Recap: Wizards 124, Cavaliers 112 (or Cloudy Silver Linings)

Well, that happened.

The Cavaliers opened up last night’s game against the Wizards with a strong first punch and it was easy to feel confident that the Clevelanders would snap their losing streak with room to spare.  Right out of the gate the offense was humming and shots were dropping.  Cedi came out strong with an out of bounds play assist to Love for a corner three.  Sexton took and missed a somewhat ill advised floater, but got fouled and hit his free throws.  Soon after Cedi had a vicious drive and kick to Garland for a corner three.  Garland was aggressively looking to shoot from three when he was open.  Sexton was making shots (despite however ill advised some of them may have been).  The team was looking for Love and at the very least taking advantage of his gravity.  Cedi continued to get more attempts to playmake and used his height mixed with guard skills to collapse the offense again and again.  It really looked like it would be a sunny night inside of Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Thursday.

Then the Cavs missed an open three.  Then another.  Then another.  Within the first five minutes of the game the Wine and Gold was up 16 – 6, but by this point the Cavs had already missed more than half a dozen open threes.

Cleveland wasn’t exactly playing competent defense, but neither was Washington.  All the Cavs had to do to keep their earlier lead was make the open shots that they kept generating.  They didn’t.  They missed.  It wasn’t long before the Wizards got their own offense going, kickstarted with some hot deep shooting from Davis Bertans.  Washington came roaring back and quickly took the lead.  In a defense-optional shootout like this game projected to be one would expect a lot of back and forth runs and lead changes.  That didn’t happen either as after going up 25 – 22 the Wizards never relinquished their lead.

The Silver Lining:

Despite the fact that Cleveland ended up trailing the entire the game after about the 3 minute mark there were a lot of little things to get excited about throughout the night if only they weren’t overshadowed by all the bad.  Summoning forth my best inner optimist and putting the bad aside for a moment, there are several parts of last night’s game worth being happy about.

•  Sexton was hot.  Really hot.  His shot selection wasn’t all that much different than usual save for the notable scarcity of misses.  He was a perfect two of two from deep, continuing his recent trend of rediscovering his three point accuracy.  The Young Bull was also a perfect 7/7 from the free throw line and managed to shoot a very respectable 8/13 from inside the three point arc.  Even Sexton’s two turnovers were well balanced out by his four assists and two steals.  Collin ended the night with 29 points while also chipping in four rebound.  These are the types of games from the young combo guard that tend to lead to Cavalier victories, especially against weaker opponents.  If he could consistently be this efficient of a scorer his high usage and shot attempts would be a welcome part of the team’s offense and seldom criticized (though also notably his 15 shot attempts were less than his season average of 16.3 per game (per Basketball Reference.com)).
• Larry Nance Jr. was dynamic and prolific.  He hit a mid range jumper early and that initial bit of scoring seemed to propel him all night long.  Nance seemed to be in the right place at the right time again and again to tip in multiple missed shots from his teammates and even backed down in the post to score with a nifty little hook.  Suddenly becoming a scoring threat allowed LNJ to often do what he wanted on the floor as he even knocked down both of his three point attempts.  This is the version of Larry that the organization was betting on when signing him to his most recent extension.  A Larry Nance Jr. stat line of 22 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 assists with zero turnovers and only one foul is like a dream come true.  Add to that his 10 of 14 shooting (including the aforementioned 2/2 from three) and Nance had a truly special night while also coming off of the bench.  Oh yeah, and five of his rebounds were of the offensive variety (which doesn’t even take into account all his tip ins).
• Cedi Osman also had a pretty ideal first half.  His three point shooting was off for the night but he did pretty much everything else well.  The Young Turk used the force for five assists in the first half and he missed out on several potential assists when the team just kept missing open threes.  Osman was aggressive knifing to the basket and equally successful finishing or kicking out passes (in the first half at least).  Another feather in his cap is the added bonus that even with his increased usage Cedi still ended the night with zero turnovers.  Osman also had a couple of a steals, but his play of the night had to be his end of the quarter chase down block that felt like it would give the Cavs some real momentum going into the second quarter.  The block alone is reason enough to watch the highlight reel.

There were a few other bright spots to be found for the Cavs last night, but the rest were much more hit or miss.  Garland was a team best =/- of +6, but his shooting was awful at 4/17 overall.  He did have a few beautiful assists , but he only ended up with four total assists for the night and two turnovers.  And speaking of turnovers, the Cavaliers somehow only had eight on the night.  Unfortunately the Wizard’s ten turnovers wasn’t enough of a difference to make up for other deficiencies for Cleveland.

Matthew Dellavedova had a masterful defensive play to break up a 3 on 1 fast break.  Delly also had the team’s second best +/- at +5.  Unfortunately he did this in just under six minutes and ended up with zero points, one rebound, and two assists.

John Henson had a great triple make in the first half and also ended the game with three assists (to only one turnover).  Unfortunately Henson was just making his return and likely on a minutes restriction so only played under 13 minutes and was not yet back to his defensive anchor status that he has been showing many glimpses of so far this year.

The Cloud:

After this, the bright spots start getting scarcer and harder to highlight.  Kevin Love had 21 points, but wasn’t very efficient (8/19 from the field, 3/9 from three, and 2/3 from the free throw line) and also ended up with only five rebounds in almost 34 minutes of action.  As much as the team was able to get Love touches early and take some advantage of his gravity and presence, that advantage fades quickly when he starts missing open three after open three.  This isn’t to necessarily criticize Kevin Love, but he is the type of player than needs his teammates to work to get him the ball in the right spots.  The young Cavs have enough trouble doing that much of the time, and so when he isn’t knocking down good looks that they actually get for him then his value drops fairly quickly.

The biggest storm cloud over last night however was simply the defense mixed with Cleveland’s inability to capitalize on Washington’s weak perimeter defense by actually making shots from distance.  While it would be easy to lament some questionable officiating screw ups derailing the Cavaliers, the truth is they just made too many different types of mistakes.  Cleveland would alternate between matador defense in the paint to losing track of hot shooters on the perimeter all the way to simply neglecting to get back after their own made shots.

The Cavaliers need shooters, they need the shooters they have to get more consistent, and they need to figure out their size issues on defense.  Until this is resolved, no game and no lead is safe.  Yes there has been a revolving door of Wine and Gold injuries.  Kevin Porter Jr.’s injury was also made a lot worse by the fact that Clarkson had just recently been traded.  Dylan Windler was also supposed to be a piece that could add some wing depth, guard size, and shooting…but alas that is not to be as well.  Add to all of this mess the impending trade deadline and the feeling that the roster will inevitably have some noticeable changes soon and most nights there is too much chaos for a young developing team with a first time NBA coach to handle.

Of course, when the Cavs allow the opposition to shoot 55% from the field and over 44% from the three point line, they need all the excuses they can get.  There is a lot to lament after this one and a lot to blame.  The simple worst fact of Thursday night is that the Wine and Gold whiffed away an entirely winnable game to an entirely beatable team.  I guess the draft lottery odds at least continue to trend in Cleveland’s favor, but if they can’t pull things together and get a win soon against some still beatable teams then they will end up going into All Star break in a real slump and the rest of the season could easily become a lot more cloudy.

At least the Cavs have their next chance to end this losing streak against Chicago tomorrow.

Perhaps they will make some shots.

Until then,

Go Cavs

(And pack an umbrella, just in case it stays cloudy)