Recap: Cavs 118, Hawks 121 (or, The Professional)

Hello and Happy New Year C:tB! Best wishes to everyone for a great year ahead, here’s hoping for less societal and global carnage and more good times with family, friends, and fellow Cavs fans.

The Cavaliers wanted to turn the corner on 2021 with a win over a struggling and pandemic-scrambled Hawks team, but instead we got an entertaining loss. This game ended up as a de facto battle between Kevin Love (35 points) and Trae Young (35 points), with Cleveland failing to capitalize on Love’s brilliant effort. Riding a whopping 23 rebounds by Clint Capela and competent play by their reserves and new arrivals, the Hawks eradicated Cleveland’s significant halftime advantage by way of an explosive 40-point third quarter, and hung on down the stretch for a narrow win.

The Cavs platoon of guards (none of whom was named Darius, Ricky, or Rajon) were outmatched by the Hawks backcourt, who led Atlanta to a near NBA record of two turnovers on the whole game. J.B. Bickerstaff was frustrated with the cumulative effect of bad calls and non-calls by the green officiating crew, centering around Trae Young, so he overflowed and picked up a technical to start the fourth. In the aggregate, Cleveland also benefitted from the tight officiating, but went a mediocre 14-24 at the stripe vs. Atlanta’s tidy 19-21, and crucially the Cavs missed four or five freebies in the last five minutes. New Cavs arrival Brandon Goodwin showed some promise in his first appearance, playing nearly 25 minutes as Cleveland continued to churn through the post-Rubio conundrum and awaited the arrival of Rajon Rondo. Ultimately it was a gutsy performance under the ongoing challenging circumstances, but a winnable contest that got away.

Awards

The game ball goes to Kevin Love, who was the ultimate professional in this game. Entering the game in his now-familiar role as sixth man, Love propelled the Cavs offense, tallying 35 points on 10-18 shooting, 7-14 from three in just under 30 minutes of work. Love also distributed well from the perimeter, feeding interior bigs with 4 assists, and brought down 11 rebounds. His interior defensive presence also helped to position Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley to resume their block party (three each). The first quarter saw Love drop in 3 of 3 triples including a heat check from about six feet outside the arc. At one point he took the rebound up the floor himself to shove it to Mobley under the basket for a dunk. Apart from one miscommunication midway through the third quarter, Love also spent significant time in this game keeping Young and various screeners in check on the perimeter. To say that his offense was “video game” or a “cheat code” manages to capture the exhilaration of the repeated makes while underplaying the difficulty of getting open looks in the first place, given the lack of his regular stable of point guards in this game.

For Atlanta, Young lived up to his hype, and Capela was relentless on the glass with four blocks to go with his near two-dozen rebounds. But in the unexpected absence of Cam Reddish (see First World War Infirmary Update, below), it was the production from role players that kept the Hawks in this game. Coach Nate McMillian coaxed strong performances from guard Skylar Mays, forward Cameron Oliver, and Dean Wade’s old Kansas State teammate Wes Iwundu logged 43 solid minutes (5-10 shooting, six rebounds, five personal fouls) and ranged around the perimeter. Apart from five minutes of Lance Stephenson in the first half, the Hawks for the most part looked like a competitive NBA team, so props to their franchise for picking their way through the pandemic chaos and picking up some momentum after a couple of crushing losses to the Bulls.

Kevin Pangos

This was easily the most consequential challenge thus far in the season for Cavs guard Kevin Pangos, who started and logged 23 minutes in this game, going 4-9 from the field with four assists. After riding Goodwin during the tightest stretch of the fourth, coach J.B. Bickerstaff put the ball in Pangos’ hands for the final shot hoping to force overtime. Pangos had a clean look but could not get the shot to drop, nor any threes as he ended 0-4 from distance for the game.

Pangos had started off moving with ease through Hawks defense in the first half. His tendency is to distribute rather than shoot even when given a clean look, apart from the beginning of the fourth where he came out determined to score. He saw a couple of floaters go in — the whole “freeze the defender expecting pass, do floater off top of glass” thing — but he didn’t quite have the timing or lethality of the Garland-Allen or Garland-Mobley pick and roll game. In the first half he baited Young into a perimeter non-shooting foul and at one point skied for a high loose ball and rewarded Young for contesting it by landing on him and drawing a foul.

Other Guards

Isaac Okoro continued to reacclimate himself with professional basketball, fouling out in the final minute and showing again his nice finishing ability in the paint, going 4-4 (including a single three-point shot). Does this man lead the league in fouls called trying to get around picks?

Brandon Goodwin missed an opportunity in the last couple minutes of the first half to further extend the lead, with Love calling for ball on a couple of possessions not getting it. There was plenty of chatter on the livethread (particularly comments from JohnB and Raoul) with respect to Pangos and the Cavs’ roster endgame. Dylan Windler got three and a half minutes of run in the final quarter, hardly garbage time.

Lou Williams was inefficient with a 3-12 (1-6 from three) performance and got the brunt of the lineup chaos playing with an entirely new second unit, but he still got to the line frequently (7-7). Lamar Stevens was all over him early — bringing Austin Carr’s perceptive wordplay to mind: “When Lamar is guarding you, you know you are being guarded.”
However, when Lamar Stevens acted as the Cavs’ first option on defense for a stretch in the third quarter, the results were not positive — he went 1-7 in the period. Skylar Mays was playing comfortably for the Hawks, splashing in 19 points, another Louisiana State University graduate born in Baton Rouge.

Random Bigs 

Mobley was again impressive, ending with 16 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocked shots. He had his hands full with the Hawks’ bigs but showed his characteristic soft touch and ended on 8-12 from the field, with no threes attempted.

Wes Iwundu twice slipped around Mobley after Mobley handoffs to the curling Love or Markkanen, causing defensive havoc and forcing misses or steals. Kevin Love had a great sequence where he drew a charge on an overexcited Lance Stevenson (or does the name itself imply overexcitement?) in the lane, then went down and banged in another 3.

Lauri Markkanen showed his value on the defensive end, ripping down five rebounds in the first half but putting up few numbers in the second half and getting tortured on a few possessions by Trae Young. Right in front of a referee, Trae practically gut-punched him off of the three point line, but no whistle resulted, perhaps because Markkanen has the same problem as Julius Randle; he looks like he can take it. Markkanen ended up 4-10, but if you feel like it’s been a long while since he hit a three-pointer you would not be wrong. Markkanen made no threes in this game and is 2-25 from deep in the last six games, currently making him 30.7% from three for the year.

First World War Infirmary Update

A couple of hours before the game, for purposes surrounding my day job, I found myself stuck into a a military history of the Korean War. In a very long diversion intended to set the stage, the author fixated on a group of Virginian officers, discussing their deep family ties and reverence for the Confederate society and military (oddly enough this was seen as a positive rather than a prohibitive quality in commanding black troops in Italy in World War II). The reader then arrives with the Virginians in Europe and the Western Front of the First World War in August 1918 to fight the Germans. Battling through cases of the Spanish influenza and working against a torrential rain, they had finally made it to the front lines, settling in with their first modest supper. Naturally the German artillery opened up and hundreds had to be immediately evacuated from the mud with shrapnel wounds. So all of their gallantry meant squat, and their sole battlefield experience ended up consisting of opening a can of rations before getting wounded and sent away.

Which brings me to Cam Reddish. With an injury about ten minutes into this game, the Hawks young power forward added another digit to the combined 18 players either injured or on health and safety protocols at the outset of this game. Reddish of course is not a Virginian scion of the Confederate elite, nor has he been “fighting the Germans” but rather trying to hold off the Chicago Bulls, to the tune of 33 points in one losing effort. Because round numbers make everything easier, if you throw in the absence of Denzel Valentine (listed out as “not with team – personal”), that’s 20 players in aggregate who were unavailable for this game.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Finally, a sighting of Saint Ricky — Ricky Rubio was in the stands tonight, with a good seat to watch Kevin Love’s All Star caliber performance. Would that the Cavs could have channeled his free throw shooting!

Win or lose, it’s the community and connectedness that keeps us going, so thanks to all who have read and commented on the livethreads, recaps and analysis of the past year. And a redoubled thanks to the C:tB team for sharing all of the ideas and support and camaraderie in 2021.

The Cavs will again meet the Hawks on February 16, which is on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. They play Indiana later today, a 6 p.m. start in Cleveland. Go Cavs!