Recap: Cavs 100, Hawks 99 (or, Klutch Jump Balls)

Recap: Cavs 100, Hawks 99 (or, Klutch Jump Balls)

2016-05-09 Off By Carson Zagger
i

LeBron James embraces Kevin Love following the latter’s improvement to 12-0 in the postseason.

The Cleveland Cavaliers successfully completed their Eastern Conference Semifinals sweep of the Atlanta Hawks in a thrilling 100-99 victory. Closely contested throughout, the game was ultimately decided not on a shot, but on a jump ball in the final two seconds. Both teams played with urgency and traded leads in the final minutes, but the Cavs’ onslaught proved too much as they were able to outlast a desperate Atlanta home team.

Surely, you took a peek at the InstaCap video on the game posted by Cavs: The Blog’s own Tom Pestak for a quick look on what went down in the game. After all was said and done, Cavs and Hawks players alike no doubt ran home to their mommies. After all, it was Mother’s Day!

First Quarter:

In a sign of good things to come for the Cavs, Tristan Thompson won the tipoff and started Cleveland off with the ball… Both teams looked to build momentum early. In what often suffices as momentum for the Cavs these days, JR Smith hit (yet another) contested three where a hand was right in his grill. Atlanta called a timeout to contemplate life and avoid giving JR a chance to heat up. Smith acquiesced by resorting to defense, stealing the ball immediately following the timeout. The Cavs could not capitalize.

Unforced turnovers plagued the Cavs for much of the first quarter, including a bad pass from LeBron to a diving Kevin Love, who fumbled the ball away. Love continued to butter his fingers, losing another LeBron pass out of bounds; on the following defensive possession he somewhat made up for his offensive gaffes with an almost-steal off of a post pass to Al Horford, only Love stepped out of bounds.

-cb05b7feac4da433

With 6:11 remaining in the quarter, Atlanta’s Kris Humphries — he of Kardashian Heartache Past — entered into the game as the Philips Arena played the Undertaker’s theme music*. Humphries built off of his strong Game 3 performance, making a big impact in the game with a little bit of everything: hitting a three, grabbing a strong rebound, and generally playing disruptive defense – highlighted by a gargantuan block on the Cavs’ Richard Jefferson. The Hawks’ Paul Millsap also had himself a great quarter with 11 points and a punctuating 25-foot three-pointer to end the period. Hawks lead 36-27.

*actual song selection at arena unconfirmed

 

Second Quarter:

Both teams continued to play sloppily with turnovers-a-plenty, but the Cavs were able to find ways to score and chip at the Flying Birds’ lead. The Hawks, however, won the battle of physicality this round, as Cleveland seemed to miss the rebounding of Tristan Thompson when he sat during the quarter’s bookends, and Al Horford even got in a good smack on Matthew Dellavedova.

Love air-balled a three-pointer and continued to look horrendous on offense. Horford then hit a long two over Delly, who kept finding himself switched onto Horford in a mismatch made in Anna Horford’s heaven. Eventually, Love redeemed his poor start by hitting a couple threes, Kyrie Irving completed a patented Kyridiculous finish in traffic, and JR Smith continued his excellent defensive play on the Hawks’ Kyle Korver with a block. Kevin Love found himself isolated on defense throughout the quarter.  Even though he surrendered some points to Atlanta, his intensity level remained high on that end of the floor — which is worth something.

The Hawks allowed the Cavs to creep back into the game by missing a lot of shots, but Cleveland had trouble taking advantage with some awful finishing around the rim. LeBron twice failed to capitalize on post-ups against Thabo Sefalosha. The Cavs heroics in the frame included a highlight full-court pass from Love to LeBron…

http://iframe%20src=https://vine.co/v/iQDJ99be7h2/embed/simple%20width=480%20height=480%20frameborder=0/iframescript%20src=https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js/script

…Kevin and James (but not Kevin James) attempted the same exact play the very next Hawks possession, but LeBron slipped on the hardwood. The home crowd oohed and ahhed at a Kyrie Krossover + Bucket, the Hawks secured three offensive rebounds without a score, and Kyrie took a poor long-range shot to end the second frame. Hawks lead 58-56.

Third Quarter:

Neither teams’ lead would exceed six points the rest of the contest. In the third quarter, defense ratcheted up several notches and buckets were difficult to come by, underscored by a four minute period during which a total of four baskets were made. Kevin Love was still unable to finish shots inside, but no matter. He and LeBron hit back-to-back three-pointers, and then Love hit another, and another… and another and another for five in the quarter alone.

Several passes from LeBron went through the hands of his teammates, continuing a game-long trend, but the Cavs’ Big Three came to play in Quarter Three as all three drew defenders’ attention and Love showed up big on the boards. The Hawks would not go quietly into the night, though. Following a Kris Humphries offensive rebound that led to a Sefalosha three, Kardashian-Humphries blocked the King, which led to an Atlanta fastbreak and score off a tip-in. (*Humph!* is the sound I imagine Tyronn Lue made at these plays).

With the game knotted at 75-75 with just over two minutes in the third, Love pulled off a spectacular four-point play aided by a head fake from beyond the arc:

http://iframe%20src=https://vine.co/v/iQDtpWxeDLr/embed/simple%20width=480%20height=480%20frameborder=0/iframescript%20src=https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js/script

The quarter ended with a LeBron jumper, an unsuccessful Hawks possession, and confident Cavs D. The wine and gold outscored the home team 25-19 in the frame to lead 81-77.

Fourth Quarter:

Crunch time: things got fun. Hawks reserve guard Dennis Schröder drew first blood by picking Kyrie Irving’s pocket and scoring a two-pointer. Both teams visibly picked up the intensity on defense in a do-or-die situation for the Hawks. The Cavs’ bench squad + Kyrie maintained a slim lead… guys from both teams were hitting the deck to secure loose balls.

As the clock ticked, it was Schröder who stayed in the game over normal starter Jeff Teague. It would seem to be the correct call by Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer as Schröder would score 11 of his team’s final 22 points while adding a couple assists and steals as well. Cleveland tried to take advantage of its opponent’s aggressiveness by utilizing pump fakes outside the arc on multiple occasions; this tactic didn’t result in four-point plays like the one Love drew earlier, but kept the Hawks defense off balance and allowed some Cavs shooters to reset their shots. The Cavs and Hawks continued to trade scores, and the game’s point differential stayed within three virtually the rest of the game.

With 2:00 remaining, the umlaut wound up with Kevin Love on an island… Love was summarily smoked for a layup and missed a three on the Cavs’ ensuing possession. Schröder hit yet another driving layup to put the Hawks up by one point. 20 second timeout, Cleveland. Coming out of the TO, LeBron James was able to get in the paint to attempt a layup but got rejected by Al Horford. James immediately secured his own offensive rebound two times and almost a third time when he knocked the ball out of bounds… or was it Horford who knocked it out? Upon video review, the call was reversed — it WAS Horford! CAVS BALL!

-840284215c9677acIn a decidedly un-epic fashion, the Cavs took a 1 point lead with 1:15 to go when LeBron attempted a layup that was goaltended off the glass by Atlanta’s Paul Millsap. Tristan Thompson came up with a big-time block on Dennis Schröder, displaying nice patience as he waited for the guard to rise for the shot attempt before leaving the ground himself. Cleveland called another timeout to bring in the Maraud Squad lineup of LeBron, Love, Kyrie, Love, and JR Smith — but they could very well have been the Teletubby Squad as LBJ squared up mano-e-mano with Millsap (in the jump shot desert of the right corner), jabbed a few times, and drilled a long oh-no-he-didn’t-two-point-rainmaker that may have collaterally cursed Atlanta’s crops with floods.

But Dennis Schröder said “I don’t grow any dang crops!” and drove through the Cavs defense once again for a layup, bringing the Wine & Gold’s lead back down to one point. On the next Cavs possession, the Hawks played the scouting report perfectly by going under a screen to goad LeBron into taking a three with 0:14 remaining. LeBron missed.

Schröder valiantly attempted to win the game by driving into the teeth of Cleveland’s defense one last time, but this time got entangled with LeBron and several others, resulting in a jump ball. Have you ever seen a playoff game’s final possession decided on a jump ball? If not, this is what it looked like:

http://iframe%20src=https://vine.co/v/iQjz5T5dLqi/embed/simple%20width=480%20height=480%20frameborder=0/iframescript%20src=https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js/script

LeBron tipped it over J.R.’s head to the right corner, and J.R. dove and slapped the ball back in (trying to throw it off Horford’s leg?) and landed in Mo Williams‘ lap as the ball bounced into Paul Millsap’s hands. Millsap’s desperate three-point heave clanged off the rim, but wasn’t fired off in time anyway. Game. Set. Match.

Cavs 100, Hawks 99.

=====================================================

Individual Notes:

Kevin Love – The night belonged to Kevin Love. About one year after his first postseason experience was cut short, Love has shown the world why he was once considered among the very elite NBA players before being traded to Cleveland. All he’s done is post a double-double in eight straight games through two playoff series and improve his overall postseason record to 12-0. Yawn. And all he did was score a game-high 27 points aided by eight three-point makes (on 15 such attempts) and record 13 rebounds, 4 assists, and a team-high +/- of +14 in 37 minutes of play. Snore.

To me, though, the real stats to look at are 1-10 shooting on two-point shots and two turnovers. Why highlight these numbers? Because it wasn’t always pretty for Kevin. He had some very ugly spots in the game, especially early. This is after a Game 3 where he got immediately Vine’d for a bad defensive possession in which he slipped and fell. All these things were working against Mr. Love, but he just. kept. coming.

Whether it was hitting open looks, passing deftly, setting screens, diving for loose balls, or scrapping for steals, Love was fully engaged the entire duration of the game. When one aspect of his play drops off, he has the talent to pick up other areas of play. He is a high IQ player who understands where to be and what the team needs at a given moment. He’s a versatile big man who impacts games in multiple fashions, and he will be invaluable moving forward into the tougher rounds of the playoffs as long as he keeps this up.

-a1d6163b870f86ee

Kyrie Irving – You might notice there are not a ton of notes on Kyrie for this recap. Aside from a couple of his standard dazzling forays to the rim, there weren’t too many individual plays where he stood out. And yet he scored 21 points on 8-16 shooting with 8 assists? With so much attention being paid to LeBron and Kevin Love, Kyrie was able to play the Silent Assassin. One of the league’s great bucket getters was killing them softly, Sunday afternoon

LeBron James – A near triple double, a dagger jumper, and cool leadership are just another day in the office for James. LeBron’s three-point shot cooled off from what it had been the rest of this series, but his ability to get to the rim and pass still stretched the defense regardless of whether his shots go in. There seemed to be some trouble finishing for LeBron, and it’s hard to say if that was due to a hands-off referee crew or the 31-year old’s exhaustion. The long layover between series will do the King some good. Plus, in addition to all the game-winning buckets he’s scored and passes he’s passed, he can now add a game-winning jump ball to his Klutch (see what I did there?) repertoire. That’s pretty cool!

JR Smith – What more praise could we possibly heap on this guy? His shooting barrage from downtown this postseason — like the Cavs as a whole — is unlike anything the league has ever seen. Even when his shot isn’t falling (1-4 from three in Game 4), he’s getting it done on the defensive end, tallying a couple blocks, a steal, and more smothering defense on Kyle Korver. He’s been a huge part of the Cavs 8-0 mark this postseason.

Tyronn Lue – Don’t look now, but Ty has now knocked off two of the most respected coaches in the league through two rounds. Sure, it helps when you have a LeBron James on your team, but Lue is putting his players in the right position to succeed and contribute based off their strengths. The Cavs are clicking, healthy, and comfortable, and Lue deserves a lot of credit.

Matthew Dellavedova has his moments but hasn’t looked especially good in the Hawks series as his shooting has fallen off a cliff, scoring only nine points the entire series… Iman Shumpert finally started to hit some shots with 2-4 three-point shooting… Channing Frye cooled off some and hit “only” 2-of-4 three-point attempts — how dare he!… Richard Jefferson saw only four minutes of play in Game 4…

Thoughts:

-Part of it was Atlanta’s scheme, but you could see the gravity from Leb and Love as defenders get sucked toward their spots on the floor… Could be a reason Kyrie can go off for 21 points and still go unnoticed. Three Cavs players are capable of drawing a LOT of attention.

-The Cavs, and LeBron in particular, are receiving very few foul calls in some of these playoff games. Game 4 was no exception, with James only going to the line twice despite 14 of his 23 shots coming from the paint. Is this a unique case or a league-wide trend of how fouls are being called? Either way, with forays to the rim proving less fruitful, is it really a huge surprise the Cavs have suddenly fallen in love with the perimeter shot?

-I give a lot of credit to the Hawks. They’ve been making the playoffs regularly for a good decade now and despite falling short of where they’d like to be in the postseason have been a consistent and good team. While they got blown out (like, way out) in Game 2, the rest of the series was competitive, especially down in Atlanta. The closeout Game 4 was a lot of fun that had two teams fighting a battle that could have swung either way. Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer even said he didn’t think the Hawks defense was so bad, it’s just the Cavs were that good. It was still a strong year for the franchise, and sometimes in life, you just gotta admit when someone has your number. Good luck next year, Atlanta!

http://iframe%20src=https://vine.co/v/iQjbP1jK6K5/embed/simple%20width=300%20height=300%20frameborder=0/iframescript%20src=https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js/script

Stats Are Fun:

-the Cavs’ current 12-0 playoff winning streak against the Hawks ties an NBA record — one also shared by the Cavs streak versus the Pistons, set last round

-for the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the Cavs shot 77-of-152 from beyond the arc and shot 81-of-191 on all other attempts

-the Big Three of LeBron, Kyrie, and Love are now 12-0 in the postseason together. Make of that what you will.

-Kevin Love has more games with 12-plus 3-point attempts since Friday (2) than the rest of his career combined (1).

-At minimum, the Cavs will now have six days to rest before playing again. So basically…

(stats per espn.go.com)

Share