Recaps Squared (or, Pups in the Dog House?)
2022-11-17The Cavs have extended their losing streak to five games, losing to both the struggling Minnesota Timberwolves 129-124 and the hospital Milwaukee Bucks 113-98. Neither game was all that competitive outside of a career performance from Darius Garland against the T-Wolves in the fourth quarter of the game that gave the Cavs some false hope. Let’s dive into the takeaways this week…
1. “Arrogant basketball” and “Fat Cats”
In recent times, Coach J.B. Bickerstaff has laid out perhaps his harshest criticism of the team in his entire Cleveland tenure saying last night that the Cavs have gone from junkyard dawgs to “fat cats” who are reading their own press clippings coming off of the eight game winning streak, including two wins against 2021-22 Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics. When asked if there was a common thread in the losses, J.B. quickly and correctly identified the faltering defense, which has posted a pathetic 119.8 defensive rating in the six losses this season. So why has the defense faltered? Allow yours truly to venture a theory…
2. F*** Injuries: Dean Wade and Jarrett Allen Edition
It is no coincidence that the collapse in defense has occurred while Jarrett Allen and “James” Dean Wade have been out due to injury. Check out these stats, which illuminate what Wade and Allen mean to the Cavs’ defense:
Cavs’ defensive rating with Dean Wade on the court this season: 97.2
Cavs’ defensive rating with Jarrett Allen on the court this season: 104.9
(calculations courtesy of, in order: dunksandthrees.com, pbpstats.com, and nba.com/stats)
By these measures, it’s clear that both Wade and Allen are two of the best defenders the Cavs on the roster. Wade was having a career year until his injury, and easily could be considered one of the best bargain contracts in the NBA. Even though Allen has struggled slightly on offense, he’s taken his game up a notch especially on the glass, transforming into one of the premier rebounders in the NBA. Until these two key players come back, there’s no reason to expect the defense to be operating at 100%.
On the flip side, who’s struggling on defense? Allow yours truly to venture a guess…
3. Pups in the Dog House?
The elephant in the room apparently with the Cavs is the struggles of their young players, namely Darius Garland and Evan Mobley. They aren’t playing winning basketball right now, and the defensive stats paint a bleek picture:
As everyone can see, Evan Mobley’s defense cratered from last year’s Defensive Player of the Year candidate performance. No question his offense has improved, but not nearly enough for him to be a net negative on defense. As for DG, he getting completely exposed on defense individually and collectively he and Mobley are unplayable defensively. Obviously, it’s early and over 75% of the season is ahead of them, but the early trends are disturbing.
4. What’s J.B. Gonna Do?
The junkyard dogs have become "fat cats."
How #Cavs lost their way and why J.B. Bickerstaff is hinting at lineup changes following a lengthy heart-to-heart conversation with the team before flying back homehttps://t.co/SaE7QjlvU0— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) November 17, 2022
In last night’s press conference, J.B. opened up the door for lineup changes. In Chris Fedor’s article on cleveland.com, he mentions Isaac Okoro and Lamar Stevens as guys who might be tapped to improve the defensive side the ball. The fall guys in last night’s game for their minutes were Caris LeVert and Cedi Osman. From a purely basketball standpoint, it should be DG and Mobley that should have to start earning minutes to stay on the court. But how can you bench the “franchise player” in Mobley or the 200 million dollar man DG? It’s going to be very interesting how J.B. plays this because it’s the older, more veteran players who are pulling their weight. The “young stars” aren’t yet.
5. They’re figuring it out on offense though,
The best news from the losing streak is definitely DG and Mobley getting right offensively. DG dropped a 50-burger on the Timberwolves while Evan Mobley dropped a tidy 9-14 performance against the gargantuan Bucks’ front court. The best thing about young players is watching them improve.
6. Quick notes on the Timberwolves and Bucks
Man that loss to the Timberwolves stings, mainly because the Cavs weren’t able to keep a bad team down. The defense got eviscerated by DG, and Anthony Edwards looked completely disengaged from the game. That will be a game the Cavs look back on and wish they had it back.
As for the Bucks, they look like the cream of the crop in the Eastern Conference. It’s really the Bucks and Celtics who have established themselves as the class of the conference. The Cavs are in that next tier of teams behind them, but yours truly loves the chances that they can join those top two teams and make it a three team race.
7. Next up, a must-win
The Cavs will be facing off against the stealth tanking Charlotte Hornets, who will be without LaMelo Ball presumably to re-injury. If the Cavs end up losing this game, it would go down as the worst loss of the season and cause for panic among the Cavs’ faithful. Hopefully J.B. can right the ship, this is what he gets paid the big bucks for, Go Cavs!
Live Thread is not loading. Jarrett is playing great, though and keeping us up.
Thanks for the caps homey.
Yes sir!!!!
LT up!
Can’t get into the LT for some reason?!
hang on, me neither LMFAO
working now, head on in for the game.
Hmm still not working. I’ll close down and retry.
it takes a long time to load, no idea why
Nope doesn’t work
Same for me.
Looks like Lonzo Ball is out for the Hornets
That’d be his brother LaMelo LMFAO
Him too 😂
Probably no need for the spider monkey sh*t with two guys who aren’t always the most durable…. alhough this did put a BIG smile on my face.
JA has insane hops!!!
So it appears DG, DM, Stevens, Mobley, and Allen as starters tonight.
Allen back. Praise be!!!
Wade/Spida/Caris trio: +29.96 net rating in 114 minutes
Spida/Caris/DG trio: -6.91 net rating in 152 minutes
Wade is the glue this team needs. I really wish we had Markenen against that Bucks team. He would’ve been the difference against Lopez lobbing 3s.
holy shit Allen has insane hops LMFAOOOOOO
dammit replied to the wrong one.
Wade is out tonight. Sad face.
Sucks
Great cap and analysis CLF! Donovan has a great head on his shoulders, he seems to understand where the teams at and what it’s going to take to move through it. The win streak wasn’t a fluke and neither is the losing streak. We have the players to be great. They’ll figure it out, often that learning curve is a bitch.
Thanks WCC as always, I agree… it’s a VERY young squad, no way to get around that except thru it!
Back in the 216 to see the next 3 in person. Really hoping JA is back in the lineup, at least for Heat and Hawks.
Neto needs time not playing w a scrub lineup — at least a few minutes w one of DG or DM on floor plus a frontline scorer. Believe he can be effective if he can focus just on facilitating.
and Neto’s on ball defense is fantastic, gets under guys skin.
Hell yeah enjoy Patrick, GO CAVS!
Of course the Cavs D will take a hit with JA out (which also causes Mobley to be able to provide less weakside help), and Wade, but the Cavs started out the first couple of weeks with opponents hitting below league average from 3. I can’t remember the number, but I believe it was around 32%. Lately, those numbers are reversed. The last 3 games opponents’ 3P% is 43.4% — Cavs are 4th worst in the NBA in that span. I do expect those numbers to level off some, Cavs have been a little unlucky in this short losing streak.… Read more »
At the end of the day, it’s the defense’s job to put pressure on the ball and disrupt the offense’s rhythm They’re giving up wide open looks by overhelping or not rotating at all. They gave up a 120 offesnive rating, that didn’t happen by accident LMFAOOO
and conversely they were playing defense like absolute demons during the win streak, partly because they were playing without the guy that’s tanking the whole defense (DG).
To Mike’s point their d rating was likely affected by 3 point variance even when playing better d during the winning streak as they gave up a fair number of wide open threes. Off the top of my head Boston missed a ton of open threes in one of those games.
I understand, but chalking up defensive success or lack thereof to “variance” simply isn’t true when there’s a clear difference in personnel and effort when comparing the wins and losses.
apropos, with Spida at the 1, Caris at the 2, and Wade at the 3 the Cavs ability to present size and athleticism on the perimeter, compared to a DG/Spida/Caris lineup.
No but I don’t think we were as good defensively as the rating implied during the win streak.
yes, that’s true and can be ascribed to variance, but that’s becuase their rating was a completely unsustainable ~93 LMFAOOO
I’d be interested in Mobley’s defensive stats with JA and without. When JA is on the court Mobley can hunt for blocks and JA is back there to rebound and defend the basket. Without him he needs to adjust and stay home more.
We need a win tonight!
They’ve actually been awful together, 114 defensive rating with Tower city, 118 defensive rating with just Mobley.
I don’t think role is a concern at all, Mobley’s simply playing bad defense this season.
UNCLE BUCKAROO NORMALL IS SPOT ON WITH HIS WORDS OF WISDOM —–S COOPER WITH 42 LAST NIGHT/ BACK TO BACK 40 PT EFFORTS—-MIGHT AS WELL BRING HIM UP AND HAVE ANOTHER 6 ‘ GD WHO CAN SCORE 40 BUT CAN’T DEFEND———DNA IS A PECULIAR THING WATCHING THE LOPEZ “TWINS ‘ THE OTHER NIGHT WTF —-ONE IS LIGHTS OUT FROM 3 PT LAND AND THE OTHER ” CAN’T HIT THE WATER FALLING OUT OF THE BOAT “…………….” MORE BEER PLEASE “
Hopefully moving LeVert to the bench ups his usage and subsequently allows him to facilitate more and be more aggressive as he was early in the season. If he can facilitate for the bench units I think their productivity should return to somewhat what it was during the win streak.
Too many ball dominant players and not enough to go around when he, DG, and DM are all on the floor at the same time.
Of course the defense is still the major issue.
I should’ve said this in the article, but shoutout to Nate Smith, Tom Pestak, and uncle buck turgidson for calling out the kids early…. they were onto them from the jump.
As a non-expert, is Mobley failing or being failed by the system? It’s not like Garland could play defense last year, so the team weakness on defense still exists. Are teams better attacking Mobley or is he just off his game?
non-expert as well, but i’d say it’s a combination of both… i think he’s on a the perimeter a lot on defense and he’s lost some patience on the defensive end, too jumpy and foul prone now.