Recap: Cleveland 104, Brooklyn 100 (Depth Söunding)

It is my fault… I ran Dennis 12 minutes in the fourth. I didn’t give him a break. That’s how your execution goes down. That’s how your defense goes down.

Until I heard Nets’ head coach Jordi Fernandez’ post-game comments, I didn’t realize why Cleveland rose from a 13 point fourth quarter trench to win their 11th straight game Saturday night. The Cavs had called timeout at the 4:08 mark of the fourth, when a dagger Cam Johnson triple put the Nets up seven. I had my doubts the wine and gold were going to be able to pull this one out. But the Cavs had been playing furiously all the fourth quarter, after a rough shooting night from Spida and friends, a fiesty Brooklyn effort, and the NBA scheduling gods had conspired to produce a 29 point swing in Brooklyn’s favor. When the Cavs went up 15 in the second, Cam Johnson, Cam Thomas, and our old nemesis, the Umlaut, frankly outshot the Cavs and beat them one-on-one to go up 14 right before the third quarter ended. The Nets’ trio combined for 67 points on 66 True Shooting% on the night.

The Cavs were able to re-emerge in the fourth due to their as yet unfathomed depth, and Brooklyn just not having enough bodies to match the waves of talent cascading off the Cavs’ bench. While Schröeder played 37 minutes and Cam Thomas 36, only Evan Mobley crossed the 35 minute mark for Cleveland. Darius Garland and Caris LeVert were able to come in relatively fresh after the aforementioned timeout and finish the the game with 32 and 31 minutes respectably, a feat that was enabled by the Cavs’ ten man rotation. The reserves were all positives in the plus/minus department, and kept the game within reach in the late third and early fourth. Depth charges, Ty Jerome and Caris LeVert also helped sink the Nets in the end.

Garland was transcendent in the last four minutes of this game, controlling every aspect of the game on offense, and started the next possession with a perfect drive to the basket to score. Meanwhile, The Umlaut walked the ball up and barely beat the eight second clock three times in a row, but there was just way too much time left to try to run out the clock for Brooklyn. I was baffled by their offense at the time, and never thought about Dennis’ exhaustion till hearing the interview.

After the first slow-walk, Cam Thomas iso-jacked a brick over Caris LeVert, and Ty Jerome used Mobley’s dive gravity to score an easy floater before the Nets’ D was set. After another slow-walk, Mobley tipped away a lob intended for Nic Claxton before Darius gathered and sped his way into a pull-up deuce from from the elbow to cut the diff to one. One more grind walk from Brooklyn, and Garland snuck in behind Nic Claxton, to force a loose-ball. Mobley managed to force a tie-up and win the jump ball before Garland split a high double and got himself to the line for two more, and take a 98-97 lead in a Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse that had been ready to explode for the whole quarter.

That explosion didn’t come till Brooklyn finally got into their offense a little earlier, and Cam Johnson iso-jacked a brick from the top of the circle over Caris. After DFS grabbed the o-board for Brooklyn, the wine and Gold smothered Cam Thomas in the right corner, before Thomas stepped out of bounds. Garland was in his bag, and zoomed another drive between two Nets, right down Euclid, and held it at the rim just long enough to flip the ball to Mobley who’d snuck around the baseline to hammer it home from the dunker spot. The flush put the Cavs up three and unleashed bedlam in the Rock.

Give Brooklyn credit. 1:52 left, and they did not go gentle into that good night. No timeouts. Dennis Schröeder got around Mobley who reached from behind, and might have gotten all ball, but was in a bad position. Dennis calmly swished two free throws amidst a thunder of boos, but Brooklyn had no answer for Darius Garland. Ty Jerome set yet another high screen on Garland’s right side, and Brooklyn tried to deny it, so Darius just took the open left alley to cruise the lane and pocket a floater, putting Cleveland back up three. It can’t be understated how well Garland controlled the last four minutes.

Cleveland was methodical in managing the lead, and refused to give Brooklyn an open look from deep and a chance to tie the game. So Cam Thomas iso-ed Mobley from the left block and canned an absolutely filthy fadeaway over Evan’s outstretched arms to cut it to one with a minute left.

Cleveland refused to stop executing though, and with Mobley, Garland, Mitchell, and LeVert to worry about, Ty Jerome drove from the top of the key before Mitchell could get set up for a screen, and had all the space he needed to beat Dorian Finney-Smith off the bounce and can a floater. When the fifth option on the floor is empowered to use your super-star as a decoy and take it to the rack, you have an offense that is very hard to stop.

Up three with 46 seconds left, the Umlaut managed to get a sliver of daylight on the left wing to hoist one on a feed from Cam Thomas, but Caris’ LeVert’s very good close-out made it a very difficult shot, that maybe a rested Dennis makes, but this one drew back Iron and Evan Mobley grabbed his 13th rebound. Brooklyn had been pressing most of the second half, but Cleveland isn’t the neophyte group that J.B. Bickerstaff had been coaching. These guys calmly got the ball over half court before the Nets were forced to foul, and Donovan Mitchell put the game away with two makes from the line.

Up five with 16 seconds left, the mantra of “no threes” was the gospel of the Cavalier huddle. Cleveland pushed everything to the basket, forcing a scrambling Brooklyn offense to waste 12 seconds before Dean Wade ran Cam Johnson off line to force a floater from eight feet. Evan Mobley rose and swatted leather back into Schröeder’s hapless hands, and Dennis was forced to launch a meaningless prayer as the buzzer and jubilation echoed through the Cleveland night. The Cavaliers swarmed Mobley to celebrate the dramatic comeback and Cleveland’s perfect record.

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It was easy to miss the subtle move that coach Atkinson made while Mitchell iced the game from charity. Out went Ty Jerome and Darius Garland (who’d both been frankly phenomenal) and in came Dean Wade and Isaac Okoro to close the game on D. This is the kind of subtle win on the margins that had been lacking at times in years’ past. The Cavs’ attention to detail is enabled by their depth. It’s frankly staggering how good the top ten of this group has been this year.

It’s given coach K the ability to send someone to the bench if they don’t have it that night, and Saturday, Isaac Okoro and Jarrett Allen did not have it (combined 2-11). Okoro was -20 and while I love his confidence, forced some bad threes in the third quarter. He and Allen were not good on the boards either, as they combined for just four rebounds in 36 minutes while Brooklyn grabbed 10 offensive rebounds on the game.

But over the course of an 82 game season, and especially when the schedule is punching you in the gut, every player is going to have bad nights. What I loved was that despite the the struggles, Okoro came in and helped close the game on D. Allen (-14) had his troubles: a missed dunk that was probably a bridge too far, and spun into a couple quizzical attempts at the rim, but he also had an enormous block in the third, when the Cavs were scrapping just to stay in it. The beauty of this squad is that someone seems to be always picking it up.

Hell, after scoring 15 of his 22 in the first quarter, Donovan Mitchell was not great, and clanked a lot of bad isolation looks in the third and early fourth, but you know who had his back? Caris LeVert, Ty Jerome and a bench unit that scored 33. Caris, despite going 0-4 from deep, was a game high +19, and was seemingly everywhere on defense and in transition. His line: 12/2/6, three stocks, and one turnover in 31 minutes. Sam Merrill’s shooting (2-4 downtown) helped steady the offense when the Cavs were struggling in the third. Georges Niang gave em timely buckets, Dean Wade played some center, and Ty Jerome scintillated yet again in a limited role, scoring his only points in crunch time and delivering five dimes and another pair of steals.

Windmill pointed out in the LT: Jerome is swiping an absolutely ludicrous 11 steals per 48 minutes. Ty’s per/100 stats? 30/6/10 with a +35 net rating and 73 TS%. Caris’? 25/6/10 with 68 TS% and a +30 net rating. The funny thing, is that they make Sam Merrill’s good bench numbers (+8 Net rating, 63 TS%), and Niang’s acceptable bench numbers (-2, 58 TS%) look ordinary. While that doesn’t seem great for Georges, it’s a massive improvement over last year so far. While Dean Wade is putting up a career low 55 TS%, he’s still posting a +12 net rating, and his defense has been solid. The Cavs are 11-0 without a starter, Max Strus. One member of the CtB staff texted me earlier this week that they should explore trading him, they’ve been so good without him. (I don’t agree – it’s a long season.) Cleveland has barely played Craig Porter Junior who was a major component at times last year, or their first round pick, Jaylen Tyson. The Cavaliers contain multitudes.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t close this without talking about everyone’s favorite baby horned giraffe, Evan Mobley, who was simply a precocious gangly unicorn in this game: 23/16/1 with four steals on only 11 shots. Mobley has shown the propensity and willingness to take threes, which makes people have to play him honestly out there, and he’s been just freaking stellar around the basket. There was a young Giannis comparison yesterday, and the 18 foot eurostep I had to watch four times to ensure it wasn’t a travel is evidence of that (check the highlight package). The only thing he needs to reign in are his turnovers (4), but it’s a result of trying to be aggressive and learning how to play at this pace and level of empowerment.

Even the Charge looked dominant in their debut without Emoni Bates- the guy everyone thought would be their best player. They destroyed the Mad Ants, 120-83 with Luke Travers leading the way 24/10/6 and Elijah Hughes gunning off the bench with 22 points on 5-10 from deep. In the maritime tradition of “sounding the depths,” we don’t know how freaking deep this Cavalier organization goes or their ceiling. Right now, both seem infinite.