Recap: Indiana 97, Cleveland 95 (or, Pushing the Car)

Cleveland came out and blew the doors of the Pacers in the first quarter, dominating them like Richard Petty for a 34-12 beatdown. The Cavs lapped them with relentless defense and forceful offense. Sadly, the Wine and Gold, on the second night of a back-to-back could not sustain, and relaxed towards the end of the second and let the Pacers back in the game. In the early third, defensive lapses got Indiana back into the lead, and they ran that pace car all the way to the brick stripe to edge out the Cavs. Questionable substitutions, plodding offense, and an inability to shoot ultimately doomed Cleveland who fell to an Indy team missing their second best player. The effort was an improvement in terms of competitiveness for the Cavs, but they ran out of gas before the end of the race and couldn’t win by pushing their car across the finish line.

LeBron James was shot out of a cannon and posted a +20 first quarter. He attacked relentlessly and was awarded with eight points, and also notched three dimes in his 8:38 first quarter minutes. This first dunk that came about three minutes in was possibly the best of the season as he took off a good 12 feet from the basket before hammering it home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDNJhHd1WkU

Everyone else chipped in and Jose looked competent running the point. Calderon, Crowder, Love, and Green all notched at least five points and they were flying around on D. They held Indy to 6-22 from the floor to go along with six turnovers. There was a conscious effort to keep Victor Oladipo out of the paint with effective results, and the Cajoled Senior played the whole quarter as LeBron went out early to run point with the second unit.

The racing fans they are, the Pacers knew to hang back and draft off the Cavs and let them burn gas maintaining the lead. The Cavs looked strong early in the second quarter, playing solid D and holding the Pacers to a draw. Cedi Osman was especially effective. He straight harassed the Pacer guards from half court, and his energy led to a hurried and wary Indy offense. Though he was only credited with one steal, Cedi’s five minutes were too few and it was no coincidence that Indiana didn’t get going till Osman left the game and the Pacers’ guards comfort level picked up.

Offensively, the Cavs’ shooting dropped way off, and they were 1-9 from deep in the quarter. LeBron couldn’t get his pet J to drop, and he finished the quarter 1-6. Only Jeff Green’s floor running seemed like sustainable offense, and James was finding him and other cutters on the wing. Thad Young got the Pacers going with two unexpected triples. It baffles me why the Cavs give guys they don’t think can shoot wide open looks to invariably get them going.

l Jefferson rolled in like a rusty old monster truck and abused all the Cavalier big men to go 4-4 in his four minutes of action. Cleveland tried to counter Big Al with Tristan Thompson, and it wasn’t pretty. Thompson was too small on D, and when he wasn’t getting scored on, he was fouling. The Cavs made zero effort to punish the Pacers by putting the plodding Jefferson in pick-and-rolls. Again, Frye would’ve lit him up.

Cleveland started settling for too many threes, and the Pacers got into the Cavs faces on defense and forcing misses and turnovers. They hit some tough mid-rangers and also turned those turnovers and Cavalier settle threes into layups to finish the half trending 58-44.

The first 100 seconds of the third quarter were awful. LeBron ignored Bogdanovic on the weakside, and Bogdan swished a triple. Love lost the ball trying to face up drive Collison. Sabonis cut weakside between James and Smith for an easy layup. The Cavs ran an incoherent offense and ended up with a shotclock violation. Encouraged, Domantas took LeBron into the left post and banked one in over the King before a feckless Ty Lue timeout.

That thing where LeBron yells at his teammates after he gets smoked on D is getting oooooold.

— HoopsDogg (@oldseaminer) January 13, 2018

Check out the clip links above. James was complicit in every one of those buckets with some LeAzy defense. The cut by Sabonis was probably J.R.’s fault, but this is the “Agenda” BS Ty Lue was talking about. Cleveland.com’s Joe Vardon Summarized it well, before the game started. It seemed just as relevant after.

Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said Friday that he addressed his “agendas” comment with his players.

“I’m going to say this and we’re going to move forward because it’s over,” Lue said before the Cavs played the Indiana Pacers. “It’s not you’re guarding (Victor) Oladipo or I’m guarding Oladipo, we’re all guarding Oladipo. It’s a team thing. So ‘Oh my man didn’t score, but he scores.’ No, that’s not team basketball. We’ve got to get back to that helping the helper. A guy goes to help and then you help him.

Out of the timeout James drove and blew a layup. Crowder made a couple of nice play for a steal and a block, but James’ and the Cavs lack of defensive rebounding led to a putback for Sabonis. James looked culpable here too. After Crowder missed an absolute gimme at the basket, Collison burned him and scored a layup over Tristan “I’m not a shotblocker” Thompson to cut the Cavs lead to four. Still, the Cavs hit the pedal and went on an 11-3 run behind Smith finally hitting a three, Kevin Love finally getting the ball inside, and LeBron diving off a nice p/r with Calderon. (Why don’t they do that more?)

But Pacers revved their engines and came roaring back after a couple bad passes by James and a layup and trey by Collison. Someone poured sugar in the Cavs’ fuel tank and the offense sputtered. James started missing on drives and complaining about a lack of calls. Bogdanovic hit a three over James who closed out slow, and then James refused to help on an Oladipo drive for two more Pacer points. James got two in the lane, but J.R. stared at Stephenson as he walked into a three to tie the game at 74. Comeback complete. Collison added two more to give the Pacers a 76-74 lead going into the fourth.

The whole fourth quarter was playoff intense. Cedi got the Cavs going with a huge stretch which included a putback, a three, and a trip to the free throw line all sandwiched around a K-Love bank shot. Cavs actually took a two point lead with James on the bench, before Cedi got a little too rambunctious and traveled on a drive. Then an episode of Inside the Actor’s studio with special guest Lance Stephenson started.

Lance got Kyle Korver in an isolation, waived everyone off and drilled a step-back triple from the right wing and then made that stupid ukelele strum celebration that makes you wanna punch him in the face. Make him drive, Kyle. Then before an inbound pass, the Ear Whisperer poked James in the left side, digging his thumb in before ‘Bron pushed him away and got called for the tech. That tech ended up being enormous as it was basically the difference between a tie game and Pacer lead in the last few seconds. Should have been double techs. Stupid horse-*#!@ refs. Stupid Indiana.

On the very next play, a K-Love drive, Thad Young got his arm tangled with Love and fell over like an extra in a ridiculous death move scene. Offensive foul, Cavs. Stupid fake death scenes.

Pissed, Kev and LeBron led the Cavs on a personal 7-0 run as Loved canned his only triple of the night and James attacked the rack. Tristan Thompson made a nice lefty finish off a pick and roll to keep the Cavs’ lead at five before Lance “The Ukelele Lameass” Stephenson hit yet another three, this time because Tristan Thompson left him wide the *BLEEP* open.

The Cavs were making enough buckets to keep the Pacers at bay, but after a Tristan Thompson went up weak and got his garbage stuffed by Domantis Sabonis, Lance drove right at Calderon in transition for a layup. After a timeout, Thompson had given Indy the frame work for a comeback. They doubled LeBron hard with TT’s man, and waited for Thompson to fail. Watch as Thompson can’t get the ball to Korver or Love and flubs it to JR who’s forced to throw up a prayer. On the ensuing possession, Oladipo nailed a filthy trey at the top of the key over J.R. to put the Pacemobile ahead by one with 2:10 to go.

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

The Cavs’ defense did enough to get the ball back… thrice, but their offense consisted of two LeChuck specials: iso-bricks by James, one from 30 feet out. Why Tyron Lue didn’t take a timeout with 52 seconds when his team was down by one and were clearly gassed? Why he didn’t do it just to get Tristan “now we’re playing 4-on-5” Thompson out of the game? Jeff Green, and/or Kyle Korver would’ve been golden there.Ty Lue is a man of mystery.

The Cavs had one last chance to win it down one with five seconds, but instead of putting Korver in, Lue put in Jeff Green for Tristan. Green got to inbound, and then Calderon(why not Korver?) set a weakside screen for JR flaring to the top. We all know who the ball was going to though.

Unfortunately LeBron stepped on the right side baseline by maybe half an inch and the refs caught it. He was barely there. It wasn’t the worst designed out-of-bounds play, and it got James matched up one-on-one with the much smaller Collison. It just wasn’t meant to be. Ballgame Pacers.

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

Yay!

• The Cavs looked a lot better and played with a lot more effort for most of the night.
• The fourth quarter intensity will pay dividends. It was a lot of fun. I didn’t agree with Lue playing Thompson down the stretch, but as many noted on the thread, he may be being featured for a trade
• Cedi Osman looked sharp as a tack, even though the Cavs could’ve used one more triple from him. His D was demonstrably better than J.R.’s More Cedi, please.
• Domantis Sabonis: 12 and 15 rebounds. Nice fill-in for Turner.
• The Cavs held Oladipo to 19 points on 21 shots and won the turnover game 14-11, holding Indy to 46% from the field and only 12 free throw attempts. They also won the rebound battle 47-44. The defense was good enough to win. They had three opportunities to win it. They didn’t.
• Jeff Green 13 points on eight shots in 20 minutes.

Boo!

• I’ve linked to most of LeBron’s egregious defensive lapses above. There were a lot. When he doesn’t care no one else does, and if I was his teammate, I’d not want to play for a dude that yells at me when I screw up, but then half-asses it for at least 20 minutes a game (and usually 30). His jumper was off, and most of it isn’t in the flow of any offense. The Cavs should run some stuff for him off the ball so he can get it on the move or with space to do something when he catches it. He’s very good at letting the defense get set. His J was way off: 2-9 from three and 11-25 from the floor for 26, 11 dimes, three steals, and five boards.
• As a team, the Cavs shot 7-34 from three. Yikes. As the number two free throw shooting team in the league they need to get the ball inside more, esepcially to…
• Why doesn’t Kevin Love get the ball on the block against a team like Indy when Myles Turner isn’t playing? Dude was 7-9 and 4-4 at the line on non threes. He led the time in plus/minus with nine. He can’t help you if you don’t give him the ball.
• Tristan Thompson in crunch time is so painful. He didn’t have a bad game, but offensively he’s just so. damned. slow. He still takes forever to gather and make decisions. Despite numerous touches, he finished with a point and an assist in 21 minutes.  He’s still not in late game shape. Hopefully he’ll get there.
• Calderon is not a bad starter. He’s not a good closer. He was +8 for the game however and chipped in a nice eight and four dimes. J.R. added nine and six boards. 17 points from your starting backcourt is very hard to win with in the NBA. This is compared to 41 points for Oladipo and Collison (22). Darren was 9-11 with four dimes and two turnovers. That’s efficiency. Also J.R.’s D is – on the whole – bad.
• Lance lit the Cavs up, and the Pacers got a lot of calls in the second half. The dude is just allowed to drive like a fullback all the time. There are few more annoying players in the NBA. I love/hate that Indy got him back.
• I don’t get losing your mind over this team in January. The vitriol I got from some people was palpable. I get it. It’s not fun to watch the Cavs lose. But that was a fun game, intensity wise.
• Jeff Green: game low -9  in 20 minutes with only two rebounds.

Meh

• Crowder had some nice moments on D, but a blown layup and some missed threes hurt.
• Kyle Korver had a bad game, but the Pacers were on him like Cole Trickle drafting your bumper. 0-5 from three… If just one had gone.
• Is January over yet?