Recap: Toronto 117, Cleveland 97 (or My Hindsight is from 2020)

2019 ended up with a rather unfortunate 20 point loss to an injury depleted Raptors by a Cavaliers team that could have really used the boost of one more win to close out the year.  The final score wasn’t what the Cavs were hoping for but believe it or not, Cleveland can take solace in the fact that technically they only played one bad quarter.  They lost the First by two points (25-27), the Third by one point (26-27), and the Fourth by three points (28-31).  But then there was that pesky Second quarter meltdown loss of 14 points (18-32) that really dug the hole that they Cavaliers would never get a chance to dig their way out of.

An early knee-jerk reaction to the Jordan Clarkson trade would suggest that this may be the new normal for a little while.  The Sexland starting backcourt can be very hit or miss but typically will allow for enough scoring options out of the gate to at least get the team started.  Then as the second unit slowly begins to trickle in the offense starts to grind to a halt.  These offensive collapses are just too much to claw back from.  While the second unit has some notably good defense (especially for this team) it is just too impossible to defend for eight minute scoring droughts.  No team plays perfect defense in constant transition, and the Cavs already have plenty of other problems to try to cover up for.

So rather than going into detail about everything that went wrong for Cleveland way back last decade, let’s take another quick look at why it is going wrong with a healthy dose of 20/20 Hindsight from 2020.  This isn’t about taking pot shots at the team’s youth, size, or even overall skill, rather this is about why these combinations are having trouble.  It is also worth pointing out that many of us are happy about Sexton finding more and more time with the second unit, but that still isn’t enough to replace what Clarkson (at least on his good days) was able to help make work for the Cavs.

Starting with John Henson, he is a defensive monster.  I was excited to see him shore up Cleveland’s interior defense but I never expected the massive impact he could have even in short minutes.  He is a legitimate rim protector that also alters countless shots by his contests or even by the sheer weight of his presence within a few feet of the shooter.  On top of his shot defense, Henson’s crazy extendo-arms allow to make clean steals and deflections even when forced to reach around another body or two to get there.  He is also very springy for his size and seems to always be in thoughtful motion.  Henson isn’t just moving, he is moving towards where he should be moving.  Add to all of this a decent touch close to the basket, at least a bit of a threat to shoot from distance, and pretty good passing vision for a big man.  What is Henson’s one major limitation?  He doesn’t look to score.

Next we have Larry Nance Jr.  On his best days LNJ can guard all five position but to stay realistic let’s limit him to guarding the 2, 3, and 4 while covering the 1 and 5 in short help moments.  Nance is springy as a pogo stick, athletic in pretty much every way, and he is a total effort player.  He has even managed to clean up his fouling considerably so far this season allowing the team to rely on him for longer minutes while still being one of the better players in the league in terms of deflections.  On offense Nance has a killer dunk and he has developed a more and more accurate jump shot.  Believe it or not, Nance is one of only four Cavs legitimately shooting over 33% (33.7% actually) from three point range (along with Kevin Love (37.5%), Cedi Osman (37.1%), and Darius Garland (36.7%)…this is discounting Brandon Knight (34.3%) who barely plays and the statistical blips of the two leading three point shooters on the Cavs in Dean Wade (100%) and Tristan Thompson (42.9%).)  Add to all of this Nance’s impressive playmaking vision, improved ball handling, and his team-first pass-first mentality.  What is Larry Nance Jr.’s one major limitation?  He doesn’t look to score.

Moving to the backcourt we have the Cavalier’s darling of the +/- stat in Matthew Dellavedova.  In a game where the next best Cav was Ante Zizic with a -6 in garbage time followed by Nance’s -7, Delly somehow was the only non-negative Cavalier with a straight 0.  Somehow in the 15 minutes that Dellavedova played, the Cavs completely held their own.  For the entire season so far, Dellavedova is just a -0.5  (Tristan Thompson is -5.9, Love is -6.9, Cedi is -3.8, Sexton is -6.7, Garland is -6.5, Porter is -5.9, LNJ is -4.1, etc (all stats via NBA.com)).  Matthew Dellavedova is slow, not very athletic, barely taller that Sexland, and as of this year he can’t really shoot the basketball from anywhere anymore (31.6 FG% and 13.2 3P%).  Delly is objectively bad at basketball.  Somehow he is also vital to the Cavs and the team is almost universally better with him on the floor.  Why?  He is a very good passer, he has insanely good fundamentals, and he tries (no, he REALLY REALLY TRIES) for every second he is on the floor.  Because of Dellavedova’s guerrilla warfare basketball where he uses cleverness and effort to seemingly turn his weaknesses into strengths he is able to both add to the team’s defense and orchestrate the team’s offense.  All this considered, effectively what is Dellavedova’s one major limitation?  He doesn’t look to score.

Dante Exum hasn’t been a Cavalier long enough to draw too many conclusions yet but already he fits into a rather similar narrative.  He has some more length at the guard position that makes him a more tenacious defender and he has already shown some promise there.  Exum also has shown himself to be a willing and able passer (if not necessarily a reliable primary playmaker).  What is Dante’s major limitation?  He doesn’t look to score.

(Notice a trend yet?)

Finally for the second unit we have Kevin Porter Jr.  KPJ has truly been a growing bright spot in a rather difficult season.  Game after game he shows more potential and more glimpses of the complete and overall game that he hopefully can fully develop.  He is longer than the Cavs other guards and he is extremely athletic.  His defensive instincts keep developing in the right way and he is already a bigger shot blocking threat than much of the rest of the team.  Porters is strong and smart going downhill, not shying away from contact or a challenge while still always looking to pass for an even better shot.  The 30th pick of the draft has even shown glimmers of MJ-like moments when showing the ball on layups only to pull down and back before converting some jawdropping circus shots.  And then there are Porter’s dunks…wow.  His shot from distance is still unreliable and his shot mechanics could use work, but when he makes up his mind and shoots with confidence before second-guessing himself then his shot becomes much more reliable.  Porter commented that Jordan Clarkson was really helping him learn how to attack defenses and find his opportunities to score.  Unfortunately he hasn’t finished learning yet.  Porter does not completely follow the trend of the rest of the second unit, namely I wouldn’t say “He doesn’t look to score.”  KPJ does look to score, but he continually likes to look to playmake and when he feels he has to look to score he tends to settle for mid range jumpers and/or make mistakes.  He definitely has the potential to develop into a pure scorer if he wants to, but Porter is not yet a go-to-guy in that regard.  On top of all of that, his playmaking ability typically would make it easier for him to get good looks to score if not for one little problem:  everyone knows that Henson, LNJ, Delly, and Exum don’t look to score and so defenses can continually concede good passing to KPJ and not worry too much about it hurting them.

So this brings us down to giving Jordan Clarkson’s microwave scoring role to Collin Sexton when the Cavs can play him with the second unit.  There is only one problem, Sexton ALWAYS looks to score.  This would be less of a problem is Sexton’s three point shot hadn’t vanished this year, but when Sexton is with the second unit the defense knows who will likely try to score and where he will try to score from.  That is the crux of the problem.  The second unit is, almost be definition, inefficient and predictable on offense.  If the starting five for the Cavaliers were good enough this problem would be manageable, but the starting five have their own limitations.

I admit that I have been a Sexland apologist since the draft.  While I was never crazy about the Garland selection I also hate to snap to judgement.  It’s easy for us to say what our favorite teams should do and no one notices the absurd things we might have vehemently argued for just a few years ago (see: my thinking Chriss could have a career surge here or my admittedly irrational fondness for one Jordan McCrae).  Accounting for that and understanding that the Cavaliers organization saw more of Garland than I did, I withheld much judgement.  Add to that Sexton’s insane three point shooting improvement last year and there were at least a good handful of reasons to think the pairing had a chance of working.  Now?  Well, maybe it could work, likely with one (Sexton probably) becoming a sixth man.  That being said, for the good of the team right now the best possible thing I can think of is a month or two long absurdly benign injury to one of the two undersized pointguards.  Something think a chronic hangnail or random intermittent nosebleeds or something would be perfect.  I don’t want anything that actually hurts them, risks their career, or even stunts their growth.  In a perfect world they could be just alternatingly sent down to the G League or something, anything to removed the need to play both of them heavy minutes every night before either of them is developed enough to balance out their weakness.

Imagine moving Cedi to the second unit at the shooting guard position?  I’ve liked the short minutes that we’ve seen of Cedi and Porter together, but that’s typically with Cedi forced to play the 4.  Imagine Cedi getting back some of the touches he had last year without having to guard the 4.  Suddenly Porter and Cedi would both playmake for each other and slash for each other.  Dylan Windler will likely be able to fill this role when he returns from injury, but who’s minutes will he take?  Even if the Cavs flat out bench Dante Exum, Porter and Windler will still be fighting for minutes at the 3 and likely be forced to play some at the 4.  Osman, Porter, and Windler are all fated to be played as 3’s that can play the 4.  They are ALL better suited to be 2’s that can play the 3.  Suddenly all three would tend towards a size advantage instead of being “big enough”.  I never want any player to get injured (well, maybe sometimes the Morris brothers, and Marcus Smart, and….ok, maybe I just never want to admit to wanting a player to get injured) and I actually think Sexton and Garland are likeable people, but the fact that I like them is precisely why Id like to see them make some room for each other.  At this point in their careers they both have some pretty sizeable holes in their games that are only amplified by playing together and fighting for minutes.  Until their limitations are reduced the Sexland combo will continue to make things more difficult for each other and thus make overcoming those limitations more difficult for each other.  I hope I am wrong or one or both of them takes a massive jump forward soon, but right now I just can’t see it.

So the Raptors game?  Oh yeah, back to that.  Perhaps I’ve been a bit remiss in focusing on a big picture concept rather than the game, though it was really one of only two major themes that stood out from that night.  The other big theme from the Cavs vs Raptors is shooting.  With as many factors and moving pieces that go into an NBA game it is astounding how often a game can be mostly reduced to a single statistic or two.  For all the reasons that Toronto beat Cleveland to end the year it really boils down to three point shooting.  The Cavs took 38 threes and the Raptors took just one more at 39.  Unfortunately, the Cavs only made 10 of those threes and the Raptors made 17 of theirs.  That’s 18 points even if you discount one of the Raptor’s makes because they took one more.  Essentially it all comes down to shooting ability.  Both teams had plenty of quality looks and the Raptors were hot (with better shooters) and the Cavaliers were cold (with worse shooters).  Hopefully the addition of Dylan Windler will nudge up Cleveland’s three point shooting but that is just part of the battle.  Another large part of that goes towards the above mentioned shooters that aren’t looking to shoot and then shooters that just hopefully will get better (and Sexton getting his shot back definitely wouldn’t hurt).

Just one last parting shot on the way out the door:

I really really do understand the frustration Love must feel on many nights on this team.  I also understand how watching Sexton dribble the ball into the ground and then do something stupid must drive him mad with frustration and cause some unavoidable bad body language.  All that considered, Love has really got to work on his bad body language after EVERYTHING that goes wrong.  It seems every time the team makes a mistake, even when it’s Love’s mistake and his own fault, he just drops his shoulders and takes three or four slow walking steps before remembering that he has to go run down the floor and play defense.  Hopefully Kevin Love is doing ok and I really admire how well he has stuck out a difficult situation that most players of his caliber would have bailed on.  Still, even considering that, it isn’t helping anyone to let that come out on the court.  In a perfect world perhaps Love will have a scorching 40 point night some time soon and that will buoy his spirits for awhile.  Perhaps he needs that.  It just can’t be good for the team to have one of its leaders appearing to sulk on the court when he could be teaching the rookies how to hold up under adversity (even/especially when it is somewhat their own fault).

And until next time:

Go Cavs!