Recap: Kings 100, Cavs 98 (or, Foxy Oshkosh and the Mercenaries)

The Kings came into this game with a load of momentum. Having spanked the Cavs on March 22, they thereafter edged the Atlanta Hawks and drubbed the Golden State Warriors. Point guard De’Aaron Fox had led the way in these games, tagging the Warriors for 44 points on 16-22 shooting, and scorching the Hawks for 37 points on 13-20 shooting. Pairing in the backcourt with Fox was the first-round pick Tyrese Halliburton, the pride of Oshkosh Wisconsin. If the Cavs backcourt is “Sexland,” then the Kings have got “Foxy Oshkosh” (more later about “Foxy,” which is derived from some Darius Garland mid-game trash talk). The Kings had shuffled a few pieces at the trade deadline and were in their first game with a number of newly-acquired pieces Delon Wright (via Detroit) and Terence Davis (via Toronto), and Mo Harkless (via Miami) — call them the mercenaries.

Following on from a loss to a LeBron-less Lakers team in LA, had problems for Cleveland written all over it. Collin Sexton was back in the lineup, but sitting out this game was Jarrett Allen, along with the now-standard long list of Cavs wounded. As the Akron Beacon Journal put it bluntly, the Allen injury — along with the trade of JaVale McGee, the still-moving Isaiah Hartenstein, and the willing departure of Andre Drummond — left the Cavs without any true centers in this game. With Kevin Love still out, this left Larry Nance, Jr., with a central role vs. the Kings. In spite of a valiant effort by Nance and some fine performances by his teammates, last-second execution and bad free throw shooting down the stretch doomed Cleveland to the loss.

#Cavs J.B. Bickerstaff on why he chose not to guard inbounder on the buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Harrison Barnes that prevented a win the other night:

Note: I didn't make it to his postgame Zoom call after the game because I was writing my fourth draft of a game story pic.twitter.com/hVSnXlwtrG

— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) March 29, 2021

First Quarter

After a choppy first couple of minutes with multiple whistles, the game started to flow and open up. Cleveland tallied up an early lead but could not stop De’Aaron Fox or Buddy Hield, who combined for 16 points (on 7-10 shooting) in the period. Darius was hot-and-cold, draining a buttery three, nabbing a steal, and ending a fast break with a nifty reverse lay in. However, Garland also tossed up two airballs at close range as if he was expecting Jarrett Allen to materialize off the bench to dunk them home.

Larry Nance, Jr., was superb in the first frame, going 3-3 (including two triples), three assists and three defensive rebounds. He was vocal on defence — particularly important for Brodric Thomas getting his first NBA start — and turned up the heat on the Kings’ Chimezie Metu when he subbed in to spell Richaun Holmes.

There were brilliant flashes of a game within a game between Fox and Sexton. Sexton clearly was relishing the challenge of both Fox and Tyrese Halliburton, the potent first-year guard from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. (As for Fox, he was drafted overall number 5 in 2017, a LeBron year in which the Cavs did not have a first-round draft pick, so he has no precise Cavs counterpart.) Halliburton never really tried to shoulder much of the scoring load in this game, but Fox was aggressive as can be. He followed a Sexton straight-line make with his own sprint straight at the Cavs’ hoop, getting Collin’s hips turned with a nifty and incredibly quick modified Eurostep. Fox also got away with a hard slap at Okoro, making his presence felt on defense.

With two minutes left in the quarter, J.B. did his standard shuffling of the lineup, but kept the ice-cold Cedi and Windler (along with Quinn Cook, permanently lukewarm) on the bench, which is where they would stay throughout the match. So Cavs fans were treated to a second unit of Dotson, Sexton, Wade, Stevens, and Thomas, a new combo.

Sexton seemed content to share the ball for a change, and Brodric Thomas had his sole look at the basket in the quarter, netting a layup after a series of canny ball fakes on two different Kings defenders.

Broderic Thomas further added to the defensive grit-o-meter when he blocked a Mo Harkless three point attempt at the end of the quarter.

The Kings looked leagues faster than the Bulls had been a few nights prior, but the Cavs were for the most part keeping up. Damyean Dotson got a bucket on an aggressive sweeping lateral move across the paint. This a nice surprise, since the former New York Knick had sunk precisely three buckets in the entire month of March.

The inclusion of Lamar Stevens in the lineup gave it some defensive backbone while Nance was out. As De’Aaron Fox tried to squirt through the lane, Stevens decided to try to rip the ball out of his hands in an impressive display of mettle.

At the end of one, it was Kings 31, Cavs 29.

Second Quarter

The Cavs opened up with a lineup of Sexton, Dotson, Stevens, Thomas, and Wade. This group looked like they had actually practiced together, running some double screens and sharing the ball. The defensive rotations were outstanding, cutting off the Kings’ driving lanes. Unfortunately it was the franchise player who was the weak spot on the defensive end. Sexton got literally turned around by a speedy Halliburton racing around the perimeter, and lost track of his man. While Halliburton missed from the corner, Sexton gave him a massive amount of real estate and a wide-open look.

After allowing Broderic Thomas to run a decent offensive take and rotate back to block a dunk against Davis, Sexton again got caught a step slow, ball-watching. No sooner had Harrison Barnes checked back into the game than Sexton gifted him with this alley-oop after a light jog down the court.

Luke Walton called a timeout after Broderic Thomas splashed a three. Then, facing Nance, Okoro, Dotson and Garland along with Sexton, the Kings proceeded to try another alley-oop (was this Luke Walton’s bright idea?) which Larry promptly returned to sender.

Speaking of blocks, when he doesn’t have Jarrett Allen to lob to and Nance is being walled off, Darius can get caught in these kind of blanketing situations:

Juiced, Holmes dunked it on the other end, one of the few possessions where Nance relented in his Herculean efforts. Still juiced, Holmes tried again but was blocked in return by none other than Broderic Thomas. Get that weak stuff out of here, as well!

Sexton sat down after a foul after targeting Harrison Barnes. Cue Tyrese Halliburton, who hit a push shot over Thomas, who was again patrolling the paint. At this point the Kings were a putrid 2-14 from behind the arc, and taking their chances inside. Broderic Thomas finally made a visible mistake and elbowed Chimezie Metu mid-air, resulting in some foul shots for the Kings.

Darius got picked up full court by the Kings’ new acquisition Terence Davis, and made Davis pay by selling a foul near the hoop. Darius was at the center of a mini-tempest near the end of the quarter, where he was called for reaching in on De’Aaron Fox, giving Fox two shots after a challenge by J.B. Bickerstaff (assisted by Kevin Love on the bench). Darius started jawing with Fox (“go back to your foxhole, foxy Fox” etc.) and then, not to be outdone in sheer grit by the Young Bull, collected the ball off of a tremendous Nance block and went down determined to score. Garland missed in close, but somehow collected the rebound out of a swarm of black and purple, and put it back on the reverse side.

It was a close-fought, low-scoring and entertaining quarter of basketball. At the half, the Kings were up, 49-48.

Third Quarter

Barnes started things off by headbutting Okoro for an offensive foul, setting a gritty tone which continued throughout the half. The officiating in the game was really uneven; for long stretches no whistles at all, with hacking galore. Then at other times the calls were incredibly tight, and the game became choppy and the players distracted by referee lobbying as a result.

The Kings ended up losing ground in this quarter, but they did receive a number of contribution from their new mercenaries — Delon Wright (from Detroit), Terence Davis (from Toronto) and Maurice Harkless (from Miami). Chimezie Metu, a two-way player, also gave some solid minutes for the Kings. Like Okoro, Metu has a Nigerian-American background, and like a former Cavs player, Kevin Porter Jr., he played college ball at USC. Delon Wright is the kind of player the Cavs might have looked to at the trade deadline as an upgrade at the backup point guard position. Terence Davis arrived in Sacramento having been traded for a mere second-round pick, a devaluation that almost certainly comes from a legal case and league investigation of him that spanned from October through February.

Both Garland and Nance made some exquisite passes in the paint and Sexton hit some big shots, including a bail-out long distance three. Lamar Stevens made an assured move laterally across the paint, splashing a two.

At the end of three, it was the Cavs up three, 74-71.

Fourth Quarter

Damyean Dotson came into the game with fresh legs and a desire to impact the game. He proceeded to drain a corner three off of a blocked Sexton shot, and combined really well with a lineup that included a frontcourt of Stevens, Wade, and Thomas. De’Aaron Fox started heating up big time — his line for the quarter was 20 points on 8-12 shooting, with 3 rebounds and an assist. Putting Okoro back in the game to drape him with a flame-retardant blanket was ineffective; Fox was becoming unconscious.

When Sexton and Garland hit successive shots to make it 94-89 Cavs with 1:58 remaining, it felt like victory was assured. But Fox raced down to finally get the whistle he had been craving and lobbying for all night, and — unlike the Cavs, who missed eight free throws in this game — he hit the free throw in his and-one. Darius, Sexton, and Stevens all missed free throws in the last couple of minutes. There was massive confusion in the last half-minute of regulation about stoppages and substitutions and somehow Sexton, having ostensibly won the game on a goaltending call with 1.6 seconds left, was left to rove around as Harrison Barnes gathered in a long football pass from the opposite baseline and won the game. Barnes hit the shot right on front of Kevin Love, who had inbounded the ball on a remarkably similar and immortalized play to LeBron James in Washington, D.C. Chinatown a few years back.

Well, we’ll always have this:

Final randoms: 

Isaac Okoro played stalwart defense in his 33 minutes in this game and stayed out of foul trouble. Unfortunately, on offensive side of the court he had an off-night, going 1-7 from the floor (0-3 from three) and tallying 2 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds and 2 turnovers. It has surely been said before but J.B. and his teammates need to do a little more to get him going early, or perhaps he himself needs to be more aggressive as a creator. The Garland-Nance-Sexton triumvirate in this game was productive but one would hope that Okoro could provide a different facet as a scorer.

Damyean Dotson needed a good game for his confidence and fortunately this was it. He ended the game with nine points on 4-5 shooting (3-3 in the fourth quarter). J.B. has been giving him more minutes in the past few games and coach seems to have more confidence that Dotson’s game and his stroke will improve as he gets more comfortable, unlike Windler who seems to be on a diminishing scale of returns at this point. Dotson has even been setting a few screens on offense. As for the longer-term prognostication, Dan Gilinsky had a decent breakdown of Dotson’s play from a statistical standpoint, and of course it goes without saying that in the event of a Delly return, that having Dotson available for versatility at the backup point guard position would be helpful.

On Lamar Stevens: Defensively, Stevens rotates quickly and systematically after scrambles, and he knows when to drive and when to kick it outside on his offensive touches. Watching the guy knock down an open corner three in this game (as he did against Chicago) was a real pleasure. In a season where the Cavs had to give up on Kevin Porter, Jr., it is nice to see more young talent that actually seems ready for prime-time. More, please.

Dean Wade had another solid performance, logging 31 minutes and going 4-8 (2-5 from distance). On a night where the Cavs arguably lost the game at the foul line, he was perfect from the charity stripe.

Nance was an absolute stud in this game, and was everywhere. He put forth a tremendous effort and it is obvious why he is so well respected on the team and in the league. At one point he fought off all five of the Kings on the floor for a rebound.

Nance ended the game with 17 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, and he led the Cavs with 5 assists, but he probably would have preferred to actually win the game.