Recap: Memphis 93, Cleveland 85 (or, Unfinishing)

geograph.org.uk

After being absolutely spoiled over the last two seasons, we got to a painful reminder of what life was like before the LebrExodus, as The Cavs traveled to Memphis without LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love. The three superstars were left in Northeast Ohio for rest, presumably to help ensure maximum effectiveness for the Christmas Day match-up against the Warriors. Mike Dunleavy, DeAndre Liggins, and Channing Frye replaced them in the starting lineup, and we were treated to the ugliest 48 minutes of basketball this fanbase has seen in some time. At least both teams played hard, just not particularly well. The Grindhouse chewed up the Cavs and spit them out as they were held to 37% shooting, outrebounded 55-40, and uncharacteristically outscored from the three point line.

Memphis jumped Cleveland early, going up 32-17 right after the first, and it was an uphill battle the rest of the night. J.R. and Tristan kicked off a 9-0 run to start the second half and cut the Grizz lead to just two before Memphis put the grinder into high gear and went +19 over the rest of the period. The contest was never in doubt after that. Tom Pestak presciently wrote this before the game.

There’s been an inordinate amount of talk about “Do the Cavs need a backup point guard?” or “How is Shumpert, er J.R. Smith, er DeAndre Liggins, er Kay Felder doing as the backup point guard?”  The reality is the Cavs have played very few non-Garbage-time minutes without either LeBron James or Kyrie Irving on the court.  Tonight might be a bad time to analyze much of anything about the Cavs, with the news that Coach Lue told the Big 3 to stay home, as in, don’t even travel with the team.  (That’s a bold move.)  But if you want to look out for one thing, try to determine how much more difficult it is for the Cavs spot-up 3 point shooters to get any good looks.  I predict an awful lot of forced 3s from Channing Frye and J.R. Smith with Richard Jefferson trying to put the ball on the deck to be a drive-and-kick guy.

We didn’t get a lot of drive and kick R.J., but the rest of it remained true; the Cavs’ had a very difficult time setting up their shooters. We were “treated” to a lot J.R. Smith dribbling around and chucking up late contested Js, the lazy in Orlando version of Channing Frye standing still and waiting for his shot, and lots and lots of Iman Shumpert turnovers. Liggins wasn’t awful at the point (10 points, one assist, two turnovers) and on the occasions he was able to push the ball and escape the Memphis ball pressure, it opened up the offense. But the dude is just too damned upright with his dribble, and doesn’t have a lot of shiftiness to his game. The dearth allows the defense to easily read his driving angles and the direction of the play, forcing ‘Dre to bail out and give the ball up to Smith and www.pleasestopdribblingshump.com. The results were predictable.

Channing went 0-4 for zero points, J.R. went 4-15 , and Iman Shumpert had a triple five: five points, five boards, and five turnovers in 22 minutes. Tristan Thompson had an O.K. game with seven points and 11 boards, but he consistently failed to roll to the rim hard, and consequently guys just didn’t find him in his spots.. Good offenses don’t run pick and pops for TT at the free throw line. Maybe that contributed to Thompson’s game low -12. Speaking of the free throw line, Thompson’s 3-6 was a part of the team’s game losing 20-31 on the night. They didn’t have any rhythm there, either.

There were some bright spots, though. The non-Shump Cavs had only seven turnovers and Mike Dunleavy had his best game in the wine and gold: pitching in 11 points, six rebounds, and a Cavalier high +1 in 23 minutes. Mike went 3-6 from the floor, initiated some offense with his dribble drive game off closeouts, and looked balanced on his Js. It was the most promising sign of the game.

Kay Felder looked dynamic when he was allowed to have the ball in his hands: 14 points and four assists in 22 minutes. He even had a three. But good lord, Tyronn Lue, why would you ever have a lightning quick five-foot-eight inch dude with handles playing off the ball? Kay spent way too much time as the secondary ball-handler, watching Liggins do nothing, and Shump throw possession after possession away. As Tony Allen was making Liggins’ life hell in the third, Austin Carr was desperately calling for another ball-handler, and I was yelling, “Then play Felder!” Alas, the little dude wasn’t allowed to run the show much till garbage time, when, despite Jordan McRae’s incessant missed layups, the Cavs actually made the final score respectable. If Kay’s going to play, he has to have the ball, and Lue has to tell Shump to stop being such a jackass with the rock. Here’s a video for Krolik.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDIw0ucrD4c

Much of the aforementioned respectability came at the hands of ridiculously scorching red hot James Jones who is – I kid you not – 11-14 from three on the year after this game. James freaking Jones scored 15 in 25 minutes, and was  3-5 from the three point line. (That’s right, he’d only missed one three all year before this). The Cavs simply didn’t get Jones the ball enough till late, when they finally ran plays for him. The JFJ post-up bucket was a thing of beauty. Why he only got three shots in the first half was a mystery. John Krolik was right in the podcast the other day: Jones should be given some rotation minutes.

Defensively, the Cavs were a little baffling. The Grizz only shot 43% and had 17 turnovers, but a lot of those TOs were just because the Grizzlies aren’t very good at offense, and would just throw alley oops into the fourth row. Cleveland did a decent job of not letting Marc Gasol get the ball, as he only got 9 shots, but he scored 17 points off those shots. Apparently no one on the Cavs knows that Marc shoots threes now. Tristan and his teammates stared down Gasol instead of contesting, and the big Spaniard went a perfect 3-3 from beyond the arc. He’s shortened up and elevated his release, just like love. Gasol’s three ball is quick and deadly now.

Tony Allen took the bulk of the shots for Memphis and uglied his way into 16 points on  7-17. He was going against his protege in Liggins, and seemed to take the battle personally, consistently going to the rim. But trick-or-treat Tony was also the beneficiary of Channing Frye waiving Allen in with signaling sticks, and then asking if Tony needed a snack or anything to drink with his layups.

Channing Frye’s rim defense

The rest of the Memphis starters whose names were generated in NBA2K17 Franchise Mode, JaMychal Green, Aaron Harrison, and Troy Williams, combined for 3-15 shooting, five assists, and seven turnovers in 64 minutes. Kudos Cavs, though it was hard to tell the difference between the Cleveland’s D and the Memphis Grizzlies’ general s**ttiness. This was not pretty basketball.

Cleveland held Z-Bo to 2-11 off the bench, or maybe being old, husky, and on the second night of a back-to-back did that. (Though Randolph’s seven rebounds and four assists in 19 minutes weren’t too shabby.) Cleveland gave a lot of open looks to bench guard Troy Daniels. and consistently failing to rotate to him. Daniels scored 20, dropped 4-8 from behind the arc, and was a game high +21. One galling play had TT refusing contest from just six feet away as he was loathe to come off Gasol at the elbow. Daniels had time to tie his shoes before nailing that jumper. Finally, this was the Toney Douglas revenge game as he helped terrorize Cleveland’s guards and beat up the team that dumped him in training camp. Douglas was +20 in 28 minutes with 14 points, six boards, five dimes and two steals. He seemed vastly more useful than Jorda McRa.

Why do I leave out the last letters of his name? Because if he can’t finish, why should I? Orange Faygo is quickly becoming one of my least favorite players in the association. He just has zero sense of ball movement and attacks the paint and leaves it short over and over. He caused Evil Genius and I to have a meme contest in the live thread, as we tried to top each other with “McRae can’t finish” jokes.

Many on the live thread were calling for the next man up from the D-League, but Lue strangely praised McRae after this one. Whatevs, Ty.

Lue didn’t care if he won though. No one played big minutes, and it had the feel of a bad preseason game for Cleveland: lots of putting guys into situations to see how they respond. That’s fine. I just hoped guys would have responded better, and only Kay Felder got decent marks in the point guard battle. Hopfully, we get the full squad back Saturday for a fun game against former Cavs Luke Walton and Timofey Mozgov. I’m excited to see a non-Warrior Herculoid and the abnormally large human back in Cleveland. Oh, and we get to see Larry Nance’s kid.