offensive set, this time passing out of it quickly to start J.R. Swish’s night from the left wing. J.R. could have stopped right there and still had more field goal makes than Kyle Korver. Both teams were feeling each other out, running sets more to see how the other team would react than necessarily flying through action. Kent Bazemore was allowed to roam free with the focus on Korver.

Action picked up when a dominating Tristan Thompson back-tapped an offensive rebound that eventually found its way to James for a right-wing three. The King immediately annoyed most Cavs fans with a “heat-check, I need a couch because I’m leaning so far to the left, I’ll show Brian Windhorst what a great outside shooter I am” bomb from the same spot on the floor the following possession. He missed. Kyrie didn’t. A rainbow from 25 feet late in the shot-clock found only nylon. J.R. fired a sweet cross-court pass to Irving in transition for a “Oh no, OH YES” three that forced Atlanta to call timeout trailing 16-8 with 7:41 remaining.

The defense swarmed early with great power and quick help execution. Love and Tristan were both solid in their post defense, forcing Horford to shoot over them far from their spots. The refs must have not believed in the good defense. Millsap flopped his way into an early foul that gave Lue a chance to sub Shump in for LeBron at the 4:16 mark. Kyrie was whistled for his second foul trying to navigate around screen shortly after. When Love checked out for Channing Frye with 1:44 remaining, fans mumbled to themselves about playing lineups without any member of the big three. A superbly executed out-of-bounds play that ended with a J.R. to TT alley-oop mitigated some of the fan worry. It also just made me laugh. Apparently J.R can throw perfect alley-oops to anyone not named LeBron. Or maybe Bron really does ask him to make it interesting.

Dennis Schröder got his first layup of the evening as he blew by Mathew Dellavedova. That part is to be expected. Schröder can get by almost anyone. What was disappointing was Shump’s decision to stick on Bazemore in the far corner instead of properly executing his crash down. Still, the Cavaliers closed the quarter well with another insanely quick catch and release three from Smith and a Channing Frye transition bomb. In all, the Cavs hit six first quarter threes and didn’t commit a single turnover. After one, 30-19 Cavs.

2nd Quarter: 

Delly, Shump, RJ, LeBron, and Frye began the second period. Fans gleefully watched Delly dish a perfect lookaway dime to LeBron off of unstoppable pick and roll action. Delly continued the goodness when he spotted a Hawks switch that left Schröder on Channing Frye. Mathew sent the rock over to RJ who made the high/low pass to beat the Hawks post-front. Frye immediately kicked it to the far corner starting the ping-pong around the horn that ended with RJ drilling a dead-on three. Basketball!!!

The Cavs stuck to their defensive gameplan of allowing Dennis Schröder to shoot uncontested shots from deep. He dropped a left-wing three to answer Jefferson’s with no one within 10 feet of him.

Strangely, LeBron decided to stop rolling. The Delly/LeBron PnR which has shown itself to be unstoppable, was abandoned by LeBron. Lue apparently thought that that was Delly’s fault and Kyrie re-entered the game at 8:29.

The referees started their slow decent into ineptitude. Millsap was rewarded with two more cheap fouls, though the Hawks were called for a couple as well. The game came to a screeching halt with five whistles in three possessions. A Jefferson deep ball from the right corner fired up the fans before another weak cheapie on Love sent Teague to the stripe. Then LeMagic saved the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmBVeRH5u9U

LeBron dropped shots around the paint, but Kyrie could have hit him earlier coming out off screens. Irving waited a couple beats too long which allowed the defense time to recover. LeBron still converted, but those should have been catch and shoot layups. Dennis Schröder and Kent Bazemore helped keep the Hawks in shouting distance as the teams traded makes and misses. Another ridiculous foul was called against Dellavedova when he was in legal defensive position. The crowd was rightfully testy. The half closed with a wimper with neither team getting a decent shot attempt. 51-41 Cavs.

3rd Quarter:

J.R. Swish came out firing to push the lead back up to 13. After the first one, dropped off of good action, the Cavs offense began to stagnate. All momentum was stopped when J.R. dropped Millsap with a high elbow. Honestly, I’m just happy the ridiculous referees didn’t throw him out. They were in the process of calling one of the worst, most inconsistent games I have seen. It wouldn’t have shocked me if they had decided to eject J.R. on what should have been deemed a common foul. If we want to call all head contact a Flagrant-1, then fine(awful), but make that more clear. The way the rules are written now, one could argue that all contact above the neck is a flagrant. Clearly the NBA doesn’t call it that way, and for good reason. In this particular case, J.R.’s initial contact with Millsap was around the shoulder and then slid up as Millsap raised his own arm. Was it a foul? Absolutely. Was it a flagrant? Fine, if you want to be modern about it. Again, for a good two minutes, I was worried J.R. was going to get completely hosed. Glad he didn’t. The basketball gods agreed with me and Millsap missed both freebies.

Millsap began to make things interesting with a great steal and finish to cut the lead to nine. A quick timeout from Lue was followed by LeBron bully-ball against Bazemore to restore the lead to double digits. The next few minutes of game action featured sloppy ball-handling from both teams and limited player movement. LeBron was beaten backdoor by Bazemore again with the Cavs in chill mode. Fortunately Tristan was still working hard. A huge offensive board led to a left corner three from Kevin Love. Tristan followed that by shutting Jeff Teague down in a one-on-one situation. Mike Scott had a nasty throw down past LeBron, but James quickly atoned for the nap by dishing to Kevin for another left wing triple. Then came the highlight of the night to push the lead to 72-54.

The Hawks were down 18 with four minutes to go in the quarter. The crowd and the Cavs thought the game was over. Atlanta, and more specifically Dennis Schröder did not. A three from Mike Scott and a flurry of Schröder slow-motion jumpers and lightening fast drives quickly cut into the Cavalier lead. A Frye foot on the line two(ruled a three, but later reversed) helped the Cavs regain their balance, but the onslaught continued with a Bazemore three. The 16-2 run left the Cavs clinging to a 74-70 lead after three.

4th Quarter:

The now customary “second unit” of Delly, Shump, RJ, Bron, and Frye looked to restore order. Iman Shumpert made a nice drive to the cup to push the lead back to six. Once again, LeBron simply refused to roll on the PnR with Delly. Instead he stood there, looking to catch at 20 feet for no reason. It was infuriating. Frye bailed out the possession with a shot fake that netted him three shots from the charity stripe. The lead was back to nine when Schröder politely reminded people that he is not Rajon Rondo by drilling another uncontested three. LeBron played his worst stretch of playoff basketball making sloppy passes and lazily floating around the court.

The referees displayed their ineptitude again by inexplicably rewarding Kyle Korver with three free throws after Iman Shumpert clearly fouled Paul Millsap. There is no excuse for this. Shump ran through the screen and made zero contact with Korver. After a lengthy review, they came to a blatantly wrong conclusion that gave Korver his only three points of the night.

A chance to regain momentum was lost when Kevin Love got rejected in transition because he hates using his left hand. Shortly after, Dennis threw a perfect alley to Horford’s oop to give Atlanta its first lead of the night.

The next four minutes featured a bit of Kyrie/Dennis duel, zero energy and/or smarts from LeBron and a slew of home run swings from both teams. J.R. came to the rescue with huge three to give the Cavs the lead at 90-88.

The Cavs would never look back. Love drew a foul on corner three ball that yielded two points. The defining possession of the game started at 3:10 with a LeBron steal and didn’t end until a full minute later with a LeBron And-1. In between, Tristan collected his fourth offensive board, LeBron took an ill-advised deep jumper, J.R. Smith made a great save for an offensive rebound, and Kryie found a “better late than never” rolling LeBron. Amazingly, it was the first and only foul shot of the night for The King.

LeBron made another great anticipation steal that should have resulted in a trip to the line, but apparently getting hit in the head wasn’t a flagrant or common foul in this situation. LeBron milked the slight, not getting back on defense for an eternity. Fortunately, the other four Cavaliers stopped the initial attack and LeBron barely made it back in time to alter Schröder’s three. Horford held Love on the rebound attempt and Love drilled the foul shots to go ahead by nine. LeBron’s spinning layup and Kyrie’s awesome block on Schröder sealed the deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zErLyyaJY

Thoughts:

The Cavaliers coasted through much of this game. And by Cavaliers, I mean LeBron James. He did a great job in stretches, but his curious abandonment of the roll in this game was frustrating. It’s really almost as if he just wanted to be a contrarian to Windy’s article. Other than a few possessions, he neutered the Delly/Bron PnR. The defense didn’t stop it.

The defensive attention and execution of the gameplan was very successful. The Cavs came into the game determined to shut down Kyle Korver. They were masterful. Korver only had one attempt and the three points he scored from the line shouldn’t have happened. The Cavs played on the high side of the all Korver-centric picks and switched when appropriate. It led to some open shots from Bazemore, but that is by design. (The ones that were a result of LeBron’s naps were not by design.) Tristan and Love were tasked with guarding Millsap and Horford straight up. They both did phenomenal work knocking the Hawks off their preferred spots. The gameplan also instructed the guards to go under all picks involving Schröder and Teague. Dennis made five of 10 from beyond the arc. The Cavs should think about a soft contest, but they should continue to go under those picks. It is the lesser of two evils. Schröder makes his living off dribble drives.

Okay, Schröder. Tom and I have had a long running debate/joke about Dennis. This might be the first time that Tom has seen Schröder perform well. I don’t expect Dennis to make five threes a game going forward, but he is far more like a young Tony Parker than he is a young Rajon Rondo. There are many reasons why guys have poor shooting percentages. For Dennis, it is more about shot selection and lower body balance. His actual shooting form and release are quite solid. He has the potential to be a great shooter and will likely develop into a good one. That being said, he is most lethal as a driver, where he can slither either direction with ease. Like Parker, it is still better to make him a shooter.

Kevin Love struggled mightily with his shot, but came up big on the defensive end. His two left corner threes were huge. I’m glad to hear his ankle tweak is fine.

There were stretches of the game where Tristan Thompson was the most dominating force on the floor. He continues to straight own Paul Millsap. He grabbed seven more offensive rebounds against the Hawks. His constant activity makes it very difficult for Millsap to be the premier help defender that he can be.

Ty Lue has got to be better with this minute distribution. The minutes he is giving to his bench are too often all at the same time. It worked in the first half. Not so much in the second half. Getting Kyrie a blow earlier in the third quarter should be a priority going forward. Until next time.