Recap: Miami 98, Cleveland 79 (Or, Why Bother?)

Well, the Cavaliers decidedly cannot win in Miami. No matter how good the Cavs are playing going in, the Heat arena seems to be a curse for the team. This game was no exception as the Heat managed to completely avoid the absolute tear that LeBron James has been on throughout the month of March. Miami won 98 to 79 and after averaging just about a 30 point triple double in the month, the king managed a paltry 18 points, 7 assists, and 6 rebounds. One of the hallmarks recently has been James’s ability to rack up dozens of assists with a very limited number of turnovers. He had six in this one and seemed to don the familiar attitude of “Why bother?” With that, I’ll be bringing you a very brief recap of this hot pile of garbage. Partially brief because if the Cavs can’t bother, why should I? Also, my wife blew out her tire last night and I consequently missed large chunks of this game.

The first quarter, and in fact, the first play turned out to be a predictor for how the rest of the game would unfold. After winning the tip, the Cavs promptly brought the ball up the court and Jose Calderon made a rare error after a miscommunication with George Hill causing a back court violation and the first of what would end up being 14 total turnovers for the game. After that things did not get much better as Kevin Love got elbowed in the mouth and was forced to exit the game to fix a loose tooth, you can see the play below. Consequently, LeBron engaged chill-mode and the Cavs only managed to score four points over the first two and a half minutes of the game. Cleveland could not get anything going that even remotely resembled an NBA offense. They missed multiple point blank shots and finished the quarter with only 18 points and even less energy. Miami lead 29-18 after one.

After you saw how the first quarter went and said to yourself “Well, that’s about as bad as it can get, the Cavs will turn it on now.” You’d be mistaken because the second quarter only managed to get worse. Kevin Love reentered the game after dealing with the impact to his mouth but LeBron and the rest of the Cavaliers remained checked out. Miss after miss followed turnover after turnover. Finally, after an embarrassing Kelly Olynyk dunk in which he drove around Rodney Hood like Kelly was teaching his ten year old son how to play defense and Hood was his son, Cleveland was forced to call a timeout. Dwyane Wade embarrassed his best friend as he showed his shot-blocking skills, erasing two in a row by James. The rest of the quarter followed suit as nobody could get anything going. Tristan Thompson was his usual unhelpful self, despite managing to get 13 rebounds on the night and JR Smith is pretty much dust in the wind at this point. The first half ended with the Heat up 54-34.

With the Cavs down twenty entering the third quarter and Love’s tooth basically falling out of his head the team decided to evaluate Kevin for a concussion and he would not return. Fortunately, the Heat tried to let the Cavs back in the game so the brickfest wasn’t quite as bad as the first and second quarters and LeBron managed one of the only highlights for Cleveland on the night. You can see his alley-oop below. Still, things were not pretty. The refs didn’t help the situation but this one was lost from the first minute. Jeff Green still couldn’t make his wide open threes but Hood managed to get one in the quarter. In fact, Rodney was able to get it going just a little bit in the quarter as he went 4-5 for the quarter for 9 of his 15 points. It wasn’t enough though as they finished the quarter still down 16. Heat up 75-59.

The fourth quarter was not a saving grace for Cleveland in this one as they only managed 20 more points. The carefully orchestrated LeBron sets were non-existent as James displayed his usual attitude when he plays in Miami and a 16 point deficit was just too much for the team to overcome without Love and with LeBron’s head in the sands of Miami Beach. JR finally made his first shot with a little more than 11:00 to go in the quarter and TT was cleaning up on the boards but by then, things were out of hand. Mercifully, after the three-minute mark, Drew finally ended the misery and put in the clean-up crew to close this one out. Finally Ante Zizic would see some minutes, at least. Big Z2 was able to add to his insane shooting percentages scoring on the only shot he took, a six-foot bunny. Not much to like in this one as the final ended up in Miami’s favor, 98-79.

Some Thoughts:

1) This game sort of reminded me of last year when the Cavs dropped an embarrassing loss to the Atlanta Hawks G-League affiliate. LeBron was clearly suffering from whatever poison the Heat slip into the away-team locker when James comes to town. He just cannot shake those South Beach demons.

2) Coach Drew inexplicably chose to start Jeff Green in place of Larry Nance, Jr. It didn’t work. Granted, Nance didn’t have a great game, he’s still likely playing himself back into shape after not being able to run for a couple of weeks. But Green was worse. He just insists on taking three after three after three. He was 0-4 on the game. Please stop shooting the ball, Green. LeBron seemed to key in on the bad rotations in his post-game as he stated, “What hurt us more was our rotation was in disarray. We have a great rotation thing down the last few games. . .” Regardless of Love only playing 7 minutes it leads me to question why they felt the need to change things from something that was working to something that never worked. Jeff Green in the starting lineup never worked.

The photo at the top of LeBron’s face pretty much says it all as the Cavs were due for a bad game. His “why bother” attitude permeated throughout the team. I wish it hadn’t come against the Heat as every single game matters as the Cavs come down the stretch, but at least it happened now and not against Philly. Hopefully they were able to get this out of their system and can finish the season out strong. An eight game win streak would be nice heading into the playoffs. The Cavaliers face off against the Hornets on the second night of this back to back. LeBron usually owns Charlotte, always looking to prove a point to MJ, so hopefully this one is no different. As always, Go Cavs!