Recap: New Orleans 125, Cleveland 111, (or, The Charmin Chronicles)

If the Cavs were a birthday party, last night they would’ve had Piña Coladas, a dancing Teddy Teddy bear giving free hugs, and a nap space featuring bamboo stuffed pillows with face cooling technology. In other words, they were soft as a baby blanket. After this game, trading Kevin Love is impossible. Kev was torn to little shreds of cotton by a player five inches shorter, and at least 30 points lighter than him in Jrue Holiday. Cleveland tried to go at Jrue when he was guarding Kev by design or by switch, and Holiday swatted baby Kev three times, stripped him twice, and nutmegged him at the end of the first half for good measure.

Jrue played at UCLA a year after Love, and seemed to make it his mission to single out Love and embarrass him throughout the night. Kev was embarrassed, and frankly played one of the softest games I’ve ever seen from an all-star. He was -21, 4-15 from the field 2-10 from three, and instead of planting an elbow in Jrue’s mug after the nutmeg, coalesced into a little ball of three-ply. Meanwhile, Jrue posted a 28pt/2reb/3ast/4blk/3stl/1to night in 33 minutes. Yeah, the Pelicans were playing on two days rest while Cleveland was playing their second game in two nights, but have some pride.

Also soft? Tristan Thompson’s game low -25 with a 5/9/0 line and consistently got outplayed by Derrick Favors and Zion early. Thompson ran out of gas in the third. Zion was fine: 14/9/1. He didn’t bite on any of Kev’s fakes early, which set up Jrue for the blocks late. The dude gets his mitts on a ball though, and you’re never getting it back. Might already have the strongest hands in the association.

The Pels put up 74 in the first half, and then Cleveland posted a six turnover third quarter which featured a -15 stint by the starters who were absolutely plush coming out of the locker room as N’Awlins bullied them to a 22 point lead, which John Beilein took way too long to address. Only KPJ and the bench crew made this interesting. Porter started 3-3 from deep and finished 5-8 on the night for 21 points. He was balling. Larry Nance showed he’s the best power forward in a Cavs uni right now with a 17/11/7 26 mintues and +6 on the night, to join a +10 John Henson. He was running the entire offense and competing like crazy.

Cleveland got smoked by the hard to guard Brandon Ingram, who made Cedi and the Fonz look like window dressing while he made difficult shot after difficult shot for 24 points on 13 shots, mostly in isolation. Sexton’s 24 points that all came in very Sexton ways didn’t matter much as he was routinely useless on defense and used like a traffic cone by the Pels’ big guards. The Cavs have a size (and strength) problem.

Dante Exum started at guard and played like the 24-going-on-35 player he is. I don’t know if he can recover, but injuries appear to have gotten the better of him. He’s very meh. Your starting point guard can’t give 4/0/1 in 18 minutes if you want to beat an offense with three 20+ ppg scorers.

The Fonz, Nance, Delly, Henson, and KPJ all totally outplayed the starters, but Beilein couldn’t run them past the 6 minute mark of the fourth before they ran out of gas. After he tried, and they cut the Pels lead to eight in the early third before it sunk back down to 18 a few minutes later, and Beilein put some starters back in. That was all she wrote.

The Pels are a good squad, and Brad Daugherty and AC were singing their praises all night. It was a bit gross. I don’t know if they think the Pelicans are a playoff team, but the Fox Sports crew sure did, and told us early and often. The Cavs got zero respect from the officials either as touch fouls got them whistles, and the Cavs were bounced around like pinballs. Foul them harder, guys.

At least Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart suck. I’m happy for Griff, but annoyed by my own team. Until Love hits the weight room and gets back some nasty, the Cavs are stuck with a $120 million box of Charmin.