Recap: Cavs 117, Clippers 119 (or, Running on Empty)

Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I’m running behind

-Jackson Browne

Back-to-backs are part of the NBA grind. Road back-to-backs are even tougher. All teams go through them… and respond in different ways. Young teams with young legs (especially early in the season) typically don’t need a ton of load management in these situations. Yet, young teams that are still learning sometimes accidentally run out of gas trying to close out games they should win.

For 43 minutes against a trendy pre-season championship contender pick, Los Angeles Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers had plenty of fuel in the tank. They turned a tightly contested game into a 13 point, seemingly commanding lead with just five minutes remaining. However, unlike the Lakers who were content to wave the white flag at a similar juncture the day prior… this NBA Champion Ty Lue coached Clips squad was resilient enough to run past the young Cavs on a 21-6 tear to cross the finish line first.

At one point, Los Angeles scored 15 straight… while the Cavs sputtered and stalled out, missing seven consecutive shots and committing three costly turnovers. The only remaining fuel was thrown on the fiery Clippers by the attendants in stripes who missed several egregious errors to compound Cleveland’s miserable stretch. Yet, refballing alone doesn’t account for coughing up a double digit lead in mere minutes. No, the real onus lies with the man driving this team who either took his eye off of the fuel gage… or was attempting to do something not even Cosmo Kramer could pull off… to go “further to the left of the slash THAN ANYONE EVER DREAMED!”

Just like Kramer, JB Bickerstaff decided to stick to his dreams of extending the longest winning streak in five years by once again riding his starters until there were only fumes remaining. But like Kramer and Icarus before him… JB flew too close to the sun and dared fate to teach him and his young team a (hopefully) valuable lesson. Even young legs get tired. Championship level teams don’t get left on the side of the road… they pace themselves to make it back to the dealership with the win.

If the surprising win last Friday night over the (admittedly lowly) Pistons in Detroit didn’t prove to Bickerstaff just how deep his tank of reserves is… I’m not sure what will. Using an eight man rotation in early November on the second night of a back-to-back against a veteran team like the Clippers is borderline criminal, and at the very least highly inexcusable. Where was Raul Neto (DNP-CD) to spell a clearly gassed Darius Garland with some timely workmanlike and reliable ball handling and gritty defense? Where was Robin Lopez (DNP-CD) to give Evan Mobley (who fouled out) a few minutes and fouls of his own to the undersized Clipper front court? Where was the court time for Cedi Osman (three minutes) and Lamar Stevens (DNP-CD), two wings that might have helped on the perimeter to slow down the 17-38 three point barrage unleashed by Los Angeles?

For all of his fiery halftime speeches, JB has become positively Thibsian when designing his rotations lately in this young season. Yes… riding your starters when they are as dominant and fueled up as they can be for big matchups and playoff previews is one thing. But, playing your starting back court 38-39 minutes a night in a back-to-back in games 9-10 of an 82 game season is kind of insane… particularly when you have so many highly playable rotation pieces in reserve.

Adding fuel to the fire, JB chose to use his challenge (and burn a timeout which might have been better used in the final flurry to set up a game tying three) on a foul call against Mobley that was pretty clearly a foul. And, as a result, didn’t have that same challenge to reverse a costly offensive foul call against Caris LeVert that wound up being the start of the reverse Cavalanche. It certainly seemed like a more potentially winnable challenge with the way the Clipper defender crashed into Caris on his release of his triple, which (if overturned) would have given LeVert three shots at the line and possibly ended the momentum before it started for L.A.

Now that I’ve possibly overreacted to JB’s seeming inattention to fuel gauges and replay, let’s take Donovan Mitchell’s post-game interview advice and not overreact to the significance of this tired defeat rudely snatched from the jaws of victory. After all, Don thinks there’s a lesson to be learned about how teams might play the Cavs come playoff time…

And, he’s right. The Clippers did a really good job of focusing on him, denying him the ball and forcing the other Cavs to beat them in crunch time. Even though Spida wound up with another 30 point performance on a crazy efficient 10-15 shooting, including 8-11 from deep, he didn’t have a made field goal in the final 11 minutes of the game.

Garland, as tired as he seemed in the end, still put up 19 points and 12 dimes. Though he took several uncharacteristically ill-advised and ill-timed threes throughout the night and turned the ball over five times. It’s important to remember DG is only really 3.5 games into this season given the gruesome eyelid injury and subsequent knee tweak in the last Celtics game. So, there’s definitely confidence he’ll bounce back from an oddly subpar evening and be gassed up and ready to go on Wednesday.

The front court was certainly a highlight early and then for the majority of the final quarter until the last five minutes. Evan Mobley looked like a man possessed initially, putting up 16 points in the first half on his way to what seemed like could be his first 30 point game of the year. Unfortunately, foul trouble plagued him, and even though he ended up with an impressive 26 points on 12-18 shooting to go with eight boards, he fouled out in the final minute and was a -20 on the night.

Meanwhile, Jarrett Allen was an absolute glass monster tonight, snagging an incredible 20 on his way to a double-double with 10 points to go with two steals and two blocks. With the Cavs shooting so well from the perimeter (16-33), there wasn’t much attention paid to some possible easy paint points for JA, but he thoroughly dominated Ivica Zubac… and saved his best block for Mr. Diplomatic Immunity a la Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 2…

.@_bigjayy_ 🤝 @CarisLeVert

📺 https://t.co/lfioSM8cqh pic.twitter.com/J9dMtScZfz

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) November 8, 2022

Big props once again for another outstanding Kevin Love performance as well. Gramps showed he still has plenty left in the tank (at least in his 20-25 minutes) with 17 points, eight rebounds, four assists and a steal. He almost singlehandedly built the Cavs biggest lead of the night in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Clippers 11-5 before the car stalled in the final five minutes.

Caris LeVert was solid with six boards and five dimes, but only netted four points on 2-8 shooting. His mid-range game was off again, and it would probably behoove JB and the team to draw up more slashing drives for Caris in the flow of the game.

Dean Wade hit a couple of big threes, but was sadly only given 15 minutes of burn by JB.

Overall, this was one of those early season lessons that every young team is faced with as they strive towards real and sustained contention. The question will be whether or not they, and their coach decide to make this loss a valuable one by responding with a bit more attention and care to fuel shortages along the way. As JB said in his post-game… “You don’t expect to win them all. You expect to have some adversity and some ups and downs, but it’s what happens next.”

Indeed, JB. Learn from this… and don’t mess around with the left of the slash.

Parting Shot

On a personal note, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to watch a full game in real time and write it up afterwards. While I certainly was hoping to recap the ninth straight victory to start the season, it was tremendous fun watching this game and following along with the commentariat. This is an incredibly entertaining, dynamic, resilient and endearing team to watch, and it’s a real joy to have such an awesome collection of young (and veteran) talented guys who pull and root for each other nightly. The road beckons, and the Cavs will keep running on this trip. Hope to join you all for a couple more at least, and may this team fuel us all winter long. Peace out and GO CAVS!