Playoff Recap: New York 99, Cleveland 79 (or, the Yips)

If you’ve watched the Cavs this season, you know they suck on the road. Friday’s trip to the Garden was something else, though. The Cavs basically got it stuck in their zipper Something About Mary style. It wasn’t pretty. Both teams started on edge and missed a lot of shots early. But the Knicks didn’t beat Cleveland up. Cleveland outplayed the Knicks for the first 20 minutes, but got demoralized when their open shots weren’t falling. They were failing at basic things, and they stopped defending. At halftime they’d scored 32 points. By the mid fourth, they were down 27, prompting me to ask, “How the hell did you get the beans above the frank?” The Cavaliers had zipped up their junk so bad they’d contracted a case of the yips. Aint no Bactine gonna fix that.

In sports, the yips are a sudden and unexplained loss of ability to execute certain skills in experienced athletes. Symptoms of the yips are losing fine motor skills and psychological issues that impact on the muscle memory and decision-making of athletes, leaving them unable to perform basic skills of their sport.

Thanks, Wikipedia. Some people say it’s not the same as performance anxiety. I tend to disagree because anxiety seems to exacerbate it. What starts as nervousness can become a self re-enforcing feedback loop. Whatever it was, the Cavs had it in Manhattan.

Darius Garland was especially yippy: 4-21 on the night, with three turnovers. Evan Mobley just played too fast: rushing shots or throwing passes that weren’t there. Donovan Mitchell added six turnovers of his own, and seemed especially frustrated with his teammates at times. Jarrett stopped playing defense and finished a game low -26. Caris LeVert was a disaster as a starter in the first half and then threw in 17 in the second half, but started reverting to Ben Werth’s nightmares on offense and Defense. Cedi wasn’t very good. The Cavs stopped running offense. Then they stopped defending. And Okoro and Ricky despite playing decently in the first half didn’t get a ton of positive run in the second half.

There’s a lot of discussion that Cavs should not have promoted Caris, and stuck with Okoro in the starting lineup. I tend to agree, but it’s moot. The Cavs weren’t ready for this kind of pressure. It started with the coaching staff. The guys were way too tight. The Cavs need some dudes to lighten things up and keep the team loose. They need a Channing Frye/Richard Jefferson “Lil’ Kev” moment. I suggested someone rip dank farts in the huddle, make  fun of the crowd at halftime, or just scare the shit out of the kids Bull Durham style. Though given this team’s Zoomer energy, I’m not sure that’s the move, either. I know what wasn’t. Sidney Lowe’s interview to start the second half seemed absolutely somber – like he just came from a locker room eulogy. DID NOT LIKE THE VIBES!

I get it, MSG crowd is nuts. It’s a lot to take in, but also they’re a bunch dipshit Jabronis. Ignore them, or train yourself to be positively reinforced by the sighs of their collective disappointment. I don’t know what the Cavs needed to do to get out of their own head: transcendental meditation, strip club and hookah bar, taking a piss on the locker room floor and leaving a few hundy for someone to clean it up, stashing a wad of cash in the drop ceiling… but someone’s gotta get these guys out of their own heads. It isn’t anything the Knicks are doing or not doing on the floor that’s beating John Blair Bickerstaff’s squad.

The Cavs just gotta get over the myth of the Garden. It’s not sacred. It’s an org run by a dope who fronts a shitty-ass jazz band the NYT once described as, “well-known sidemen backing a karaoke grade singer.” Larry Dolan uses facial recognition software to ban lawyers involved in lawsuits against him, people who criticize him, AND Charles Oakley. He’s the nephew of the Guardians’ shit-ass owner: American aristocracy (along with the cadre of loathsome Brooks Brothers corporate suiters) we all love to hate. Sure the Garden’s got some history, but anyone worth rooting for in that building got priced out a long time ago. Spike Lee is better known for attending Knicks games in clown clothes than directing movies. These guys haven’t done anything in the NBA in 25 years. They’re not serious people.

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— HoopsDogg (@oldseaminer) April 22, 2023

I also hate Brad Daugherty’s advice of avoiding the city and not letting them get beat down by the community. Embrace it. Someone comes at you, be like, “Yeah, we sucked. Next game. Say hello to your mother for me.” Maybe they need to go see a sports psychologist like Dr. Sharon. Or maybe they gotta chill the eff out and remember that they’re good. To quote Bull Durham again. “You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance.”

There’s some basketball things the Cavs can do to clean this up. Yeah, Brunson got going (21 on a bunch of mid-rangers – meh), but it was more the snowball effect than anything. Stick with the traps and keeping him from going left. The biggest thing that fell apart was the Cavs not competing for rebounds or closing out on shooters. Danny Three-Toed-Sloth Green gotta go. If you’re not running offense for him, he makes Kevin Love look spry when recovering to a shooter. I also wanted Ricky in the second half cause you know, of any rotation guys he had the best plus/minus and actually defended during the second quarter hail storm. The Cavs should’ve put Ricky during the third when Garland went to the bench in shame. Cleveland forgot Barrett (19/8/3) was a lefty. Josh Hart (13/6/1) and Quickley got going, and Mitch-Rob looked overpowering. I might actually play Rolo on him just for the size, and trap the ball-handler with him if they put Rolo in the p/r. It’s not like Robinson is going to kill you from the top of the key in the short roll.

But again, this wasn’t about strategy or tactics. The worst part is, the Cavs were in striking distance till the fourth. They just got caught up in their own mess. So In the words of David Blatt…