Recap: Cavs 102, Hornets 106 (This One’s Gonna Sting…)

It was a tale of two halves in Charlotte for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who gave up a seven point halftime lead to the reeling Charlotte Hornets, a team coming off of a bad loss last night against the Chicago Bulls. The Cavs outrebounded the Hornets 47-38, outassisted them 27-26, and held them to 42.6% shooting from the field… so why the loss? Well, the Cavs were plagued by turnovers, losing the turnover battle 16-5. Nearly half of the Cavs’ turnovers were committed by Collin Sexton (four against only two assists) and Larry Nance, Jr. (three against only two assists). Also, the Cavs relented 15 offensive rebounds to the Hornets. Both of these parts of the game led to Charlotte taking 14 more shots than the Cavs for the game. Let’s dive in for tonight’s takeaways…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnM5GFvzMlc

Game ball: Darius Garland

DG turned in another solid performance in a recent string of relatively strong play, with 27 points (12-20 shooting, 2-4 from three), six assists, four rebounds, two steals, against only two turnovers. He was particularly magnificent in the third quarter, saving the Cavs’ offense with four straight buckets from the field. The only nitpick on his game tonight was the lack of a three ball (only five attempts on 20 shots), but it’s hard to complain about that when he was either finishing and dishing all night long. Check out DG on the play of the night, a mighty fancy assist to Allen on the last possession before halftime:

Oh my word, Darius Garland. Off-hand, live dribble assist. What the heck. pic.twitter.com/e794RXmmPJ

— Jackson Frank (@jackfrank_jjf) April 24, 2021

Honorable Mentions: Matthew Dellavedova and Isaiah Hartenstein, AKA “Hard Rock, Harty”

Delly’s passing was absolutely sublime in the first half, and over half of his seven assists went to either Sexton or Hard Rock in a magnificent stretch early in the 2nd quarter. Even though Delly had trouble staying in front of Charlotte’s perimeter players or making a shot, his ball movement and energy is championship level. Hard Rock was his usual rock solid self, going 5-5 from the field for 10 points, five rebounds, two assists, and a block in only 15 minutes.

Coming up short: Collin Sexton and Kevin Love

Love played perhaps his worst game of the year tonight, going 3-11 from field (although Love shot well from three, going 3-7), with only five rebounds and two assists. It didn’t help that his number wasn’t called very much on offense (20.0% usage rate, below his season average of 22.7%), and when he did have the ball, the ball tended to stick to him (13.3 assist ratio, below his season average of 15.7). His defense was also terrible, with both PJ Washington and Miles Bridges going off tonight with 50 points combined. One question that should be asked of Coach JB Bickerstaff is why was Love in the game if the Cavs aren’t using him on offense? (Same can be said for Dean Wade who got one shot in 17 minutes).

Late in the game, Charlotte just kept putting Kevin Love in pick actions, targeting him, and using P.J. Washington as the screener for Terry Rozier. Smart offense. That's where Love can be exploited. #Cavs even switched to zone on at least one of the possessions.

— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) April 24, 2021

Much of same can be said for Sexton, who hogged the ball every chance he got (31.6% usage rate, 7.4 assist ratio). Sexton was great on offense when finishing a play and making open shots, but he was an abject disaster every time he wanted to dribble and role play as a point guard. Luckily Sexton’s defense was so poor he was benched for foul trouble more than once, granted the referees weren’t exactly fair themselves as our own Evil Genius correctly pointed out.

Stat of the night

Team defensive rating while Love was on the court tonight: 135.8 per 100 possessions.
Team defensive rating while Sexton was on the court tonight: 131.3 per 100 possessions.

Quick notes on Charlotte

The Charlotte Hornets quietly became one of my low key League Pass must watches this season, especially while rookie phenom Lamelo Ball was playing. Their coach James Borrego is the real deal, honing his craft at the side of Gregg Popovich for basically a decade, including two championship runs. When watching the Hornets, the first thing that jumps out is their ball movement and shot selection on offense. They move the ball with complete unselfishness and they hunt for threes. Tonight they shot a whopping 40 three point attempts, 10 attempts more than the Cavs.

While the Charlotte duo of Terry Rozier and Devonté Graham combined to have a mediocre shooting night, they won the game with their decision making and passing, doubling the amount of assists of Sexland 16-8, while committing only two turnovers combined. The aforementioned front court duo of Bridges and Washington rained threes all night (9-15 combined from three), exploiting Love and Allen’s unwillingness to challenge perimeter shots. P.J. and Miles also dove to the rim and dunked a lot, especially when Love was “defending” them. The Hornets posted three 25 point scorers between those two and Rozier, which you don’t see every day. It was gritty team performance, showing a lot heart to come back in this game with active defense and smart offense

Next stop, D.C.

The Cavs will move on to Washington D.C. to take on the scorching hot Wizards who have won nine out of their last 10 games, with their dynamic duo of Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal. Until then, have a fantastic weekend CtB!!!

P.S. #FREEBUCK (h/t to CtB’s own Evil Genius)

Me: "What is your greatest challenge against a switch-heavy defense?" #Cavs Jarrett Allen: "That's a great question. (3 second pause) I don't know. You're going to have to ask J.B. on that one. I'm not trying to be mean, I just honestly don't know how to answer that one"

— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) April 24, 2021