Recap: Cavs 108, 76ers 112 (or, Crouching Towards the Play-in)

Few things make me feel as old as typing away on a tiny tablet, notebook next to me open and full of 4 scribbled pages of notes,  candles flickering, a forgotten jazz tune crackling over the speakers, no internet in sight. One of those things is complaining about the unequal and inequitable, imprecise and inaccurate job done by rich lawyers paid to attempt, with mixed success, the ushering along of my favorite game in all divinity. One is tempted to to think about Spring and all of her tensions as change pushes against the trees and the mud and the chilly air, pushes toward a crashing point, where equilibrium cannot hold and homogeneity fails. Do the seasons pull these refs out of synch? Or the moon? And as you wonder this, Joel Embiid and James Harden score 65 points off of just 16 made field goals on the way to edging out a resurgent Cavs team for the victory in Cleveland.

1st Quarter

Fouls taken, missed, reviewed, and unchallenged dominated the opening possessions of the contest foreshadowing the majority of subsequent possessions. I nearly turned in a satire piece, instead of this recap, covering exclusively the seventy three free-throw attempts made in this basketball game (42 for Philly, 31 for the Cavs) but felt it would be a disservice to the effort put forth by the team. And besides, the argument hasn’t gotten anywhere yet, and may never. I will simply state that you can, and people have, measure the quality and experience of referees and that, empirically, the Cavs have had among the worst refs in the league this season.

In spite of the looming threat of fouls calls the Cavs opened with impressive energy, clearly showing up the visiting team by measure of grit and heart. The game stayed close as Caris LeVert (18 pts, 7 assists in 37 minutes) found space around ten feet for his midrange shot and the Sixers struggled from deep. Moses Brown (9 pts, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks in 20 minutes), a player that usually exits quickly in his recent emergency starts, comported himself well on the defensive end while showing good finishing with power but poor finishing with touch, and looked appropriately exasperated as Joel Embiid barreled into him again and again. Darius Garland (23/4/4) looked to create and was hounded by effective defense and occasional doubling, looking good without a point scored in the quarter. Cavs left the quarter up 23-21.

2nd Quarter

Cleveland came out shooting hot from deep, kicked off by a run of 3s from Garland, Kevin Love, and Cedi Osman. Soon the Cavs pulled away as the 76ers traded foul calls for made 3 point attempts. Even a returning Rajon Rondo and an improved LeVert added perimeter shooting, keeping the Cavs lead around 10 through the body of the quarter before fluctuating to 6 by the end. Garland and Levert looked especially effective throughout the half with LeVert’s recent offensive production and Garland’s historic post-all-star run allowing the depleted Cavaliers to hang with Embiid (44 pts, 17 rebounds, 4 blocks) and Harden’s 4 points per shot attempt (a pace they would maintain throughout the game.) The teams entered half with a score of Philadelphia 49 Cavaliers 55.

3rd Quarter

The third quarter was probably the first time I have not enjoyed watching a basketball game since the last time the Cavs faced the 76ers. The Cavaliers continued to execute well on both ends. Their currently available players showed improvement on a starting unit that has played south of 50 minutes together prior the night. Lamar Stevens (18 points, 2 blocks) continued to grow as a role player for a good team, reaching offensive efficiently numbers approaching his college career in the recent games where he has played significant minutes. Neither team could quite get to the free throw line often enough to gain an edge as the game crawled through minutes of commercials, apparently ad-hoc on court entertainment as  the amount of prepared events and games and dance numbers dwindled and the producers panicked, toward a near tie score of 81-80 with the advantage toward Philadelphia.

4th Quarter

Coach JB Bickerstaff opened the quarter with Rondo and Garland sharing the back court, a configuration he has often leaned on to close games. It didn’t go very well tonight as the squad came out cold, as they have far too often during the recent skid, missing 4 three attempts in a row. As Embiid scored his 40th and 41st points, both from the free throw line, with nearly 4 minutes left in the quarter, the score barely budged; the Cleveland team was once again hot from 3 and able to alter enough offensive actions by the Sixers to force them into a slightly-less efficient strategy of fouling often and drawing fouls.

Darius Garland’s transcendent point guard play showed once again to the eye test, as his low assist numbers and high turnovers miss several hockey assists and solid off-ball play. The teams entered the final minutes of play with the score teetering towards Philadelphia, 107-106, before the cascading events, some full of basketball wonder, others of the free throw variety, triggered exhaustion. Everyone carried a weight you could feel would tip toward either team at any moment. Garland drew an obvious foul on the arm trying to finish over Embiid, but no foul came. Kafka-esque inanity ensued with 12 seconds left on the clock, that would take several minutes to resolve.

Lauri fouled out on a Harden “tactical chest deployment while jumping” move and surrendered two made free throws to edge the Sixers ahead 109-106. With plenty of time to score, and several off-ball fouls missed, Matisse Thybule managed to out-position Garland on Love’s inbound attempt, intercept the pass, and advance the ball to a breaking Harris to put the final blow to the reeling Cavaliers.

The Cavs now face the very high likelihood of entering the play-in tournament, as yet each remaining game will likely matter as the the Eastern Conference, and the NBA season, lurch toward the triumphant crash of the post-season and the eventual stillness of the off-season broken only by the sounds of James Harden teaching Joel Embiid how to fall down. Cavs lose, 112, 108.