Recap: Oklahoma City 148, Cleveland 124 (or, the Wreck of the Day)

This game was over from the minute it started. Cleveland could not compete. It is time to face the uncomfortable truth. The Cavaliers are flawed in so many ways that without major changes, they may not even be able to make the playoffs, let alone compete for a championship. The harsh truth is this: the Cavaliers got absolutely taken to the cleaners in the Kyrie Irving trade. As they are currently constructed, playing with Isaiah Thomas is basically playing four-on-five on defense. The four guys the Cavs have on the court with him aren’t that good and are heartily demoralized by Thomas’ defensive worthlessness.

Cleveland got waxed from the tip. LeBron got caught switching onto Steven Adams, James made a half-hearted attempt at a steal, and Adams dunked. Adams scored six of the Thunder’s first eight (with no Cavalier answers), mostly on idiotic switches and terrible backside rotations that ended with Stevens getting a point blank shot. At one point I laughed as Isaiah Thomas got switched on Adams, and OKC didn’t even bother to get it to him because they knew they’d get a great shot somewhere else.

Kevin Love left the game for Tristan Thompson just after three minutes in and never returned, apparently he was ill. Lucky him. Cleveland’s only recourse to stay in the game was to try to match Oklahoma City’s offense, but despite some balanced scoring by the Cavs, the Thunder’s big three ripped off 17 before a Roberson layup and two Patterson triples put the Thunder up a laughable 43-24 to end the first

The Cleveland bench tried to cut into the lead in the second, as Wade, Green, Rose, and Thompson started chipping away before LeBron and Isaiah returned to cut it to 42-50 on a Rose layup. Raymond Felton helped the Cavs in that regard with some terrible point guard play. Frankly, Derrick Rose is currently an order of magnitude better than Thomas. He’s aggressive, looks in good health, and actually plays with some hustle. But after Derrick’s exit, the Cavs couldn’t stop the parade to the layup line and open three pointers caused by Thomas’ general uselessness and OKC closed out the half up 76-60.

The second half was mostly trash. A passive LeBron James didn’t take a shot till the 6:20 mark. But we saw lots of the Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder two man game early. A J.R. Smith three briefly cut the deficit to 14, before Westbrook and Melo went on a tear and bounced it back out to 20. James and Isaiah Thomas got rolling and dropped the def to 12 with LeBron driving and Thomas swishing threes, and we even saw a little Channing Frye action. Inevitably, the Thunder closed the quarter on a 10-2 run to push the lead back up to 114-94, OKC.

Wade threw the ball away a couple of times early, and a Cavalier brickfest ensued. Roberson and Steven Adams got free on a ton of cuts and short drives to the rim in the mean time, and suddenly the Thunder were up 137-111 before the final feckless time out with 4:16 to get the mainliners out. The Cavs zoo crew couldn’t stop anyone either, but at least Channing Frye threw up a couple F-Lue buckets before the buzzer sounded 148-124, Thunder.

I’ll admit I only watched the first 20 minutes at a bar and glanced at the score the rest of the night. It was an awful display and more than one person asked if the Cavs were trying to get Lue fired. LeBron’s general affability and his chumming around with the Thunder and his banana boat buddies rubbed some people the wrong way too, especailly after the Cavs tied their franchise worst regular season points allowed.

It doesn’t matter though. As Sam Amico wrote, “Only Change can Save the Cavs now.” The Cavs have no backline defense when LeBron’s not blocking shots, and their perimeter defense is probably the worst in the league. Isaiah Thomas is less than a defensive zero, and J.R. Smith isn’t much better. The Cavs are lazy on offense and don’t make defenses work. James was pretty circumspect after the game, noting that the Cavs would “easily get bounced early” if the playoffs started today.

It all starts with Isaiah Thomas. The dude is unplayable on this team. You can hide him on a team with a four other good defenders, but the Cavs don’t have four other good defenders and they have no rim protectors. In a scheme that relies heavily on interchangeable defensive players and switching any screen action, teams can just attack with whomever Thomas is matched up with, and that’s what the Thunder and what every team the Cavs have played are doing.

James also noted that he didn’t want to see Ty Lue fired. Isaiah Thomas noted that the Cavs don’t trust each other on defense.

Offensively, the Cavs were fine, though J.R. Smith went 3-11, everyone else shot average or better. James scored 18, six short of the 24 he needed to reach 30,000. His three point woes continued too, with an 0-4 night. As I noted he was remarkably passive at times and his defense was as complicit as everyone else’s as he posted a game low -33.

Thomas dropped 24 in perhaps his best offensive game since his return, and most importantly went 4-8 from three and 8-14 from the field. But it was Pyrrhic given his defense and the -24 he posted. Jae Crowder seemed to benefit from Thomas’ presence, having one of his best offensive games in a while: a 17 point effort with a pair of triples. The Cavs couldn’t find their mojo from deep though, as they went 10-37 from downtown, while the Thunder went 14-30.

A silver lining to this game: the bench wasn’t bad at all. Dwyane Wade has his normal share of terrible turnovers (five), but he was 4-5 from the field for 11. Only Tristan Thompson’s -11 was especially bad, though he did share the floor quite a bit with James and Thomas.

I don’t know how to say this, but Derrick Rose looks like the Cavs’ best point guard right now. Rose scored 12, and was aggressive attacking the basket. He played 21 minutes and posted a plus/minus of -1. He even played a goofy lineup in the second, sharing the backcourt with Thomas, and it wasn’t a disaster. I know. I’m as shocked as you are.

Channing Frye, Jose Calderon, Cedi Osman, all had solid moments in garbage time. It was the starters that stunk on ice this game. For the Thunder, it was all about the big four: George had 36, Carmelo Anthony 29, Steven Adams 25, and Westbrook 23. Patrick Patterson chipped in some nice moments with six and a bench high +8.

We’ll see what the next few days hold for the Cavs. LeBron should get to 30K and the Cavs would seem to have a reckoning on the horizon, but with this team, you never know.