Recap: Atlanta 117, Cleveland 115 (or, against the dogs, take the spread)

John Kuntz, Cleveland.com

If I were a gambling man, I’d bet that any weaker team that plays the Cleveland Cavaliers would beat the spread against them. It’s happened constantly during the last three-plus seasons, and today was no exception. The Atlanta Hawks were 1-8 coming into this afternoon’s game against the Cavaliers, and were missing several rotation players. Naturally, they came into Cleveland and handed the Cavaliers their sixth loss in ten games.

First Quarter: Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said in the pregame coach’s interview that his team wanted to try to get out and run against the Cavaliers, but you didn’t see that early. Both teams did a nice job of moving the ball early, although only the Hawks kept that up. Derrick Rose was particularly aggressive, but not at all effective. The Cavaliers’ defensive effort was terrible early, as Jae Crowder had to routinely help of Luke Babbitt, who made the Cavs pay with a pair of corner threes. As is their habit, the Cavaliers took after James, who was definitely in “chill mode” early, settling for jumpers and showing little effort on defense. They continuously sent the Hawks to the line, and were being out-hustled for 50/50 balls. Before you knew it, the Cavs were down 16 points to the 1-8 Hawks. Dwyane Wade came in and gave the Cavaliers a boost by scoring eight quick points, but the poor defense remained, and the Hawks led 37-28 after one quarter.

Second Quarter: Wade continued his hot start, but the Cavaliers continued their poor defensive effort to keep the Hawks out front. Kyle Korver also missed his first three attempts from deep to start the quarter, but the Cavs did show solid hustle to get the offensive rebound and score on two of them. The Cavaliers improved their defensive effort to start the quarter and pull within five, but went cold from the floor to keep the Hawks ahead. In particular, Kyle Korver and Cedi Osman brought strong defensive effort during their time on the floor. Wade continued to attack, scoring 11 points in the first seven minutes of the quarter to pull the Cavaliers to within one. Unfortunately, the rest of the team remained ice cold, and the Hawks began to attack the basket to pull away again. Derrick Rose was particularly awful, with a pair of turnovers to go along with some bad shots and terrible defense. The Cavs let some questionable calls get to them, as their defensive effort took another nosedive and the Hawks regained their nine-point lead to go ahead 54-45 at the half.

Third Quarter: It’d be great to say the Cavs came out with some fire in the second half, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Hawks continued to move the ball and get whatever they wanted. On the defensive end, they sagged off the other starters, giving LeBron little room to work. As a result, Lue brought Channing Frye into the game, and James immediately scored four quick points off drives to the basket. Unfortunately, Dennis Schroder continued to absolutely eviscerate Derrick Rose, going on an 11-3 run in a little over two minutes to put the Hawks back up by double digits. At this point, Fred McLeod and Austin Carr were also eviscerating the Cavs, and rightfully so. James and Wade began to attack the rim, but the defense was so poor, they weren’t able to cut the deficit. As the Hawks still led 91-78.

Fourth Quarter: Lue went to Osman and Ante Zizic for some energy, but the Hawks began to pull away as boos began to fill the Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavs went ice cold to start the quarter, and you could soon see that the team wasn’t interested in giving any effort when their shots weren’t falling. While Korver found his shot after struggling for three quarters, and the team began to exert actual effort as it closed the gap, but it was too little too late. The Hawks nearly beat themselves, but held off the Cavs’ rally to win by a final score of 117-115.

Things I Noticed

The Cavalier’s lack of effort makes them extremely difficult to watch. They hold victories over the Celtics, Bucks, and Wizards, all likely playoff teams, but can’t be bothered to put any effort into games against the likes of the Hawks, Nets, or Knicks. We can say that it doesn’t matter all we want, but as a fan, to watch this poor of an effort more nights than not is infuriating. Most sports fans can accept if their team isn’t particularly talented, but poor effort is never excusable.

While one can point to this being a flawed team, the fact that they can rally late to make seemingly every game close shows that they aren’t playing with great effort to start most games.

It’s doubtful this team can be great—or even good—defensively, they have too many poor individual defenders. Still, they have a lot of smart players who should be able to execute enough for the team to be passable on that end. Of course, execution takes effort, and the Cavaliers aren’t interested in giving that.

LeBron James is as guilty as anyone for the Cavaliers’ slow start today. It’s fairly typical for LeBron to feel a team out to begin the game, but he doesn’t need to spend the whole first quarter settling for missed jumpers and putting little effort in on defense. James shouldn’t have to carry the Cavs all the time, but the team feeds off his effort, or lack thereof.

I don’t know if JR Smith is in his own head, or completely unfocused, but he can’t play any worse than he has to start this season. It simply isn’t possible. If it doesn’t change soon, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Smith start losing minutes.

The last few years, the Cavaliers have covered for poor defense by shooting their way to wins. They still have the players to do that, but they will need to make some tough lineup choices.  to get those lineups on the floor.

John Collins looks like a pretty good player. If nothing else, the Hawks have some intriguing young talent. They’re also willing to play hard, an example the Cavaliers should try to follow.

Derrick Rose needs to be an extremely efficient finisher on his drives to be a plus player. As good as his drives look in terms of highlights, they don’t outweigh the fact that he can’t shoot, doesn’t pass, and is a poor defender. Rose can be a weapon in certain situations, particularly when the Cavaliers are in the bonus, but right now it’s one good game for every two bad ones (or in today’s case, a horrific one), which means he isn’t worth a rotation spot when Isaiah Thomas is healthy and Wade is coming off the bench.

The Cavs host the Bucks Tuesday night. The Bucks are supposed to be good, so maybe the Cavs will try for the entire game. Who knows.