Recap: Cavs 127, Pacers 124 (or, Mr. Indiana Makes History)
2022-03-09The Cavs steal a victory in the night against the Indiana Pacers 127-124, on the back of a historic performance from the pride of Gary, Indiana, Darius Garland. While DG put on an offensive performance for the ages, Lamar “Top Dawg” Stevens closed the game out with fantastic defensive playmaking to secure the win. Let’s dive right into tonight’s takeaways…
1. Darius Garland with another MVP performance
The Darius Garland agenda has never been better, with the 21 year-old All-Star point guard stacking up MVP performance after MVP performance. What was so special about Garland’s game tonight is that it translated to team excellence. DG was a +24.9 net rating in 37.2 minutes on the court of a game that the Cavs won by only three… that’s crazy. Watching DG orchestrate offense in a Chris Paul-like manner during the fourth quarter was mesmerizing, he captured the attention and imagination of all NBA fans across Twitter. With DG being able to carry the offense to elite levels, Cavs’ fans can rest easy that they’ll stay in the playoff race in spite of all the guys out.
2. Evan Mobley agenda trending upwards
Evan “the Professional” Mobley seems to be trending in the right direction these days, stacking winning performances up. Tonight was no exception with 22 efficient points, 12 rebounds, five steals, three assists, a block, and a +7.7 net rating. Even though Mobley’s offensive game was spectacularly good tonight, he’s still just scratching the surface of what he can become. One aspect on display that was of particular excitement to yours truly, POINT MOBLEY:
Evan Mobley is absurd, seven-footers aren't supposed to do stuff like this pic.twitter.com/AYrdhWZtOB
— Tony Pesta (@Tony_Pesta) March 9, 2022
Give him the damn ball J.B. and let him cook!
3. J.B. makes the right calls
Coach J.B. Bickerstaff decided to embrace the basketball excellence of “James” Dean Wade to great success as he was efficient and productive in his role, and had a very positive impact on the starting lineup as a whole. Wade was a +13.0 in 37.1 minutes on the court, so there’s no question that he had J.B.’s trust tonight. One guy that J.B. should’ve put more trust in was Lamar Stevens, but that’s just a nitpick since J.B. did turn to him in the crucial moments down the stretch.
Another interesting choice by J.B. that could provide benefits later down the road was putting Isaac “Ice” Okoro and Lamar Stevens together on the court with combinations of shooters. What this lineup provided was some much needed physical perimeter defense at the point of attack. They were able to come up with crucial stops in the fourth quarter and it allowed Darius Garland to really cook on offense. Stay tuned to see if there’s growing magic with Ice/Stevens lineup.
4. Bench blues yet again
The bench unit struggled mightily tonight, getting blown out of the water in their minutes. Rajon Rondo and Ed Davis were useless offensively, Cedi Osman and Kevin Love were useless defensively. It’s unclear if Brandon Goodwin would’ve improved the bench situation, but he certainly couldn’t have hurt it much worse, and frankly he’s earned the right to get those minutes to find out.
5. Quick note on the Pacers
One big takeaway about the Indiana Pacers is how freaking good is Tyrese Halliburton? He and Darius Garland absolutely put on a spectacular exhibition of basketball. Being able to trade for him and Buddy Hield seems like a smashing success so far in terms of finding dynamic offensive talent on the perimeter. They really need Myles Turner back though, that defense is pitiful. Quick shoutout to Goga Bitadze, he was a menace down low tonight. With the loss, the Cavs sweep the season series.
6. Next up, the gauntlet
This is the Cavs schedule this weekend:
Adam Silver is a menace. The Cavs will have a chance to sweep the season series against Miami, which is quite the feather in the Cavs’ cap were they able to accomplish that, with the Heat being the top seed in the Eastern Conference and all. A split between these two games would be completely fine, but dare to dream bigger… the Cavs have Darius Garland. Go Cavs!
LT up!
If Cedi and KLove show up this weekend we can win, if they don’t play at a high level so goes the team.
Big game tonight – see how Cavs stack up – yes Levert probably not playing – but Cavs still gotta go out there and compete
Where are you getting the Levert intel?
Fedor reported he’s out tonight
as for the Nets and 76rs…the cavs shouldn’t care at all about the 76rs. They will likely find out in the first and 2nd round of the playoffs that searching for fouls isn’t a viable option for a championship strategy. The nets are a genuine threat for the 6th seed in the east…but thanks to the NBA’s rule are handicapped at home. The cavs have an opportunity to earn a full series in the playoffs just by going slightly over .500 the rest of the way. I hope JB entertains diverse lineups to get there…but in all likelihood he will… Read more »
I hope JB is looking up at the standings and not down – would love to be a 4 or 5 seed. Still play the Bulls twice, Sixers twice, and Bucks once. Even if we go 2-3 in our next 5, we’ll be in decent shape.
As long as we have DG and Mobley, I’m giving us a chance. Hopefully Levert is back soon. Need some other guys to step up but they’ve believed all season. Let’s go Cavs!!
The hate for Kyrie is so weird here. He was annoying in his last couple years in cleveland…the flat earth thing was more than likely a troll…and ever since he left cleveland he has proven he is a stud who can’t lead a team. Who effing cares!
He was more than annoying, Scotch. His egomania — believing he was the kind of leader who could to carry a team and resenting being in the shadow of (possibly) the GOAT — likely deprived us of at least one more championship, if not LBJ staying and building in Cleveland. Plus as one the most prominent anti-vaxxers, particularly among the African American community, his straight-up stupidity likely actually cost people their lives. I love watching him play — so beautiful — but as a human being, he’s a straight-up POS.
It’s the smug imbecile persona. I don’t think the sentiment is unique to this site. A lot of writers and talking heads across the league treat him like he’s a joke. Anyway, I don’t think there’s a particular fixation here where every conversation comes back to hating on Kyrie.
“smug imbecile” is perfect!
i love how good the writing is on this site — from the staff to the commenters. carry on CTB’ers!
other than the fact that he prevented a likely several year series of Cavs/Dubs NBA finals?
Wiggins blows.
HaHa. Cavs drafted him in stead of Embiid with a foot injury.
Sixers getting destroyed. The golden turd is once again a no show in a big game.
OK everyone, if forced to choose between the Nets and 76ers, who ya got?
I’d go Sixers. I cannot stand Harden, but once upon a time, Dr. J was my favorite player, and those Doc, Moses, Cheeks, Andrew Toney, Bobby Jones 76ers were my team.
I dislike the Nets more than the 76’ers, as well as disliking NYC more than Philly. Philly did boo Santa and drive him off the field with snowballs, so there’s that.
Without knowing much about him, I like Embiid, and wish the Cavs had taken him. He can’t be worse than the Flat-Earther.
Pretty raw talent – picked him up in fantasy briefly last year because he would grab a ton of boards. Definitely think he’s better than Tacko and probably equivalent or better than Ed Davis at this point
Mobley’s lob passes are just insane for a rookie big to be throwing. Just an amazing instinctive skill set.
yeah, so many players overshoot that pass, he put it on the money and he’s a freaking rookie center in the NBA!
Oh, and great recap, Chris. Love that you drew attention to the Ice-Stevens lineup. So many variants we could use with that. Especially like the idea of DG/IO/LS/LM/EM. Lauri is your only corner-three threat but the defense would be crushing and with DG at PG, he can get IO/LM the ball where they can succeed. Or you do EM/JA at the 4/5 and forget about threes, get everything inside and just completely shut down the other team’s offense.
Thanks worldbfree! appreciate you reading and chopping it up here!
Yeah i drew attention to that lineup in part because I hated it at the time it happened, and then of course, I was forced to eat my words because it looked wildly successful LMFAOOOOO
It just provides that element of defense on the perimeter that has been missing since Rubio went down… and it works because DG is an offensive genius.
Also, it opens up shooting big combos such with Lauri, Love, and Wade, those lineups were posting absurdly good offensive ratings.
I think JB has done a great job this year, but the one piece that baffles me is underusing Stevens and Wade. I haven’t checked the stats but to the eye-test/gut-check we are just clearly a better team when those guys play. Exhibit A — last night. Their hunger and grit is infectious. Their teammates clearly love them. Ice plays better when he has to compete for his minutes. And it means more rest and fewer fouls for EM, IO, KL, LM, CL. I understand that players need enough minutes to get in a rhythm and that 8-9 man rotations… Read more »
Agree 100%. I love Stevens for his toughness, and Wade is a sneaky good defender, rebounder and can spread the floor with a decent 3 point shot that you have to respect. Indy left him open late in the game and he punished them. STEVENS just brings it every second and you’re right, it’s infectious. Certain players talent is energy and they both have it.
I had crazy-good seats to the Nets game in Brooklyn back when half the team had Covid and Wade had to cover Durant. He was amazing. You could tell KD was like, “WTF? How’s this chubby white-boy I’ve never heard of keeping me in check?”
Yes, it’s a bit weird. Maybe he was keeping them fresh for all the injuries he knew Cavs were gonna have?
Not missing much, though I will say impact stats say Stevens is one of the weaker links on the roster. But with Stevens, you ignore the numbers and go by the eye test.
But Wade there’s no excuse for JB, though again, if you take Wade’s minutes and games into account, he’s played a decent bit but obviously has been wildly erratic because he misses games and then starts LMFAO.
Such a fun game, though the foul on DG was very bizarre (we’ll take it!) Question to the group: The way Indiana started to double DG at midcourt seems to be a solid blueprint to stop the Cavs during nut-crunch time. What moves (personnel / other) can we make to counter that? I think Lavert being in there would help some? How about Rondo / Love (who i recognize were both awful yesterday) but in theory those two are high IQ players who have a history of being strong passers. If the Cavs fall to the play-in, I would expect… Read more »
Love was awful yesterday, but older players tend to have good and bad days, and Love has a pretty high percentage of good days this year. He also rarely misses a FT, so he would look pretty good in crunch time.
I thought they handled the double team really well. It actually opened up the floor for easy buckets.
Maybe I’m off, but felt like Indiana made their run right after they started forcing DG to give it up. The only “good look” I recall was a possession that ended in a wide open Lauri 3 (he missed but was good ball)
They did make a run at that time, but trapping was still creating easy shots. Mobley missed two shots, both good looks, among the plays that they trapped in that run that I saw.
But you do have a point, they really didn’t punish the trap as well as they should’ve because no one could finish the plays.
Maybe the looks and the process were OK – I admittedly get a little fired up during close games and will miss details. My point is to reiterate what many have said for awhile now; we don’t have enough consistent creators (outside DG) so in the playoffs teams will only raMp up the DG traps. Frankly, if we got swept in a playoff series it might be for the best (nothing like an ass kicking to ignite the work ethic)
Really want to see a FULL playoff series – these guys deserve it.
For sure, I definitely think they envision LeVert ideally in those situations because of his scoring ability.
yup agreed, and it was Mobley at the controls which was why it was going well.
one thing Mobley will have to do better is hunt for his shot in those situations, so it forces the defense to react to his scoring threat and open the passing options.
Appreciate you reading and commenting as always Rob!
do you know how the determine “clutch” vs. “non clutch”?
since i think they’re pulling directly from nba.com, it’d be last five minutes of the game, in which there’s <5 point lead either way.
thnx. sounds reasonable
Would dearly love to beat the Heat, their fan base is awfully cocky and you know how they feel about the Cavs…..
The Bulls are on a slide, they’d have you believe. But they just played the Sixers, Bucks, Grizzlies & Heat…they will be counting on beating the Cavs to maintain.
100% Simmo, gonna be a junkyard dawg weekend!
Butler did not play vs Miami. If he is out we have a shot.
A few thoughts Garland is awesome and only played 37 minutes – thats reasonable and if they can keep him there and dropping those numbers the team will be fine Mobley is already rookie of the year and this solidified it Lamar is better than Okoro and stat sheet proved it and even the late block as well…been saying for awhile play Lamar more minutes and get him involved…i think the Cavs found a gem in him and might be anxious about Okoro (cant have undrafted guys better than lottery guys) Getting nothing from Rondo and Cedi for 25 minutes… Read more »
I’m a fan of Lamar Stevens, for sure, but Okoro is 3 years younger. When he is 24 like Lamar is now he may very well be an all-star, but they have to be willing to give him minutes now for that progression to happen. I think JB used both guys well last night.
yup, good point Charlie.