Recap: Cavs 119, Lakers 108 (or, The Elements of Rest)

Rest or rust? That was the elemental question the Cavs set out to answer on a Saturday night at the Q against the visiting Los Angeles Lakers after their big three took their much ballyhooed break this past week. Both LeBron James and Kevin Love were operating on nearly four days rest, and Kyrie had a full week off from game action. So, would they return refreshed and ready to continue the chemistry of a fairly dominant season thus far, or have a bad reaction with their timing, synergy and defensive rotations? The answer might have been in doubt with some lethargy apparent early on, but in the end, the trio stayed woke enough to combine for a volatile slash line of 74/30/25, to lead the Cavs to an ultimately decisive win over the surprisingly tireless young Lakers.

A Quarter Of Rust

After taking a special moment to honor one of their missing components from last season, Timofey Mozgov, with his championship ring (more on that later), the Cavs took the floor looking to make fast work of the recently struggling Lakers. After all, most of the guys in wine & gold were well-rested, while the dudes in purple & gold were on the second night of a back-to-back. The Lake show was also without second-year standout guard D’Angelo Russell (knee), so the outcome seemed stacked in the Cavs’ favor. Kevin Love made the first shot of the game, but then the Cavs showed just how much ferrous oxide they had coating their collective shooting touch as they missed their next five. The Lakers didn’t suffer the same issue, making four in a row while the Cavs clanked their attempts. KLove finally broke the drought with a mid-ranger, and then following a strip of his former Russian bear of a teammate, LBJ threw down this perfectly executed lob pass from Tristan Thompson…

OH MY. 👑#StriveForGreatness https://t.co/tmtKM9a7u1

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) December 18, 2016

That would be the only shot LeBron would make in the first half of the game, and only one of four that he wound up taking in an odd 18 first half minutes. There was some speculation that he might be sick (he missed the player intros, national anthem and Mozzy moment, while still in the locker room), but whatever the reason, he stayed mostly passive and made some uncharacteristic mistakes. He did have four assists in the first quarter, however, and he was matched by Kyrie who’s shot was rusty (1-4 in the frame) but who’s dimes were sterling. Kev led the team in points (10) and boards (6) in the opening quarter, but the Lakers maintained their lead behind Julius Randle and Nick Young. Then Lou Williams came off the bench to start his own personal parade to the free throw line. He went 4-5 from the stripe to give the Lakers their biggest lead of eight, but the Cavs closed it to five on a buzzer beating three from Iman Shumpert. Cavs trailed 31-26 after one.

A Quarter Of Iron

After giving LA pretty much any shot they wanted to start the game, the Cavs shook the rust off defensively and put the clamps down on the Lakers in the second quarter. Kyrie and Shump were particularly active in the back court, forcing Lou Williams and Jordan Clarkson into bad shots, while turning them over a few times and collecting a good portion of boards. With the defensive intensity increased, the Cavs started pounding Los Angeles on the offensive end, scoring the first 12 points of the quarter (a 15-0 run including Shump’s three to close the first). Shump stayed active and attacked the iron, while Kyrie continued to spit rivets to his cohorts… piling up another five assists in the period. Maybe Coach Lue had a chat with him about passing, or maybe he read David’s most recent Wood Shop piece, but Kyrie was dishing it out like crazy… maybe a little too crazy with this bullet to RJ in the corner instead of an easy uncontested layup…

Teamwork makes the dream work. And the #Trees4Threes work. 🎄#DefendTheLand https://t.co/cXX8sgZO3i

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) December 18, 2016

The Cavs ultimately forged the lead out to nine following a Channing Frye triple, but the Lakers refused to break, clawing back behind another free throw parade from Williams and a Swaggy P deep three. Uncle Drew then went from giving passes to getting buckets, going off to score 12 in the quarter to go with his dimes. His last two helpers of the half went to J.R. for a couple of long range swishes, sandwiched around a Luol Deng triple, but Randle kept the Lakers close with a steady stream of left-handed drives and moves around the basket. Julius reminded me of a young Zach Randolph with his singular skill set, and he was effective with it, scoring another eight points in the frame (16 in the half). A Jordan Clarkson race to the rack pulled the Lakers within three at the half, 62-59.

A Quarter Of Helium 3

The third quarter got off to an odd start as the first four made baskets were from downtown. In fact, so many of the made buckets in the quarter were of the three point variety (11-18) that it looked like these two teams were shooting a ball full of helium on the moon. Six different players made triples in the period… with Kevin Love leading the way with three. Swaggy P and Jordan Clarkson each hit a pair, and J.R. Smith hit his fourth in five attempts (showing he’s shaken off most of his early season rust). Amidst the deep shooting barrage, LeBron punctuated the action with a couple of authoritative dunks… including this one following a baseline spin move he pulled on the rookie Brandon Ingram…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXP9VOV6LcI

It was a much more preferable result than Mozzy got on his couplet of dunk attempts in the quarter… both of which drew a lot more unkind iron than anything else. Out of respect for the former Cav, who showed why he’s still a fan and player favorite both before and after the game, I’ll refrain from including those clips… or the one of him getting blocked by the King.

The Cavs looked like they were in great position to put the game away when Kyrie’s second three of the game gave them a lofty 12 point advantage with 2:30 left in the third. However, the Lakers sucked the air out of their balloon with an 8-2 run to close out the quarter. Cavs led just 89-85 heading to the fourth.

A Quarter Of Gold

For as weird and uncharacteristic as his night was going into the final quarter, the last 12 minutes belonged to LeBron James. Going into the fourth, LBJ had only 10 points… he cashed in 16 in the period on a king’s ransom of drives, dunks and threes. He also dished out two more assists, hauled in two more rebounds and pilfered another steal to end up with 26 points, nine dimes, seven boards, two steals and two blocks on the evening. Every time the Lakers got close, LeBron had an answer to push the advantage and give the Cavs some breathing room. The King was relentless in attacking from the inside and out, providing a wealth of scoring punch. Yet, this was just one of those nights when Nick Young decided to live up to his Swaggy P nickname, and rained threes down on the wine & gold. Part of it was the Cavs inability or unwillingness to close out on him, but part of it was just Swag going molten. When his seventh triple of the night pulled the Lakers within three at 108-105 with just under four minutes remaining, you could feel the momentum threatening to shift on the Cavs. Then, following a couple of KLove free throws, the game turned following a rare Swaggy P missed three. After his shot rattled in and out, LeBron got the ball and high-tailed it up the floor… only to pull up from beyond the arc and hit a dagger three in transition…

Yep. https://t.co/byuSfnR1r9

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) December 18, 2016

It was effectively a six point swing, and all but ended a golden opportunity for the Lakers to steal a game on their only visit to the Q. The Cavs wound up outscoring the Lakers 11-3 in the final 2:30 of the game… with the only L.A. points coming courtesy of one final meaningless Swaggy three. An RJ uncontested dunk provided the exclamation point on a wine & gold winner… 119-108.

The Evil

The Cavs had so much time off (in particular the big three), that one might have expected them to be at least a little bit sharper on the defensive end of things, especially against a young-ish team that isn’t known for either taking care of the ball or taking very good shots. A team that was also missing one of it’s rising stars in D’Angelo Russell. A modicum of rust could be excused, in the first quarter at least, given the time off, but outside of a decent 6-7 minute stretch to begin the second quarter, the Cavs didn’t do much to protect the perimeter. They wound up allowing the Lakers to shoot 48% from the field and 43% from downtown.

Julius Randle also did damage in the paint early on with 16 points in the first half, although the Cavs adjusted and shut him out in the second half. They were also able to slow down L.A.’s leading scorer, Lou Williams (just 2-10 and 0-4 from deep), making him earn his points at the line. The Cavs did manage to turn the Lakers over 12 times, and took advantage with 21 points off of those turnovers.

The trio of Nick Young, Luol Deng and Jordan Clarkson wound up going 25-42 and 15-28 from deep for a combined 67 points. Swaggy P alone was 12-19 (8-13 from three) for 32 points. Some of this was just hot shooting from the Lakers, but the Cavs were clearly not rotating like a well-oiled machine on defense. Individually, Kyrie did a solid job in the second quarter on D, but then had trouble staying in front of Clarkson later in the game. Shump brought energy, but J.R. was still out of position a few times… especially on Swaggy. And, DeAndre Liggins got fooled a couple of times by Deng. LeBron did his usual coasting job early on, but then turned it on in the fourth.

Speaking of LeBron… he looked bizarrely out of sync to start the game. There were more odd fumbles of the ball, both while dribbling and when going up for layups and dunks early. There were rumors he was sick (one commenter mentioned they saw him coughing a few times on the sidelines), and he later revealed that he missed the pre-game because he was in the bathroom. Hard to say, but something sure seemed up with LBJ. In the end, it didn’t matter that he started 1-4 or only had 10 points going into the fourth quarter. He still wound up with a typical MVP stat line after putting the team on his back in the final 12 minutes.

It was sad to see Mozzy have such a poor game in his return to the Q. The big man finished just 1-6 for two points and four boards in only 15 minutes. He also had two relatively embarrassing missed dunks in a two minute span of the third quarter. I’m sure the big Russian would have loved to have shown out a bit more than that against his old team.

The Genius

Kevin Love not only scored 20+ points for the sixth game in a row (his longest such streak in a Cavs uniform), but he led the team with 27 points on 11-20 shooting (3-7 from downtown). He also hauled in a season high 17 boards and dominated the Lakers on the glass. Kev continues to put up All Star numbers, and with another month of this type of play, should lock up a spot on the EC team in February.

Kyrie was a force in his first game back after taking a week off. Though his shot wasn’t falling early, he started facilitating like a prototypical point guard… sometimes to a fault (that wide open layup probably should have been taken). Though he slowed down a bit after nearly hitting double digits in the first half alone on dimes, he still wound up tying his career high with 12. He also still got plenty of buckets, shooting 8-17 for 21 points, before turning things mostly over to LBJ in the fourth. And, his legs looked positively springy, as he also came up with six boards.

Weird start aside, LeBron came up just a missed technical free throw shy of tying Moses Malone for 8th on the all time scoring list. He’ll likely take sole possession of that spot about 8:02 EST in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. The King shot 50% from the field, and even drained two of his five threes as he continues to show off an improved stroke on his jumpers. Now, if he can just work a little on his free throws…

The Cavs’ bench held their own against the most prolific opposing bench in the NBA. They were outscored 34-25, but that isn’t all that bad considering how well Clarkson and Williams fill it up. Channing Frye was a perfect 3-3 (2-2 from three) for eight points… RJ did a great job on both ends, scoring nine on 4-7 shooting and playing some solid defense… and Shump brought energy, doing a great job on Williams. Though he went just 1-6 from deep, he didn’t take many bad shots, and he gave the Cavs a real boost from the end of the first quarter into the second.

SHHHUMP is feeling the #Trees4Threes tonight! 🎄🎄🎄#DefendTheLand https://t.co/tIpemiH7FM

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) December 18, 2016

Despite his generally awful night on the court, Timo had an awesome night before and after the game, getting mobbed by his former teammates after being presented his championship ring by Coach Lue, and then joining RJ’s post-game interview on FSO. It was heartwarming to see how much the Cavs and the fans still love and appreciate the big Russian bear…

Mozgov is back in #TheLand for #CavsLakers and just received his #WonForAll bling! #NBAChampion 🏆💍 https://t.co/IddovLCj3A

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) December 18, 2016

Parting Shot

The bizarre elements of the schedule keeps rolling along, as the Cavs have another couple of days off before playing yet another weird back-to-back home and away set… this time with the Milwaukee Bucks. The first game is in Milwaukee Tuesday, with the follow up Wednesday night in Cleveland. Wonder if anyone will sit out either end of this two-fer… especially since the Cavs will only have one more game (at home against the Nets) before facing the Warriors at the Q on Christmas Day. They’ll at least get to have one more welcome back championship ring celebration on Wednesday for Matthew Dellavedova… although the jury is still out on whether or not there might be one more for AV on Christmas. Ah… the element of surprise…