You Can’t go Home Again (Recaps, Reflections, and Live Thread)

Before Thursday’s emergency pod, it had been a minute since we’d published any kind of recap: a ten day stretch over Thanksgiving week and its aftermath. The last real recap featured a screenshot of Metal Gear solid and a win against the defending champion Nuggets. It led all of us at CtB to ask the natural question: why does it seem like Darius Garland plays better in big games without Donovan Mitchell? We rolled up this exchange Monday afternoon, the 20th.

Ben Werth: Surprise surprise.  LeVert doesn’t play, Wade gets big minutes and Hero Mitchell is gone and the Cavs have their best game of the season. Please, for the love of basketball, trade Mitchell and LeVert once LeVert is eligible to be traded. Garland needs to be featured. Mobley and Allen are better with more touches. Having Wade lock up big wings and helping on the glass from the 3 is a facsimile Lauri. This team isn’t winning that championship this season, and even Zach Lowe has been confused into thinking LeVert has been good this year. Sell high on Vert, get something of value for DM before he walks, and go forward with a team that dribbles for a reason, moves the ball and rebounds.

Nate Smith: That being said, the Nuggets didn’t play particularly well. MPJ stunk, they were missing Murray, and Jokic got himself in foul trouble he couldn’t get out of. I agree that if Wade and Craig Porter Jr. Are for real, it makes two of Mitchell, LeVert, and/or Okoro moveable. The other problem is who do you move those guys for? The Cavs need a 3/4 (Lauri would be perfect). I want no part of Barrett. Do you do the wing platter from New Jersey? Mikal and Royce?Joker wasn’t totally locked in, but a lot of that was also because he was dealing with legit size on an off ball. Obviously, Murray being out was the biggest factor, but the Cavs put a ton of pressure on them and actually rebounded the damn ball. LeVert kills the rebounding when he is in there in addition to his total hijacking of the playstyle. 

Ben Werth: Joker wasn’t totally locked in, but a lot of that was also because he was dealing with legit size on an off ball. Obviously, Murray being out was the biggest factor, but the Cavs put a ton of pressure on them and actually rebounded the damn ball. LeVert kills the rebounding when he is in there in addition to his total hijacking of the playstyle. 

In any case, I try to pry away Bridges and or Johnson, but if that isn’t possible, I settle for poo poo platter and a pick haul. I don’t care if we don’t get back what we gave up. It’s the sunkcost of two stupid trades. Keep Okoro, go back to defense as the identity, and finally let Mobley and Garland cook. 

Mobley does have major work to do though. I’ve been very disappointed in his refusal to just any easy left handed jumphooks. He is always trying to get to a fallaway rigthy jump instead of using his body and shooting over his right shoulder with his left. It’s like he caught Vert’s “pullup slopshot disease.” 

Still, his hub work is coming along and works better without DM and Vert hogging the shit out of the rock.

I went back and watched the Mavericks game for almost exactly 2 years ago before Rubio went down. Porter Jr is obviously not Rubio, but if he is anywhere close to that, you have Wade in Lauris spot, Minivan in Love’s, Okoro and Strus, Allen, and an Improving Mobley, (hope shot slop notwithstanding). That is a better basis going forward. Add whatever teamball player they can come up with and we can watch solid basketball that allows for Mobley to really blossom. DM and Vert have stunted his growth and it effing sucks. 

P.S, Grimes would be a welcome addition in some capacity as well. You know I’m not a Barrett guy. 

Nate Smith: I’d really like to take a swing at Caruso and Vuc (despite the years). Vuc would be such a great third big that can pair with Mobley or Allen. I’m not as high on Okoro as you, but if you can keep him on a decent contract it makes team building interesting. Caruso might be the most underrated player in the association and can play four positions. I also am not as down on Mitchell as you but the more I watch, the more Garland and Mitchell just don’t make sense together. One of them is going to have to go for the Cavs to ever compete for anything.

Also, till the last couple, LeVert was good. His defense has been among the Cavs’ best off ball, he was doing well on catch and shoot Js, and his drive and dish game was solid. His field goal percentage was a bit low for my taste, but his shots were coming in the offense and not from maddening isos.

Nov 20: Cleveland 122, Philadelphia 122 (OT)

Without Donovan Mitchell or LeVert, Cleveland went to Philly on the 20th and played inspired basketball. Darius Garland turned in his best performance of the season: a 32/8/5 grinder against a top two team in the west. He didn’t shoot well (10-25), but he got the Cavs to overtime, where Craig Porter Jr. and Jarrett Allen took the game home. Max Strus and Jarrett Allen played similarly inspired ball with 20/5/6 and 26/13/3 lines respectively and the defense held Embiid and Maxey to 20-49 from the field and forced Joel into six turnovers.

The buzz around Craig Porter Jr. (+21!) started to swell too, as he led the Cavs to an improbable in an in-season tournament victory in the Wells Fargo Center, aptly named as Joel tried to win the game through fraud and malfeasance. CPJ attacked off the bounce, and found JA for the go-ahead field goal. Meanwhile, the Cavs ran a nine man rotation which included some big energy minutes. CPJ’s sudden emergence had us all dreaming

Nov 22, 2023, 3:29 PM Elijah Kim: I’m on team trade Donovan now… I’ve seen enough to know that this Cavs core of nice guys and non super asshole alphas will need to emulate a style that is more team/ball movement friendly. Mitchell has it ingrained that he needs to be Superman and save the team when composure tends to fade whereas everyone is capable and willing to play their role when he is not out there. 

Bridges would be an ideal fit but some combination of Cam Johnson, DFS, Royce and picks could entice me as well. Knowing everyone’s willingness to give what stars want it’s probably not Royce so they are reunited. DFS is quietly in the top 10 for catch and shoot 3PM and he’s always been a target I like to be a 3 or small ball 4. He is older though. 

I’ve come around on LeVert, he’s the high variance player good teams need to light it up and yes, sometimes he hogs the ball too much and throws up shit trying to see if it sticks but he at least isn’t physically incapable of playing defense with his size and willingness which is rarer with the bench microwave guys like Lou/Jamal/Malik. 

I do like Vuc as a third big but he’d have to be dirt cheap due to his age/contract. He might be a target with Rubio’s contract and any other bad pieces from a potential deal. 

The Cavs could be good with both Mitchell and Garland but to be sustainably great, one will have to go. 

Nov 22, 2023 4:42 PM Ben Werth: Yep. Over 30 assists like they used to do frequently before Rubio went down in end of 2021. Mitchell can’t play team ball. It’s not in him for more than a quarter at a time. He is still great, but he needs to be on a team with Giannis or something. 

LeVert isn’t a positive player guys. His start/stop crap makes the offense freeze off-ball because everyone is afraid they will bring their defender to him. He’ll score or make a nice dime leading to people getting excited, but the offensive flow stagnates. He holds the playing style hostage. JB can’t quit him so he ends up playing too many minutes at the 3 over Wade which totally kills the rebounding on help defense. His on ball defense is occasionally quite good when he stops hopping, but his weakside “non-sexy” D sucks. He does well with steals gambling in passing lanes and with good double team timing, but ho-hum deterrent plays don’t exist for him. He’s just not a 3 on D, and on offense, I only want him shooting threes and getting to the rim. 

Craig Porter Jr is already way better for this team than LeVert. Yes. Way better. His “boring” defense, boxing out and angles are really good. His offense has some mad early Andre Miller vibes (no, he’s not Professor good, but style wise). He’s a true PG, but is aggressive downhill allowing Garland to cook off ball. Mitchell and LeVert don’t put Garland in that great scoring mode at the 2 like Rubio did. Porter has been a good facsimile. 

The Allen/Mobley two man game has excelled as well with the ballstoppers out. Allen had some uncharacteristic turnovers yesterday and Strus needs to clean up his turnovers as well, but with Wade and Strus rounding out the starting lineup, you have shooting with size, rebounding and toughness. 

The refs seemingly need to be reminded every damn year that Wade is an elite defender. I’m getting tired of those lame calls, but even with him missing shots and fouling out, his size, unselfishness (occasionally to a fault) and physicality at the three have been hugely helpful. I mean the dude was covering Maxey and helping on Embiid with pretty solid success. 

I like the idea of getting Caruso, but only if they plan on playing him at the 2. The Cavs only succeeded against a mini Warriors team before DM and Vert went out. Size matters. Yes, Caruso can guard almost everyone, but his real value is at the point of attack. That being said, I don’t think he is really that much of an upgrade over Isaac and he would require some real trade equity. Vuc is interesting for sure. 

Again, this team has zero shot of winning the title this season barring some radical trades. I want to see Mobley, Garland, Isaac, and Wade really solidify their play and improve in the places they need to. DM and Vert do nothing but stunt that progress. 

Nov 22: Miami 129, Cleveland 96

I had traveled back to Northeast Ohio from my new home in West Michigan on the 21st, and after helping to prepare a Thanksgiving feast, my wife joined me for a trip to Cleveland. She’d already had her hopes dashed the night before when she found out that Kevin Love wouldn’t be playing for “personal reasons.” Her all-time favorite player wasn’t going to make his first trip back to Cleveland: the town that Kev helped deliver its only championship in half a century. What kind witchcraft do the Cavs practice to alienate their all time best players?

We made the best of it, and after dining at the the always solid Fat Cat’s in Tremont, we made our way downtown, found an affordable place to park, and walked through the melancholy night air to Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. (It’ll always be the Q to me).

Our date was based around the most mediocre presentation of NBA basketball I’ve ever seen. I tried to buy beer with cash and had to sheepishly ask for my $20 back when the hawker thought it was a tip. (I still tipped, just not 170%). The halftime show was a Stomp inspired mess by the Cavaliers’ drum team with no mics in sight and a bunch of guys thwapping along to a backing track.

As for the game, the Heat are just a better run organization from top to bottom. I get that the Cavs had played into overtime the night before and were still missing Mitchell and Wade, but for all the fun the in-season tournament can bring, it’s a zero net gain if it further de-prioritizes “regular” regular season games. And the league’s insistence on ending “load management” ensures that rather than getting some energy from the Cavs’ non-CPJ G-Leaguers, the Cavs trotted out a listless lineup that played as stupidly as the did lazily.

My wife always like to call Kyle Lowry, “Mike Laaaawery” like Will Smith to Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys. The problem is that I hate it. When Kyle dropped 28 cause no one bothered to guard him most of the game, the Cavs affected my marriage. I can’t chew gum near my wife cause it drives her nuts, and having to tell her, “His name is Kyle” every time the chonky 37-year-old scores a bucket irritates me just as much.

Cleveland got stomped worse than the upside down plastic pails at halftime by the likes of Haywood Highsmith, Thomas Bryant, and Orlando Robinson, losing another rebounding battle 41-34 and allowing Miami to make 20 triples on 62TS%. After a few $12 Mic Ultras, Me and the Mrs. hit the tracks a couple minutes into the fourth when the zoo crew was out and the Cavs were down 32. Cue the echos of Ben Werth.

It was yet another game where the Cavs failed to compete, failed to prepare a coherent game plan, and frankly disrespected their fans. They should’ve been booed off the floor like they were against Portland, but the win over Philly gave them some grace. It was the kind of once-a-week shit show that JB’s team has been delivering far too regularly the last few years.

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When we’d started driving to Stark County Tuesday night, my wife was so giddy she was thinking about trying to move back. After about 40 minutes of Thanksgiving, Thursday, we were sick of Ohio again. It made me think a lot about how unfair I was to LeBron James when he decided (for the second time) that he was leaving Cleveland. I guess the King just realized sooner than I did that Ohio wasn’t a place he wanted to raise his family anymore. It’s kind of sad that his returns are the stuff of nostalgia now, and not filled with the pomp and energy they used to be.

We’ll never have those days again. The 2014-2018 years were among the best years of my life, but as we age, memory turns to nostalgia. Did the nostalgia for greatness let us overvalue a mediocre team, and give J.B. more credit than we should have? Did the Cavs beat a bunch of flawed, inured teams the last two years? Or are we harder on this team and this coaching staff due to the halcyon nostalgia for the LeBron years? I don’t know, but I do know it’s a Sysiphean struggle to follow and cover this team. With so much going on in the world, it’s hard to care about basketball a lot of nights, but it’s even harder to care on the nights where the millionaires don’t care either, and in a way, I can’t blame them. I think there’s a reason the best players don’t get too high or too low after a win or loss: it’s because the baseline for consistency has to be the measure by which you grade yourself, not extreme peaks and valleys. Maybe there’s just too much angst in the Cuyahoga to be a professional with zen-like detachment.

Nov 25: Los Angeles Lakers 121, Cleveland 115

With Donovan Mitchell and Isaac Okoro returning to the lineup, things got weird again for the Cavs, Spida struggled his way into 4-18 night, Georges Niang went 5-13, and Darius Garland got clocked (no call) and left the game after 12 minutes with a strained neck. CPJ turned in another solid performance, including a defense stretching triple. Neither team ever got out to a double dight lead, but Cleveland couldn’t execute in crunch time.

After an AD tip-in for his 30th point, the Lakers held a 111-103 lead with 3:48 to go. Cleveland went on a 9-2 run to cut their deficit to one with 1:56 to play. As soon as Brad Daugherty said, “The Lakers want to get something with LeBron going to the basket,” Max Strus took a bad angle on LBJ at the top of the key, J.B. got beat back door, Jarrett Allen threw the ball away, and James dunked it, never looking back.

Cleveland still got to within two with a minute to go, but James bled the clock, took a “punt it inside the 10” step back three, and then Mitchell went one-on-three off the rebound for the umpteenth time that night, and the game was over. LeBron could go home again, but the Cavs couldn’t.

Nov 26: Cleveland 105, Toronto 102

The second game of a four game home stand came on the second night of a back-to-back against the hated Raptors. The Cavs had a hard time mustering the energy in the first half, and the Raps got out to a 12 point lead in the second and double digits again in the third, and a lot of lull seemed to come during Mitchell’s rock pounding experiments. CPJ had a bad three minute stretch in the second and hasn’t been seen in the rotation since.

Fortunately, Max Strus went absolute inferno with a 20 point third quarter, like a flame slinging Doof Warrior. A Tristan Thompson appearance to start the fourth featured TT ripping the ball away from Raptors to keep possessions alive, and Garland getting to the rack and dialing up threes, while Caris cooked, and Mobley played crazy D to put the Raps away.

It was an inspired performance on the second night of a back-to-back.

Nov 28: Cleveland 128, Atlanta 105

If Denver and Philly were the Cavs’ biggest wins of the season, Atlanta was Cleveland’s most convincing and complete. They absolutely blew the doors of Atlanta, and played with insane pace and energy, trying to run up the score to catch the Knicks in the in-season-tournament standings. Most importantly the Cavs were using that pace to launch triples from their best shooters, as Max, Spida, and Garland combined for 23 attempts (eight makes).

Every Cavs fan alive that watched that game and saw the energy the Cavs played with thought the Cavs had beat the doldrums. The run-n-gun offense featured lines like Mobley’s 17/19/1 performance with seven blocks, Mitchell’s 40/11/5, and Garland’s 22/2/8. I thought the bad days were over.

Nov 30: Portland 103, Cleveland 95

The knives were out for JB after the worst loss of the season. Portland, on the second night of a back-to-back, came into the RMF and the Cavs laid down like dogs. I covered it Wednesday, but the score doesn’t do the listlessness of this matchup justice. Cleveland got booed off their own floor in the third, and completely did not show up.

We covered JB’s incompetence when it comes to things like playing an eight man rotation or never going to the bench when the Cavs’ needed energy, but JB never seems to hold himself to the same accountability he does his players when it comes to rotation management, game management, and game planning.

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Anyway, here we are tonight in Little Caeser’s Arena, with the Cavs two best wins and two worst losses coming over the last 10 days. To say the Cavs have a problem with consistency and dealing with success would be an understatement. Darius Garland is struggling, half the fans want J.B. gone, the Cavs’ roster doesn’t make sense, and the Pistons haven’t won a game in a month. Wade, LeVert, and Ty Jerome are out. Meanwhile, the Pistons are missing Joe Harris and Monte Morris, but are getting their best player back.

The worst part of having a bad coach is that part of you wishes your team would lose to terrible teams, just to they wouldn’t have to play for him anymore. Part of me wants the Cavs to quit on the coach, but the other part of me knows that this team would be over as we know it, and some of these guys would get fired into the sun. We’ll see if the wine and gold let John Blair go home again.