Recap: Phoenix 101, Cleveland 92 (or, Weary Legs, Weary Minds)

Coach Bickerstaff lost this one in the second quarter. Cleveland had gotten out to a good start in the first led by Darius Garland’s seven points and four dimes in the frame and had built a 14 point lead by the 8:40 mark of the second. Unfortunately, that’s as good as this one got. Darius was clearly gassed and instead of giving him a rest, coach inserted Ricky Rubio next to him after Phoenix had cut it to seven – spelling doom for later. Coach should’ve been staggering the team’s primary ballhandlers on the third game in four nights. Instead, JB rode Garland into the ground, playing him the entirety of the second quarter, and 9:41 of the first, for a total of nearly 22 minutes.

Darius did not rise to the challenge. A five turnover, two point quarter was punctuated by a lot of moments with DG’s hands on his knees, and was only eclipsed by a clearly feckless Jarrett Allen who notched only one rebound, one foul, and -14 in 6:41. Meanwhile, JB ran only an eight man rotation in the first half, with only Love, Osman, and Rubio coming off the bench, and sensing fatigue and opportunity, Phoenix went on a 19-2 run, that turned into a 50-12 run going through the middle of the third quarter. The absurdity reached its zenith when Cleveland closed the half with the RubiSexLand lineup plus Allen and Love, pretty much dooming the Cavs to an exhausted pair of primary ball-handlers as Rubio kept bricking and Phoenix closed the half up 50-46

I had a discussion on Twitter about Ricky Rubio’s ball dominance. On one hand, Rubio wasn’t the worst player this game, but my peer’s thesis was that Rubio goes “assist hunting,” dominating the ball till he can get a home run pass and slowing down the pace. I’m not convinced that’s his issue, but the ball has definitely been sticking for Rubio more this year than it has in the past, and he seems to be shooting more than ever.

Rubio is shooting too much. He's always been someone who uses his passing to set up his shooting, and has never been a shoot first scoring guard. When he passes first he's better, just like that two man game when Kev set him up for a corner 3.

— HoopsDogg (@oldseaminer) October 31, 2021

Rubio was happy to fire away clankers all night: 3-15 from the field and 2-6 from three. He exemplified the Cavs’ offensive failures in that most of his misses came when he just attacked at the first opportunity, and his successes came when the ball moved and then found him again like in the case of the the left corner three I described above.

Rubio ended up with 8/4/3 with two turnovers in 25 minutes, and my counterargument was that Rubio had to dominate the ball, and the Cavs’ offense was a mess because Sexland had 10 turnovers in the first half and then twelve on the game with six a piece for the pair. Garland’s turnovers mostly came because he was dominating the ball and not moving it soon enough. Almost entirely in the pick-and-roll, Phoenix collapsed three guys on Garland consistently and he couldn’t get the ball to his bigs or out to the wings, and Darius was pooped and making slow reads too. Phoenix correctly guessed that Garland wasn’t going to be able to get the ball to the wing to rotate it out of the overload or convert at the rim.

Phoenix didn’t need to collapse three guys to force Sexton’s turnovers. They were able to get him to do it with two defenders when he tried to force the ball to Allen from bad angles instead of kicking to the wing, and sometimes Sexton tried to go one-on-two or three, or just threw bad passes. Anyway, by the time the the Cavs were down 13 at the 8:45 mark of the third, Phoenix had scored on seven straight possessions (many by just shooting right over the top of Sexton), and a minute later Bickerstaff finally relented and broke the damn on the eight man rotation inserting Lamar Stevens who’d played good defense the night before in L.A., but who’d missed a lot of easy shots.

Coach also brought in Osman and then subbed every 45 seconds till the Cavs were down 24 at the 4:15 mark with a lineup of Windler, Love, Rubio, Wade, and Osman. It was odd. The nadir came with a 40 second stretch where the Cavs were running Sexton and Osman at the guards, and Lamar Stevens was in his bag, bricking 11-foot pull ups in transition. If JB loses the team this season, that moment looms large. Bickerstaff was flailing.

Fortunately, JB stuck with that lineup till the end of the quarter, Phoenix’s intensity waned significantly, and the (to be politically incorrect) whiteout lineup the Cavs ran somehow outscored Phoenix to close the quarter on a 13-0 run. To be fair, most of this came because Phoenix went ice cold, with Booker forcing shots, and guys like Elfrid Payton taking scoreless trips to the free throw line. Meanwhile, Cedi Osman was straight balling as he was Cleveland’s lone shining star on the night. He and Rubio’s opposite corner treys to close the period were examples of what this lineup was doing (against a much less intense defense) that Sexton and Garland weren’t: getting the guards to the paint where the defense was packed, and then kicking out to the perimeter, and in Rubio’s case relocating to the corner for triples.

Part of the success here was due to the angles the offense was taking. Given their diminutive size, It feels like Sexland is more successful when they angle the pick and roll more, to allow their guards to Nash the baseline (which they need to do willingly) and hit the weak side when the defense collapses too much on the strong side instead of forcing the ball to the big or taking a bad shot at the teeth of the D. That being said, it’s hard to read that when you’re wore out.

Trailing 65-78 to start the third, Windler made a great play, stripping a driving Landry Shamet, yet getting called a BS whistle, and then made a terrible play, swiping and whiffing at a rolling Javale McGee who dunked instead of getting an obvious foul and sending the big man to the line. This was when I realized this lineup had played too long, but they didn’t sub out until 9:33. Fortunately, Cedi Osman’s three point mastery continued, finding the seam spots and canning the open Js. Darius Garland returned and a Markkanen triple cut the Phoenix lead to just 11, but the Cavs went cold, and maybe three hunted a bit too much, and Chris Paul drove the Suns train out to a 16 point lead before a sweet Windler explosion to the rim.

When Denzel Valentine checked in for Cedi at the 5:22 mark, I knew this game was over. After a pair of Lauri freebies, Denzel launched a 30-foot missile at the back-board. Osman came back in a minute later for Garland. Windler returned for Markkanen (what?!) and Cedi and Co. whittled the lead all the way down to five with 11 seconds to go before the Osman well ran dry and Phoenix played out the free throw line as Cleveland notched a back door point spread cover.

Yeah, Cedi was definitely the Cavs’ best player, and Sexton tellingly sat behind Denzel freaking Valentine with the game still in reach (barely) in the fourth quarter. Osman notched 20/3/2, and +3 with two steals and three turnovers in 30 minutes, on a prolific 6-12 from deep. Meanwhile Sexton played just under 19 minutes for a 10/1/0 line and -15 while Jarret Allen bled a point a minute with a 4/8/0 -22 line. Honestly, I didn’t think JA was THAT bad and was a victim of a lot of bad Sexland passing, but his lack of activity on the boards was reminiscent of his post all-star break swoon last year that so consternated CtB’s Chris Francis.

I know Kevin Love provides steady offensive leadership for this team, and his rebounding (11/12/2) was frankly a necessity this game. But why he’s playing on the back end of a back-to-back again, and why he can’t hit jump shots consistently (4-12) remains a mystery. JB not reinserting some starters like Mobley and Sexton when the game seemed redeemable also seemed odd. Evan went just 1-6 from the floor and for a 2/4/4 night but I didn’t see any glaring reason not to let him play. Markkanen finally had a nice shooting night with 11 on five shots, but didn’t rebound at all. Wade and Windler made the case for more playing time with some nice defensive and offensive plays, going +6 and +7 and combining for 13/10/2 in 34 minutes. But they were just 1-7 from deep, missing mostly open looks. Still they deserve more run, and the courtesy of getting in a playing rhythm.

As for Sexton, the piling on really got rolling this morning, as Jason Lloyd broke out this tidbit in his usual trolling fashion.

Collin Sexton’s side originally asked for the type of money De’Aaron Fox and Jamal Murray received, a source tells @ByJasonLloyd.

◻️ Fox: Five years, $163M
◻️ Murray: Five years, $170M

“The Cavs weren’t interested in anything close to that.”

More: https://t.co/dA0BLckZXP pic.twitter.com/Kba0UcrXMv

— The Athletic NBA (@TheAthleticNBA) October 31, 2021

Of course Collin’s Sexton’s agents asked for that type of money. Cleveland had been running him as the face of the franchise for three straight seasons, and according to Lloyd, part of the hesitation had been on because Cleveland wanted to see him next to their new face of the franchise, Evan Mobley. I feel for Collin, and I do honestly think the negotiations eventually centered around that $20 million per year number. It also feels like this situation is headed for a divorce. As we’ve all noted, Sexland does not seem sustainable defensively long term, even when running a three big lineup, and as Chris Fedor noted in his recap, Phoenix found ways of mitigating the Cavs’ size, by hiding Booker on Lauri and daring the Cavs to use Lauri’s size to punish them, which they did not.

Back to the discussion I was having with my peer: he lamented the Cavs giving so much leeway to a pace-killing, assist hunting Rubio who is only signed for one season, while seemingly bailing on the development of Sexton and Garland. JB seemed peeved in the fourth and after the game, especially about the turnovers. I’d guess that JB sees the writing on the wall about his job. Development time is over (as dumb as that seems). It’s hard to tell if Sexton’s fourth quarter benching was tough love or desperation to win by JB.

As for the Suns, it’s not that they played particularly well, it’s just that Cleveland’s 21 turnovers fueled their offense, and they got a lot of easy buckets. Phoenix still only went 6-26 from deep, but Chris Paul doesn’t beat himself and Devin Booker can fall out of bed and score 27.

Watching Chris Paul orchestrate the pick-&-roll and instantly go to different options off of it and be right time after time was masterful.

Painful but masterful.#Cavs

— Michael A. Young (@RealMYoung23) October 31, 2021

Again, the Cavs can play well, but seem to have these disastrous stretches where they just can’t get out of their own way and their offense feeds their opponents’ D. The question is, will games like this be a learning experience for Cleveland where they build their conditioning, or is Bickerstaff just mismanaging a tired team by not extending his rotation (and then hamfisting it)? Overall, this game felt like a disaster when it shouldn’t have been and the post-game presser felt like a lot of JB blaming Sexland for the turnovers while not acknowledging his on role in failing to manage their first half minutes, putting them in position to fail.

Bickerstaff talks about wanting to play faster, but his team doesn’t seem to get what that means. Playing faster to Cleveland feels like just running down and jacking a quick shot or the bigs running the floor, but we don’t often enough see the smart transition action that feeds open looks, like quick wing screens, post-ups, or Nashes for the trailers that smart teams do. Rarely is there off-ball screening in the Cavs’ offense to generate motion and space, especially early in the clock. That is on the coach.

Coaching is hard. It’s a balance. I especially disliked JB’s player blaming and general anger in the game. It’s the kind of thing that turns off young players. We’ll see how his team responds after a cross country trip to Charlotte, Monday, and I expect a bit of soul searching and adjustment when they get home against the Blazers’ Wednesday. But with games coming every other day until Nov. 8, the pressure won’t let up on the coach and his players. I hope they harden instead of breaking.