Recap: Brooklyn 108, Cleveland 106 (Or, When the Chance Is Just Luck)

Recap: Brooklyn 108, Cleveland 106 (Or, When the Chance Is Just Luck)

2019-11-26 Off By David Wood

It’s not too common for an NBA team to come back from a nine point deficit with 2:10 left in the fourth quarter to tie the game and have a chance to win. Yet, the Cavs did just that. Out of a timeout with 2:10, Collin Sexton drove to the rack and stood tall against three different Nets players to get an And-1, which he converted. Jordan Clarkson followed that up by running down the court after a Spencer Dinwiddie miss for a layup to make the score 102-106.

Then the Cavs had the luck of four straight reviews going their way, as they actually should have…Still, when does the NBA get that many reviews right?

Tristan Thompson forced Joe Harris to lose the ball on a drive after Clarkson’s layup that brought the Cavs within four. The play was reviewed; the Cavs got the ball. Then on the ensuing play Sexton missed a floater, which Tristan and Larry Nance volleyed around for a few seconds before the ball went out of bounds and triggered another favorable review. Out of the review, Clarkson canned a 3 from the corner after running his defender off a TT “everyday I’m shuffling” screen to bring the Cavs within one with 1:03 left to play.

Dinwiddie helped the run continue when he missed the following shot due to some stout Cedi Osman defense; Clarkson then hoisted another jumper. It missed but again the Cavs fought for another possession and won the ensuing review. Off the baseline inbounds play, Sexton came up from the baseline, ran a dribble handoff/ruboff with TT, and got fouled by a handsy Dinwiddie. He was sent to the line and split the pair to tie the game at 106.

The chance to win still wasn’t gone though. The Cavs fought for the missed free throw and got their fourth favorable review. John Beilein called his final timeout and tried to draw up a game winning play. The play failed. The Nets sniffed it out, and the Cavs couldn’t get an open look. Sexton got stuffed and a shot clock violation occurred.

The Nets then took a timeout with the game tied and six seconds left. Dinwiddie ran up high to receive an inbounds pass and faked towards Joe Harris, which caused Cedi Osman to lean the wrong direction just long enough to be out of the play. Dinwiddie used the couple feet of space to dribble into a free throw line area game winner.

It was the right result.

The Cavs had other strokes of luck to be in the game in the fourth besides that two minute 9-0 run and proper reviews.  They ripped off a 9-2 run to start the quarter to go up 84-83 with 9:08 left. Clarkson had 16 of his 23 points in the fourth and four of his five total 3s. Jarrett Allen had just four points and four rebounds in the final frame, despite finishing the night with 22 points and 21 boards; going off for 12 points and seven boards in the third quarter.

Normally, at least for the more experienced teams in the league, all those strokes of luck in the final twelve would be seen as a team taking control of the game. For the Cavs, it was just luck.

Luck turns into control when, well, a team shows control, which the Cavs had none of on the final plays of quarters and making defensive adjustments.

The Cavs didn’t play terribly by any means. They held the Nets to 46.8% from the floor, which is decent for the Wine and Gold, although it’s below league average. Opponents are hitting 48.1% of their shots usually against the good guys. Spencer Dinwiddie was held to 23 points on 10-24 shooting to go with nine assists. Joe Harris had 19 points, but went 3-9 from deep. The Nets didn’t even attempt a free throw in the first half.

In the first quarter, Collin chucked the ball up. He had seven points on 3-8 shooting to keep the Cavs matching the Nets. Sexton would go on to finish the evening with 18 points on 7-22 shooting with just two assists. And, the Nets were just so so. They were hitting open shots, but the Cavs weren’t really giving them many. Then when the Cavs bench came in things started to click. The Matthew Dellavedova effect was real tonight. Matty’s steady probing really opened up the lane for cutters. It resulted in my favorite play of the evening from Kevin Porter Jr. Late in the first, after using a Larry Nance Jr. screen to get down hill, Delly chilled by the baseline long enough for a cutting Porter to get an easy finish through some distracted trees.

Delly finished the evening with six assists, two points, and zero turnovers. Porter finished the night with seven assists, five points, five boards, and one turnover. The quarter went swimmingly, aside from the final bucket from Brooklyn, where Alfonzo McKinnie fell for a pump fake and Garrett Temple did a backdoor give and go. That’s the control factor I mentioned above. McKinnie should have stayed down. Temple is a 33.3% deep threat this year. The Cavs headed into the second ahead 26-25.

The second quarter started with some more heady action by the Delly, Porter, Nance crew. Porter found Nance for a 3-pointer off a simple perimeter pass to open the scoring for Cleveland. A few plays later Porter ran the floor with Delly after a turnover for a Sports Center level dunk in transition.

Delly even had Clarkson playing some team ball as Clarkson ran the floor for an oop passed all the way from behind the arc. The ball was moving. Eight of Cleveland’s nine makes in the quarter were assisted on. The Nets hung around, but at the end of the quarter, the Cavs lack of control showed up again. Dzanan Musa simply ran the floor unaccounted for after a Nance 3-pointer to get a layup and put the Nets up 52-51.

The third quarter was where the Cavs lack of control really showed. The defense fell apart and no one on the court could figure out how to fix it. The Nets kept penetrating and pulling Jarrett Allen’s defender out, which allowed the big man to feast for twelve points all at the rim and free throw line. The Cavs made the first rotation to stop dribble penetration, and then no one dropped down to help on Allen. It was death by repetition. No one tried to foul early and there were zero properly timed timeouts. The Cavs again failed to control the game at the end of the quarter as Kevin Porter dropped down from a weakside shooter into the paint and allowed a 3-pointer. The Nets entered the fourth up 81-75.

At the end of the first three quarters, the Cavs gave up seven total points that probably could have been prevented. Had they entered the fourth up 75-74 maybe all the “luck” they experienced late in the game would have led to an actual chance. Maybe they would have taken control. The team is young though and so is the season.

Gripes

1. Not much to add here. Darius Garland and Sexton continue to chuck. Garland went 4-10 for 11 points and had five turnovers. Most of his turnovers came because of sloppy passing. He likes to loft the ball up high to teammates but doesn’t have the finesse to get it to drop over opposing defenders’ reach.

2. Tristan Thompson put up a stinker. He had seven points and ten boards. He refused to really body up Jarrett Allen in the third quarter, which could have given the Cavs the little extra boost they needed to get the W in this game.

3.Who stole Delly’s ability to shoot?

4. Taurean Prince had 18 points and went 4-6 from deep. The Cavs big men had trouble containing him all evening.John Beilein needs to scheme better when teams have a power forward like Prince out there. The Cavs didn’t really rotate on defense past the first level. Instead, a guy would get beat, and one line of help would step up only for no one else to crash down and grab the guy in the dunker spot. Eventually, Prince’s 3-shot was too much of a threat for the Cavs to even cheat up on him and he was able to drive and dish.

Hypes

1.Larry Nance had a solid game getting 20 points on 50% shooting to go with 13 boards. He went 2-6 from 3-land. I’m still not sure I want to see him always popping out when he screens, but he’s hitting enough 3s to live with it for now.

2. Cedi Osman didn’t really get mentioned up above too much, but he had an amazing evening. He was the primary defender on Dinwiddie and is the reason Dinwiddie went 10-24 from the floor. Cedi also stopped a ton of fast breaks playing textbook hands high defense. He had 15 points on 6-8 shooting. His shot chart was perfect:

3. The Cavs host the Magic tomorrow. The Magic have one of the worst offenses in the league, so let’s hope the Cavs can steal a win.

Share
CategoryFeatured Recaps

About The Author

@nothingwood I like bikes, beer, and basketball. Not always in that order.

3 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
John B

Excellent recap. At least Garland is taking and making some threes of late. It seems that separating Sexland should be a priority. Maybe they both start, but one should get pulled around 6-7 minutes left in the first and then get staggered with the bench units. Delly or Clarkson paired with Sexton or Garland for the majority of time just makes more sense at this point.

That KPJ dunk was pretty spectacular.

0
MikeO

Nice job, David. It was a fun game, but marred by pretty bad execution by the Cavs the last couple of possessions.

Video replay is just brutal when it’s one after another in a short period like the last minute of this one. I think they got all of these right, but it seems to me most often that it’s really impossible to tell on the majority if the ‘who was the ball off of??’, no matter the camera angles or how many times they look at it. Maybe when they have 128k monitors.

0
Nate Smith

GREAT recap, David. Fun game but a frustrating one too.

0