Recap: Cavaliers 96, Bulls 106 (or, the court of Darius the Great)
2021-04-18The Cleveland Cavaliers take a tough loss from the Chicago Bulls tonight, 106-96. The Cavs’ bench was simply no match for the Bulls’ bench, who outscored the Cavs’ bench 45-15.
Let’s dive in with tonight’s takeaways:
Game ball: Darius Garland (AKA Darius the Great, h/t to CtB’s own, Nate Smith)
Garland put on a masterful performance in a meaningful game, with 22 points (9-21 shooting, 4-8 from three), 12 assists, tying a career high, and only two turnovers. Without any other legitimate perimeter playmaking option tonight, Garland carried the Cavs with 40 minutes of gritty play, and a team high +4 plus/minus. It could be said that this was as complete of a performance Garland has had in his short career, and it’s games such as this that may portend stardom for the second year point guard.
Honorable Mention: Kevin Love
Love had a decent game, especially cleaning the glass (11 rebounds in 30 minutes). The big blemish in Love’s game tonight was the inability to get his three-ball to fall, going only 2-10 from deep, and Love missed on some very good looks. I think Cavs’ legendary color commentator Austin Carr had a point during the game that Love perhaps should’ve operated around the paint more to get his shooting touch going. Nevertheless, it’s good to see Love’s rebound dominance contribute to winning the rebound battle and limiting the Bulls to only four offensive rebounds.
Bright spots off the bench: Larry Nance, Jr., Isaiah “Hard Rock” Hartenstein
Nance appeared to gain some offensive rhythm back, with 3-4 shooting and a bench-high six assists and only one turnover. Nance authored the play of the night with bench mate “Hard Rock” Hartenstein with a beautiful pocket pass and reverse slam:
Isaiah Hartenstein reverse slam! @cavs continuing to fight in the fourth quarter on Bally Sports Ohio pic.twitter.com/UeQaV8Pkda
— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) April 18, 2021
It was good to see Hartenstein getting some extended run tonight after only four minutes on the court the last game against the Warriors. Hartenstein’s defense and energy was definitely noticeable, delivering six rebounds and two steals in only 16 minutes.
Collin Sexton’s decision-making questionable
Sexton had a decent night shooting, especially from deep (3-6 from three). The big problem with Sexton’s game tonight was his decision-making, coughing the ball up five times against only two assists. Sexton forced the action too much offensively, and the ball movement and defense that was so apparent from the Charlotte game has been sporadic at best since his re-insertion into the starting lineup.
Next up, battle of the basement dwellers
Cavs will look to bounce back against the lowly Detroit Pistons, Monday evening at 7pm. Until then, have a good one CtB!!!
SIMMO // MIKEO MADE ME DO A “CLF ‘
Full respect for personal needs. Bad timing for his gametime needs tho.
(whispers….or this this the fabled low-key tank action I read about….)
Had to up the armament of the tank to match the Pistons. Pure arms race.
LMFAOOOOOO bleak!!!
only a few games left this month then its May Hell month with playoff teams trying and Cavs maybe have 1 or 2 winnable games. Really think we are going to see Thomas and Stevens a lot more in May and Love and Delly in street clothes…also Sexton in garbage time minutes for blowout wins…this team doesnt seem ready to win and I think Koby is being strategic enough to keep losses pilling up and see where cards fall…top 3-4 pick would be solid…anythign after that Cavs will have to trust coaching/development which is risky to say the least.
Gonna be tough for us to move up much in draft order. Or down. Wins:
15: Minny, Houston (won’t get to 20)
———–
17: Detroit
18: Orlando
————-
20: Cavs, Thunder (L10 straight)
————
23: Kings, Bullets, Bulls
24: Raptors
25: Pelicans
26: Pacers
I don’t see us winning more than 25. I think Sac, Chi, & Wash hit that mark easily.
OKC is worse than us now, maybe Detroit/Orl catch us to balance it out. Think we are 6th heading into the draw.
yup seems like we’re pretty much locked into the 5-6th spot.
Clippers shot 24 3pt attempts in one half. Cavs shot 30 3pt attempts the entire game last night LMFAOOO
While I have been fond lately of pointing out that we still suck (and we do), there have some positives this year.
1) Garland’s leap
2) Allen’s acquisition
3) Okoro’s progress
4) Wade looking like a legit NBA player
5) Hartenstein deal
6) Prince acquisition
yup, absolutely, which makes the Cavs situation so interesting IMO, many opportunities there, so many different directions it could go.
lot of untapped potential on this team but coaching has been questionable at best and rotations are just mind numbingly dumb…if Okoro had regular training camp and summer league he’d be about two months ahead…Hartenstein is solid but nothing special…Wade is good for 15-20 minutes…Allen has some growth but still young…Prince is who he is and nothing to push meter…Garland might be best off bench to lead 2nd unit he can turn into Delly but with a way better shot
IRONIC YOU MENTION GREG BUCKNER // CLF——LISTENING TO HIM TALK —–APPEARS TO BE VERY WELL SPOKEN /// KNOWLEDGE OF THE GAME —–SENSE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING///CHANGES TO MAKE —–RAPPORT WITH THE PLAYERS
Exactly what I noticed about him NOMAD, very blunt, honest, knows what he’s talking about…. and he’s a former player has 10 years of coaching experience.
updated EPM:
#59 Allen +2.2
#123 Hartenstein +0.7
#145 LNJ +0.4
#235 Wade -1.1
#236 KLOVE -1.1
#252 Sexton -1.3
#284 Garland -1.7
#288 Cedi -1.7
#315 Prince -2.3
#345 Stevens -2.8
#353 Dotson -2.9
#355 Okoro -2.9
#402 Windler -3.7
#406 Thomas -3.8
#426 Kabengele -4.5
#451 Delly -5.4
Wade getting benched last night seems to have been a poorly conceived move.
Love and Sexton are absolutely mailing it in on the defensive end.
I think it’s time to sub Delly for Brodric Thomas and let that ride… or start trying Sexton at the backup 1, which Sexton wants to be a point guard anyway.
Pistons adding some extra armor to their Tank.
Bey and Stewart balled out last game. They got themselves a couple of good ones.
SOME VERY GOOD POINTS LEO—I DON’T THINK ANYONE HERE AT CTB “HATES ‘ SEXTON –I ADMIRE THE KID FOR HIS HARD WORK AND THE IMPROVEMENT HE HAS SHOWN IN 3 YRS—–DO WISH HE WOULD WORK ON HIS PASSING// DEFENSE ….BUT ALOT OF THIS CAN// COULD BE DUE TO INADEQUATE COACHING ………WOULD KOBY OR SHOULD I SAY “UNCLE ” DAN BE READY TO PULL THE TRIGGER ON J.B. AND SEND HIM WALKING —–IF SO WHO IS OUT THERE —WHO WOULD BE THE PREFERENCE FROM ALL OF US HERE AT CTB ——INTERESTED TO KNOW SOME OF THE NAMES THROWN OUT
I’d love to steal Becky Hammon from San Antonio if we don’t want to take a look at Lindsay Gottlieb on our own squad.
Honestly I was also impressed with Greg Buckner as well on our own squad.
bad loss to a winnable game…22 points on 21 shots is not great in any way and not even efficient…there always seems to be parting shots towards Sexton, think this blog hates him haha….this team is not coached to win….how many bad 3rd quarters until we conclude JB is not a great coach and doesnt get his team ready after the half? according to articles i read cavs players were pissed after this loss but havent they been most of the season? this is at least the 10th loss that shouldn’t have been for this team this year…unreal
I’ve got no hate at all for Sexton, I just think he played like crap last night LMFAOO Last night, he led team in usage rate (32.9%) and had an assist ratio of 6.9. The NBA average is 17.9. He literally hogged the ball all night and made terrible decisions over and over. He had the ball in his hands the most and the offense was pathetic. His defensive EPM (-2.1), which ranks in the 7th percentile in the NBA, means he doesn’t even bother to play defense at all. OTOH if you look at Garland, he had an assist… Read more »
I 100% agree with you about JB not being a good coach. I 100% believe he should be fired for how poorly conceived the offense is. He allows Sexton to ball hog and not play defense, and is held completely unaccountable. So I can’t really blame Sexton for being out there when JB won’t ever bench him LMFAOOO
I think some on this blog don’t like his style of play. I could care less what kind of style a player plays with as long as they are effective. He can be effective when he is hyper efficient and actually looking to get others involved. He is a decent volume scorer, but his issues come when he dominates the ball. He just doesn’t have enough vision or willingness to pass to do that effectively. At those times he actually bogs an effective offense. My issue is sort of with Sexland in general. What is the end game there? They… Read more »
That’s my main issue with Sexton — when he dominates the ball, it’s usually just terrible basketball. If he’s hitting shots at a high clip, which he sometimes does, it’s effective, but it’s usually not getting others involved. He’s a good player, but do people think the Cavs are well served paying him long term at $20 mill per? (I’m sure the Cavs will do that, so it doesn’t much matter what people think)
Yeah. The price gives me pause. I will say without Sexton not sure we have a guy that can go score on his own when things aren’t going well. Most teams need some type of volume scorer. A guy that can just go out and score and will score consistently. Not sure Garland is there yet. The other starters need to be setup to score efficiently and consistently. So that is problematic if you don’t have a guy who can score consistently on his own.
yeah, I think part of the problem with determining who’s “the guy” is it unquestionably should be Love, but his injuries have prevented him from seeing the court and being that guy.
Instead we treat him like an afterthought and let Sexton run the show, which is a double edged sword because he’ll get them to the lottery, but then what happens when they actually want to win???
Not sure love is a guy you can post all the time and expect to get efficient points consistently. Don’t think he has that in him anymore. His best days in Minny resulted from being setup all the time by Rubio. Needs to be fed and open shots created for him. He still can draw some fouls, but scoring on his own consistently…think those days are gone.
His statistical history shows he is absolutely a guy you can give him the ball inside the arc and expect to get efficient offense. I agree with you that because of age/injuries, he may not have it in him anymore, but that’s still an unknown IMO because Cleveland has never ran anything close to the Minnesota offense for Love’s entire Cleveland career. As I’ve mentioned before, he was top 8 in usage rate in the entire NBA his last year in Minnesota, and 3 years prior to that. Your characterization of Minnesota’s offense isn’t supported by the data IMO. Love… Read more »
That’s good data. My impression was based off the few games I watched and breakdowns of their typical sets under Adelman which to me looked pretty similar to the motion stuff off the high post he ran in Sac town with webber and divac. Love was a good passing big and Rubio obviously moved the ball. His usage might have not been high because he didn’t shoot that much but his ast % and APG were amongst the top five or top ten in the league during those years. Most of those years he averaged less than 10 FGA per… Read more »
Just looked up exact definition usage. Based off FGA, FTs, Tovs, not assists. Meaning players who pass more automatically have lower usage than players who shoot more. Essentially meaning since Rubio didn’t shoot much his actual involvement in the offense is completely masked by usage. Which jives with what I can recall from watching that team the times I did. Love’s usage makes sense since he took the vast majority of shots and fts on that team. I didn’t know that about usage, but puts usage in a much different light. Always assumed it factored assists as well but they… Read more »
Yes, but that’s why I added the context of where Love shot the ball and how many times he was assisted. If you look at Love’s assisted FG rates inside the arc, he ranks around 57%, which is insanely low for a front court player. For context, LeBron, KD among the league leaders in unassisted baskets, were around 40+%. On the other extreme, Kyle Korver was around 90+% LMFAOOO. If the question is what kind of shots Rubio was creating for Love, it was most probably a catch and shoot 3. If the question is what offensive system Minnesota was… Read more »
I should’ve added, if you look at Love’s shot profile in Minny and Cleveland they’re basically inversed:
70/30 ratio 2 pointers/3 pointers in Minnesota
40/60 ratio 2 pointers/3 pointers in Cleveland.
We’ve turned a majority post-high post player into a spot up 3 point shooter.
Destined to happen with the ball dominance of kyrie and lbj. Unfortunate he has taken a backseat again at least with not having elbow touches. No reason we couldn’t run something like Adelman’s corner offense now. Actually would probably work well with Sexton forcing him to give up the ball initially when he brings it up and force him to keep moving to get it back after moving to corner upon entry to high post. Not sure if iso touches where love just initially tries to set up low is a great plan these days but having him at the… Read more »
Yup, my guess is they tried to draw a mismatch on the DHOs and then get Love on the low post with a guard.
Good post, definitely gonna ponder this one because it feels on the money.
Yup, I do agree that there was a question of weight loss affecting his post abilities, but that’s a concerned based on very little evidence since we’ve pretty much used Love as spot up 3 point shooter.
THANK YOU CLF——D.G’S HAS UNLIMITED POTENTIAL ( THERE’S THAT OVERUSED/ SCARY WORD ) AGAIN BUT REALLY THINK HE HAS FIGURED IT OUT ——-HAVE TO AGREE WITH WHAT SIMMO POSTED LAST NIGHT —TANKING IS APPROPRIATE // SHOOTING FOR THE PLAY IN IS NOT —-SEXTON DID HAVE A COUPLE OF NICE PASSES TO ALLEN IN THE 1ST HALF THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASSISTS BUT ALLEN MISSED THE EASY ONES // REALLY THINK SEXTON IS TRYING TO IMPROVE HIS PASSING GAME —WILLNEVER BE THE CALIBER OF PASSER THAT D.G. IS —PISTON GAME SHOULD BE AN INTERESTING ONE AS THEY ARE PLAYING (ATLEAST FOR… Read more »
You’re always welcome NOMAD! Yup, I think the game against Detroit will be an interesting measuring stick, since they have a few intriguing young players… Saddiq Bey and Isaiah Stewart seem to be really nice draft picks.