Recap: Cavs 108, Nuggets 121 (or, Bad Habits)

The Cavs played a good half of basketball, then collapsed in the second half as they take the L in the Mile High City against the Denver Nuggets 108-121. Nikola Jokic threw up a common triple double as the Cavs allowed Denver’s offense to dictate the entire game. Let’s dive into last night’s takeaways…

1. Bad Habits?

Coach J.B. Bickerstaff needled his squad in the post-game presser talking about how the Cavs didn’t give the Nuggets their “best shot.” J.B. is right to criticize his squad as there’s now a bit of a repeating pattern with some of the Cavs’ struggles.

First off, the Cavs’ inability to defend the three point line stands out. They gave up almost 50% from three and more than a few looks were uncontested. As the Nets, Raptors, and the Pacers did, Denver played small ball with Bones Hyland, Bruce Brown, and Vlatko Cancar getting most of the bench minutes and completely diced up the entire defense. This is a disturbing trend that J.B. needs to find an answer for.

The second bad habit that stands out is the inability to perform on the road, with only a 7-11 record. NBAstuffer.com has the Cavs as a top 3 underachieving team on the road. Now obviously the Cavs are a very young squad that’s still learning. But improvement will have to come if the Cavs want to go from cute NBA story to legitimate problem for other contenders.

The third bad habit forming is the inability for Darius Garland to perform on the road and morph his game off-ball to impact winning. From member of the Commentariat, Ryan:

The problem with the offense can easily be divined by looking at who the Cavs were using and who was actually efficient scoring the ball. The top three options on offense against the Denver:

Darius Garland: 27.8% usage rate, 46.4% true shooting
Evan Mobley: 21.5% usage rate, 38.4% true shooting
Lamar Stevens: 20.7% usage rate, 43.6% true shooting

As one can see, the offensive game plan was to try spotlight DG and Mobley, but Denver was able to shut them down especially after halftime. DG and Mobley were unable to leverage all the attention the Denver defense put on them to create for others. Instead, they chucked up bad shots and allowed Denver to create easy offense for themselves. On the flip side, here’s who was scoring efficiently against Denver:

Cedi Osman: 75.0% true shooting, 6th in usage for the game (15.9%)
Caris LeVert: 72.4% true shooting, 4th in usage for the game (20.3%)
Kevin Love: 68.3% true shooting, 8th in usage for the game (14.8%)

As one can plainly see, several Cavs had it going offensively yet DG and Mobley (or J.B.) were unable to feed the hot hands with any consistency. Not using NBA Champion Kevin Love to the fullest extent on offense is particularly egregious. Whenever Love is on the court, the Cavs play elite offense (114.1 offensive rating). Love is also one of the best spot up shooters in the NBA (1.22 points per play, top 15th percentile in the NBA). The inability for DG to turn the keys to someone else and turn himself into a spot up shooter off the ball more often is an indictment of the offensive design as well, since he also is an elite spot up shooter (1.22 points per play as well). What’s the solution to the problem? Perhaps more Raul Neto and Caris LeVert at the point could be a starting point. Luckily there’s plenty of time before the playoffs to continue to massage the offense into something better than what’s been happening currently, which is a precipitous decline in the efficiency of the offense.

2. Jarrett Allen and Isaac Okoro with rough nights

The three worst net ratings on the night were possessed by Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, and Isaac Okoro. The Cavs defensive rating with JA on the court was 139.4. JA clearly had one of his worst games of the season against the best in Jokic. The Cavs’ offensive rating with DG on the court? 109.4. Okoro and Lamar Stevens decided to play “Schrodinger’s Wing” with Okoro posting a -40.7 net rating as a starter while Stevens was a team high +18.8 as a backup. Luckily J.B. kept Okoro’s minutes to a minimum, going with Cedi Osman and Raul Neto to juice the bench.

3. Quick note on Denver

Sadly the Nuggets have been one of the hottest teams in the NBA since a three game losing streak at the beginning of December. Now they’re rolling and Jokic is playing in MVP form. Denver bringing in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has been a stroke of genius for the Denver front office. Also, getting Aaron Gordon to play more around the rim on offense has turned the Nuggets into an offensive juggernaut. Jamal Murray and Michael Porter, Jr. seem to be returning to normalcy after devastating injuries. This team is poised for a run in the playoffs but will need to figure out how to get their bench to play better, or acquire some reinforcements. The problem with acquiring some bench help is the fact that they have very little draft capital, but they have a track record of being aggressive with moves.

4. Cavs in the Valley of the Sun

The Cavs will try to bounce back in the Valley of the Sun against the hospital Phoenix Suns, who are in absolute disarray and desperate for a win. The Cavs just beat the Suns in an ugly, defensive slugfest and will probably have to win in a similar way again given all the bodies the Cavs are also missing. It does sound like Spida will be back though, so #talksoon Go Cavs!