Recap: Cavs 100, Jazz 109
2012-03-06
(Chin up, Kyrie – next year you wont even have to score in the first half – you’ll have Kidd-Gilchrist to do that for you)
Well, there goes our last shot for a win for a while. Â For better or worse, the Cavs now face three straight playoff bound teams. Â The story here is pretty much the same as always – inability to do much inside, lack of scorers, slow first three quarters, etc. etc.
The Good:
Kyrie and Antawn – They were our point leaders. Â Is anyone surprised by that? Â That being said, it, again, took Kyrie a long time to get into the game. Â I know most of our readers wouldn’t agree with me, but it’s somewhat worrisome that Kyrie doesn’t seem able to turn it on until late in the game – his first basket didn’t come until the third quarter. Â If he was able to get it going early, maybe we’d have a shot? (pun intended)
Alzon Gee – He looked a little more lively than he has the past few games. Â Maybe he’s coming back into his own?
The Bad:
Interior D – I realize Utah really doesn’t have a ton beyond it’s 20 centers (or however many they have…4?) but Al Jefferson absolutely had his way with us. Â Milsap played nicely too. Â The lack of interior D, of course, opened the door for…
Our inability to stop Gordon Hayward – He was on fire (8-11 including 2-3 for three point land). Â We basically let the 12 year old do whatever he wanted, and he literally did whatever he wanted.
Our ability to score in the 2nd and 3rd quarters – Maybe if we didn’t have to claw our way back in the fourth we’d be more in these games. Â Not sure how the Cavs can fix this, but something’s gotta change. Â I realize we almost closed the gap, but this is a terrible precedent to have.
The Rest:
Don’t forget about the first Cavs: The Blog Podcast, which you can download from;
http://www.mediafire.com/?t9xv6qdx32d3egz
and you can stream from:
http://soundcloud.com/cavstheblog/cavs-the-podcast-03-04-2012
Until next time…
sxdavey – I’m not sure if you paid attention early in the season, but Byron completely ignored installing his Princeton offense in training camp to focus on defense. Defense has been preached from day 1 of this season. It is mentioned in almost every player and coach interview that they know everything starts on the defensive end. This team just doesn’t have good defenders. The only above average defenders on the roster right now are Varejao (injured), TT (rookie off the bench), Gee (only recently starting), and maybe Gibson (always injured, inconsistent). Meanwhile, Jamison is the worst defensive PF in… Read more »
I don’t know what to think of Scott sometimes. We know which 5 must play in the last 5 minutes for our best chance and it ain’t Parker, Omri. Parker was selfish in the Jazz Game throwing away precious possessions at least 10 times for threes that weren’t going in. If you are player injured for that long, why in the hell would you start or play those kind of minutes?? This does not compute!! It seems the the most likely 5 that can get us a win for now is kyrie, gee, jamison, thompson (he gets the rebounds) and… Read more »
I like Crocodile Kyrie more than Crocodile Irving (Rhymes with the real thing) . And how about those funky bananas?
Fair enough. When i initially read it, it just struck me as being unnecessarily pessimistic. I’m not trying to be an Irving apologist, not that he needs one anyways; just think that it’s easy to take for granted how much the team has improved since last season, and how hard it is for such a young player to do as well as he is with so little experience. The last 6 games would suggest that they haven’t improved quite as much as i thought, but whatever…at least we have another definitive NBA player now besides Varejao, as opposed to a… Read more »
I’ve said since the Cavs got rid of Brown and brought in Scott that they were in trouble. Brown coached defense with smart offense wins games, and it worked. Scott coaches offense wins games, but it doesn’t work with the total lack of defense the team has now. Varejao is a good defensive center, but the team needs a versatile big man. Jamison is proving he can still bring it, but age is catching up with him. Thompson looks like he has the ability to get it done, but it’ll take a bit longer for him to come into his… Read more »
You’re jinxing our Kidd-Gilchrist chances. Stop it.
Mallory –
I, too, am baffled as to why the Cavs wouldn’t at least sign Wilson Chandler to a modest offer sheet, especially since they were essentially bidding against no one. Chandler is a young, athletic wing with playoff experience who would have immediately upgraded one of our weakest positions. Moreover, signing Chandler would have obviated any need to draft a wing with our lottery pick, freeing the Cavs to use that selection on the future at the five. Chandler is precisely the kind of second-tier free agent the Cavs should be using their ample cap space to sign.
Brian – I think you get the general gist of my writing – I’m not just thinking for the future, but also looking at these games in the context of this season. Obviously I don’t want Kyrie to turn into AI, and I want him to learn to do everything well, not just scoring. That being said, is it wrong for me to want him to be consistent in his ability to score for an entire game? The kid started 0-6, which is very slow. And it’s not that he just did that last night, he’s had that same problem… Read more »
BTW, as a fan who grew up with the mid to late-80s teams, I will admit this is EXACTLY how I used to feel about Mark Price back then — I always wished he’d shoot more. And he had much better options to pass the ball to.
Mallory, to piggy-back on Hot-Sauce’s comment: I think you’re right, his teammates’ failure (now that Varejao’s out) to convert a lot of his inside passes and to hit many of the open looks IS costing him a lot of assists, and is costing the team a lot of points. But that doesn’t mean Kyrie’s approach is wrong. I mean, you don’t want him to become an Allen Iverson type of guard, do you? You have been consistent in saying you look not just at the long-term development of Kyrie and of the team, but also at the narrower context of… Read more »
Not so long ago, the team was so terrible as to be unwatchable. Then after the draft, nobody was sure how good Irving would be. Now he scores 21 points, and it’s not good enough because it happens in the 2nd half. Funny how that works. You seem to have unreasonable expectations for a team one season removed from a 20+ game win streak, and whose 2nd best player at this point is the corpse of Antawn Jamison, to say nothing of your expectations of 19 year old kid playing PG in the NBA.
Hot Sauce – I agree that we can’t expect him to score more than 20 points a game (I actually considered that when writing the above) – my problem is that, when the team needs points badly, that should be his cue to turn it on and score for them. Kyrie is clearly the leader of this team – if he shows fire and resolve early enough, I expect that we might see the team do the same. 21 points evenly distributed over the entire game seems more valuable to me than 21 points at the end, when the game… Read more »
Since I can assume you don’t want to take away any of Irving’s 21 second half points, I can only assume that your complaint that it is “somewhat worrisome that Kyrie doesn’t seem able to turn it on until late in the game” implies you want our 19 year-old, rookie PG to score 30 points a night. Me thinks you have unreasonable expectations of what this team is right now. As an aside, there is a long precedent of elite scorers trying to play the role of distributor early in games to get their teammates going (knowing they can “get… Read more »
In defense of Gee, heyward entered the game with casspi on him in a battle of guys sent to the bench recently and heyward destroyed him like in the first game. He got a rhythm goin in that stretch.
I think Gee was looking to help a lot, and underestimating Hayward. He looked rightfully embarrassed a couple times, but good on Hayward.
Also, can someone explain to my why we didn’t make an offer for Wilson Chandler? How would that have been a bad idea??!?!?! He would’ve been such a nice addition to a young team…
Gee seems to have woken up on O. But there is no way Hayward should have scored so many points on him. Maybe Gee isn’t the defender we all thought he was?
Gee was good on offense. I liked his aggressiveness, and he needs to keep it up. Though he got torched by Hayward more than once. I think Anthony Parker has blackmail pictures of Scott. It’s the only thing that explains his minutes. Tristan needs to spend hours, and hours in the gym practicing post moves and jump shots (hours and hours). Ryan Hollins: the only man that could make me pine for the heady days of Semi Erden. He reminded me of the chair that Yi Yianling posted up in his draft workouts. The trade deadline can’t get here soon… Read more »
MKG would look incredible in this rotation. i am hoping that fab melo from ‘cuse will be there when we use the heat pick or whatever sessions becomes. about the only problem i can think of going forward is the bizarre rotation coach scott uses. it is beyond me why manny cant have 28+ minutes a game