Live Thread: Cavs vs. Pistons (#GlassMonster)
2019-03-18The Detroit Pistons are a pretty scary rebounding team, featuring one of the best on the glass… Andre Drummond. This season, Drummond leads the league by a comfortable margin with 15.3 per contest, and has averaged 16.0 in three previous clashes against the Cavs, even though he didn’t even have to play the fourth quarter of two of those games.
Drummond and the Pistons would be hard to stop even if the Cavs had a healthy front line… which they don’t currently. News came this afternoon that Kevin Love would miss tonight’s game with lower back soreness following a bad fall late in the second quarter against Dallas on Saturday. Without him, or the also injured Larry Nance, Jr. and Tristan Thompson, it will fall to the likes of Ante Zizic and Marquese Chriss to keep the Piston glass monster at bay. Call me a pessimist, but this seems unlikely to happen.
On the positive side, Drummond’s usual monster partner on the boards, Blake Griffin, will be held out of this one due to rest for the stretch run. Detroit is coming off an emotional season sweep of the Toronto Raptors yesterday, so maybe the Cavs can catch them napping. The other good news is that Collin Sexton and Cedi Osman have stayed red hot from the perimeter lately, combining to hit 10-14 attempts from deep on Saturday. The Cavs will have to lean heavily on their two youngsters to have much of a shot tonight.
Prediction: The Cavs probably get smashed by the Pistons front line early, but might just have enough shooting to take advantage of Detroit’s weary legs for a late comeback… but still fall 112-107.
Catch all the action starting at 7pm EST on FSO, and as always chime in below…
Has anyone else noticed that Cedi hasn’t missed a free throw since the all star break? I mean I know he doesn’t get to the line a ton, but his streak is in the 20s i think and he shot like 56% from the free throw line last season….
Shhh. You jinx it.
Games like this one have made this season enjoyable. I told my wife the other day that despite this team potentially not cracking 20+ wins that it’s refreshing to watch a team compete and grow. It doesn’t feel like a chore to watch a game and one of the reasons I decided to keep my season tickets. If the Cavs luck out and get Zion this team will be so much fun and could make the playoffs next year. As someone mentioned below I am tempering my expectations to us landing Morant or Barrett but I’d be good with them… Read more »
I entirely agree. It’s fun being excited for the future and not holding your breath and waiting for the run to end.
Don’t get me wrong, 4 straight trips to the Finals were great, and the championship was amazing, but last year you could feel it was coming to an end and it became painful to watch many times as you could feel it slipping away.
Gotta say. Went back and watched the whole game. Sexton made some of his typical errors getting into trouble in the paint early. Got stuffed a few times. Had some turnovers….but those last 5 minutes were special. Reminded me of Kyrie as far as confidence in some of those rookie year games. He is not Kyrie at this point, but there are similarities in their end of game confidence. You can’t always teach that. Also had a nice kickout leading to a Cedi trey. Some nice drop passes. Don’t think he will ever be a great playmaker, but if he… Read more »
Agree with you EG about 2019 being a fun year of basketball… amazing how different expectations changes the calculus.
Also agree about giving Knight a chance to get it together here in Cleveland, gotta nice stroke, and some passing and scoring ability, would like to see him improve defensively and he’ll be a solid piece of the puzzle.
He is a solid backup if healthy. Looks like he is getting back there.
Spurs beat Dubs for their 9th win in a row.
Dubs tied with Denver for 1st. Rockets 3rd. Spurs up to 5th, with the Blazers in 4th but missing McCollum for a bit.
OKC down to 6th with a brutal schedule left. Utah 7th with an easy schedule.
I can’t wait to watch this squad with Zion.
We can dream. But I am not going to get my hopes up. It would be insane if the Cavs got another number 1. I am gearing myself up to be happy with Morant or Barrett.
Coming into tonight, KAT was #20 in the league in 3PT% at 40.7%. Sexton was at 40.2% and was 5/6 tonight. Now at 41.3%. Kyrie at 41.1% coming in. He takes a lot more high degree of difficulty 3s, though.
So is Sexton all of a sudden one of the best shooters in the league?
Because it won’t matter if he averaged 3 assists a game if he shoots like this.
Or if we draft Morant.
From deep he has to be over 40%. On fair volume. That is a benchmark for me.
In other news, Nuggets beat Celtics. IT the only Nugget with a negative plus/minus (-8 in 6 minutes).
40.2% now…
I mean he has been shooting like 7 threes a game the last 6 or 7 games. Seriously did anyone predict this kind of shooting from him?
If his feet are set. I haven’t seen him make a lot of moving/off screen stuff or leaners. Or too many LONG threes. Most hug the line.
He keeps extending range and doesn’t take bad threes. He canned two huge ones off the dribble.
Before the game he was averaging 0.1 less made 3s a game than Kyrie’s rookie year at about 0.5% better accuracy.
Cavs shot 58% from the floor, 50% from 3 tonight… their offense was magnificent tonight. They just can’t rebound worth a damn without Nance and KLOVE. Love how Sexton wanted the pressure down the stretch tonight… he’s not afraid of the moment. Loved how Cedi pulled the trigger on that dagger 3 too. Chriss and Sauce were great off the bench considering there’s no Delly or Nance to help the 2nd unit out. Even saw Drew yank Clarkson for Sauce after Clarkson missed two passes out of double teams in the 4th quarter.
Amen. We are down our 3 best glass guys (Love, TT, Nance).
We just shot the lights out today. Everyone was 50% or better save Zz at 2/5.
Nance, KLOVE, TT, Henson, zizic… Chriss is. Literally their sixth string center. And he had 10 boards.
The eight who played:
Sexton: 27/2/1, 4 TO. 10/16 & 5/6 3s. +11.
Cedi: 21/4/6, O TO. 7/14 & 2/5 3s. +11.
Neaba: 13/6/4. 5/6. +16.
Knight: 16/4/5, 0 TO. 7/13 & 2/4 3s. +7.
Zizic: 8/6/1. 2/5. +23.
Stauskas: 17/2/2. 5/7 & 2/3 3s. -3.
Clarkson: 14/2/1. 6/10. -14.
Chriss: 10/10/2. 4/8. -12.
Cedi: 21/4/6, zero turnovers.
Collin Sexton is the anti-kyrie. Just seems unfailingly polite and humble.
Was thinking the same…
Also not a complete moron….refreshing…
Great win 9 guys play, but Frye only 3 minutes. So basically 8. Seven in double figures. Zizic the exception and he had 8 and a team best +23.
Ante +23.
Ante was +23 tonight… in 25 minutes…
Lol
Nad night for the tank, but I will take it.
Huge night from YB. Good night from Cedi. Sauce with his best game as a Cav. Ditto Knight. Quiche even had a couple nice plays.
larry drew needs to be given a contract.. it’s his team.. he deserves a shot..
Cavs Win!!
Really impressed with Sexton threes more or less off the dribble lately….that step back right off the dribble was a serious shot…
Lol
Fun fun game!
Wine & Gold Winner!
Lol.
This team can be really fun to watch at times, pretty inconsistent, as one would expect…
looks like quiche is gone, but no fear, we got the sauce
Once we shed ourselves of Burke’s and Hood the teams energy completely changed. The future is bright.
Thank god we aren’t watching Hood soak up minutes…
YB coming up huge. 2 triples and a drive and dish that led to a Cedi3.
Great to see.
Mercy…Sexton looking great this game…
Steph Sexton!
Sexton!!!!!! Taking over down the stretch
Beautiful possession! For an Osman threeeeeee!
Sexton hard to the hole to nwaba in the corner to Osman at the top of the key for threeeeeee!
Love watching these guys, moving the ball beautifully.
Sexton with a LeChuck special!
Argh. Get zizic the bball on the roll.
BOOOOM !!!
who here is still on the fence on sexton? anyone? not sure we can give kobe all the credit, he seemed to be consensus at 8.. but, hey, c’mon.. this young bull can ball.. as i have been preaching.. sexton and big ZZZ = kyrie who?
Truth
sexton putting it into overdrive in last 2 min..
Argh. Zizic. You did not need to foul there.
2019 has been a fun year of basketball so far…