Recaps: Phoenix 1, Brooklyn 1, Cleveland 0 (Or, Growing Pains Redux)

The Cavs dropped a pair on a back-to-back while nursing non-trivial injuries to four of their top six guys: (Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Max Strus, and Dean Wade). It’s a dark time for the rebellion as Georges Niang is starting, and opponents are feasting against him. Meanwhile, Darius Garland struggles to close games. The Cavs’ old bugaboo, defensive rebounding seems to get them when they they are tired. The Suns out-rebounded them 42-37, while Brooklyn outhustled 40-31. It reminds one of the trying times of a quintessential late 80s sitcom, where someone was always going through some kind of life crisis (on-screen or off).

A common thread in both games was also a defender that opponents were targeting relentlessly. In the 120-101 loss to Brooklyn, Sam Merrill was absolutely roasted by Cam Thomas, who put up 29/7/5 and a game high +27. Thomas knew he could isolate and destroy poor Sam anytime he wanted, and Merrill’s defense was probably the worst he put up all year. To be fair, Thomas was abusing everyone else the Cavs put on him, especially Darius Garland (who along with Sam finished -16), but the Cavs let the breaks of the game get to them and didn’t match the Nets’ energy in the same depressing way a 40-something Gen Xer reverts to 40 year old sitcoms to describe a basketball game.

Brooklyn scored nine points worth of miracles in the third quarter, getting a shot clock beating 38 footer from the Umlaut, another three hit the iron hard before bouncing around three times then falling through, and finally a quarter ending 40-footer by Cam Johnson. But, as they say, you make your own luck, and Cleveland didn’t match the Nets’ intensity or muscle, with even the smallest Brooklynites like Dennis Schroder and Dennis Smith Jr. looking beefy compared to the Wine and Tracey Gold guards.

Coming off a team leading 20-point performance against the Nets, Georges Niang started the first half of the Phoenix game confidently, scoring eight points on a bevy of drives straight out of 1957. Phoenix was playing the “we don’t really care if this guy scores” defense on him, and J.B. was making some questionable decisions. JB started Georges out on Kevin Durant in the same kind of logic that saw Darius Garland matching up Jalen Brunson in last year’s playoffs. I guess I can see it if I squint hard enough. Coach B is saying, “I’m gonna start a bad defender on this guy and give him lots of help so that I don’t get my better defenders in foul trouble,” which would make sense if Kevin Durant wasn’t one of the best scorers who ever lived and not a guy you want to let get in a rhythm. What can I say? The writers struggled with this episode.

To be fair, the Cavs were low on bodies, and someone had to guard KD. Jarrett Allen is too important to risk the foul trouble, Okoro is too short and needed for Booker and Beal, and Mobley the Elder did not have the trust of coach B. Niang and the Cavs battled the sandbagging Suns to a 70-63 lead at the end of the first half. In the second half, though, the Phoenix offense launched a Niang seeking missile: searching out Georges and cooking him like a Christmas goose on any half half court possession they could. Niang was a real Boner Stabone (RIP) in the the last two quarters of this one and dragged the entire starting lineup down with him, posting a -16 and going 0-5 from deep.

Somehow, still, the Cavs were in this one late. Much of that was due to Darius Garland’s scoring prowess, which was especially on display in Cleveland’s 70 point first half. Garland dropped 28 in the first half off 6-7 from deep, and was absolutely dynamic. But in the second half, Garland failed to adapt to Phoenix’s adjustments and actual shit-giving to put up 5/2/3 and three turnovers in the final 24. Garland never adjusted to Phoenix trapping the pick-and-roll, held the ball too long, failed to hit the short-roller, and just forced a lot of misses in crunch time, which feels like a trend over the last several games.

Cleveland started the fourth down 100-91, before LeVert and Craig Porter Junior traded playmaking duties to get JA, Sam, CPJ, and Ice buckets and tie the game at 104 on a pair of Okoro freebies. Unfortunately, the minivan turned into a garbage truck. Newly inserted Georges Niang stepped on the sideline to give the ball away at the 7:20 mark, and then Phoenix served up a heapin’ helpin’ of barbecued Niang. Devin Booker got it going when Niang didn’t step over to help as the weak side big man. A couple plays later, Booker’s eyes lit up when he got Niang in transition and cooked him with a drive into a left block pull-up. Darius Garland put up a couple possessions where he should have passed much sooner that led to bricks. Niang clanked an absolutely wide open left wing three, and Somehow CPJ got the ball back and slammed home a left baseline drive to trigger an exhaustion timeout by Frank Vogel with 4:04 left and the Suns up 110-107. WHEW. Mercifully JB subbed out Niang for LeVert.

On the ensuing play, Cleveland inexplicably decided to help off Kevin Durant who calmly drained a wide open left wing trey to give him 37 points. Cleveland kept grinding though, and LeVert converted a sweet putback of an Okoro miss. Both teams stammered through two scoreless minutes before Craig Porter Junior got to the rack and drew two off Durant and drained them both with 90 seconds to go to make the diff just -2. The Cavs had real moment here after LeVert played good D on Durant to force a miss. Garland got into the lane and tried to hit Allen with an oop, but it was just off, with Allen losing the ball against the rim. It was a tough luck turnover off a good look. On replay, the pass was pretty good, but Allen got caught between trying to slam it or bringing it back down and going back up again and flubbed it against the rim in a sitcom-esque comedy of errors.

The Wine and Gold were still in this though. After yet another Durant miss, Okoro grabbed the ball like he was shot out of a cannon and looked like he had Devin Booker on his heels, before a bump redirected Okoro and took him off his path. Okoro really should’ve pressed the issue, going up for a drive through the contact, but instead kicked it back out to Garland, who then Garland whipped it back to Ice who was, unfortunately, out of bounds. With 26 seconds left, JB challenged the play, which was dumb. Okoro’s foot was clearly on the right sideline line. Grayson Allen made both freebies on the intentional foul, Garland missed a ponderous layup when he seemingly had Allen open, and that was that. A garbage foul made it 117-111 and roll credits.

These things all feel like growing pains for a team that is supposed to be past the Kirk Cameron phase, but it’s hard to cast too much blame when half the Cavs are all still hurt or MIA. (Dean Wade is expected to miss his third straight game for personal reasons, Wednesday – no shade.) The Cavs inability to rebound, Georges’ Niang’s relative unplayability as a starting four, and the Cavs inability to score down the stretch doomed them again. In retrospect, there was always someone going through puberty on that show.

Sam Merrill got off the schneid a little, finally hitting a triple in the early fourth quarter after a particularly rough shooting slump over the last few games, and his gravity opened things up for his teammates, as he put up a game high +10. He played much better D, too. He just needs to shoot his way out of this slump. Hopefully he gets the chance before he leaves the show cause he was unable to juice ratings with the Tiger Beat crowd.

Isaiah Mobley has looked at least competent the last two games, going 2-7, grabbing four boards against the Nets and posting a +6 against the Suns. He at least has some length compared to Niang, even if he isn’t as explosive as his brother. After looking like a disaster against Brooklyn, Damian Jones gave Cleveland nice minutes against Phoenix, putting up 9/5/1 in 12 minutes, I wouldn’t have hated some Jones/Allen time.

Craig Porter Junior played well in both contests dropping 13/2/4 and 13/6/1 off the bench in the two. He plays bigger than his size, and has developed enough confidence in three-ball jumper at the top of the key, that you at least have to guard him there. Finally, the guy holding this Cavs team together, the Dr. Jason Seaver of this crew if you will, feels like Caris LeVert who has taken over playmaking duties. Caris went 17/6/11 against Phoenix and is averaging 7.6 assists in the last five games. Unfortunately, his field goal percentage is a whopping 36% in that time span.

Booker is EVERYWHERE in this possession pic.twitter.com/ThLue0dHRX

— Cage (@ridiculouscage) March 12, 2024

Jarrett Allen has had his moments, but he’s also had some real disaster stretches, and just seems gassed a lot of the time. Still, he averaged up 15/9.5/2.5 with 1.5 stocks in 33 minutes in the last two. Honestly, I’d like to see him with the ball at the elbow more, as it seemed to help Cleveland’s offense not be so guard-centric, and would seem to be effective against the Yusef Nurkices of the world (seriously, how the hell do you pluralize “Nurkic?”). Unfortunately he just wears down late. The late turnover and the second half rebounding against Phoenix was a “very special episode” level of deflating.

The Cavs regroup Wednesday against the Pelicans and Donovan Mitchell is questionable, while Evan Mobley is out of his walking boot. It’s a solid testament that the Cavs are 2-3 and have been competitive in all but one game of this stretch, but it’s going to be a tall order on the road against a relatively healthy Nawlins squad. Until then, Go Cavs.