{"id":62083,"date":"2023-06-02T14:09:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T18:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/?p=62083"},"modified":"2023-06-02T16:21:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T20:21:57","slug":"nuggets-in-5-on-5-the-2023-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cavstheblog.com\/?p=62083","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets in 5 on 5: The 2023 Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

This discussion got kicked off by Ben Werth who raised the conch to the CtB faithful with this message and got us all up in our thinkers, leading me to pose some questions to the crew.<\/p>\n

Ben Werth:<\/strong> Barring an injury to Jokic, I see no way for the Heat to win this series. They are simply too small and Bam is too inefficient with this floater range finishing. I’ll give them the gentleman’s sweep in respect for Jimmy Buckets and Spo’s talents, but they really have no shot.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets are going to get all the way through to the chip without ever encountering a guard who actually wants to get all the way to the cup. That is Jokic’s only weakness, and Book, Durant, Bron (at this age) and Butler, don’t really have that game. All would prefer settle for an open 17-footer.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets have schemed against the Warriors for years, so they will be ready for any of Bam’s hub passing\/movement shooters.\u00a0 Love should start and guard Jokic so at least the glass domination isn’t too severe at the onset. I’d sit Strus and start Martin so they still have their three best players starting. Even then, Jokic\/Murray PnR will kill Kev so the benefit of his girth versus Jokic might be immediately played off the floor.<\/p>\n

The Heat had a HUGE mental advantage against the Celtics. The Nuggets are just as tough mentally, much bigger, deeper, and feature the guy who should have won MVP. Denver in 5.<\/p>\n

1. What lessons should the Cavs take from the conference Finals as they build their team and strategy for next season?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ben Werth: <\/strong>Teams that pass the ball and have gritty players beat teams with “talent”. I worry that the Cavs already massively errored in trading for Spida. He isn’t afraid of the moment, but he gets a look on his face that starts to blame other guys on the team. It is a look that no Heat or Nuggets players get. He’s got a tiny bit of Jaylen Brown in him.<\/p>\n

As importantly, you have to have tertiary guys who understand their roles and are not afraid. I don’t think our guys were scared, but certainly daunted. JB certainly was.<\/p>\n

Tom “two spaces after a period” Pestak:<\/strong> I only caught snippets of the ECF but from that limited sample: you need role players empowered to step up when needed and improvise.\u00a0 Watching guys like Caleb Martin just reinforces how much it helps to have guys acting fearless in big moments.\u00a0 The Cavs seemed at their best early in the season when their second unit with Kevin Love and Cedi Osman let it fly with abandon.\u00a0 The Celtics seemed to stick to an offensive approach that worked well for most of the season, but when the 3s weren’t falling, I didn’t see too many role players stepping up to “get buckets”. The Cavs need to allow more leash for guys that can get white hot because you’ll probably need them at some critical moment.\u00a0 Lots of folks will remember J.R. Smith’s boneheaded play in 2017 but he may have saved their series against the Bulls in 2015 and he was absolutely instrumental to winning the Championship in 2016.\u00a0 Ty Lue and the Cavs let J.R. be J.R. and it paid off.\u00a0 But also, the ECF made no sense whatsoever so I’m not sure any lesson other than “GAMBLING ON SPORTS IS A FOOLS ERRAND” should be learned.<\/p>\n

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Chris Francis:<\/strong> The Cavs need a good coach, one that isn’t sub. 500 for his career with a pathetic playoff record. One that instills confidence in the role players instead of yanking them in and out of the lineup with panic move after panic move. One that actually plays fewer than three to four non-shooters on the court at one time. Apparently this has been too much to ask for according to some loudmouth, unpaid JB defenders.<\/p>\n

David Wood:<\/strong> The Cavs need a veteran mean man. Or, they need Mitchell to grow several inches. The Cavs are soft. Allan scored fewer than ten points and grabbed under eight rebounds a game in the playoffs after averaging 14.3 points and 9.8 boards during the regular season. That doesn\u2019t seem like a huge drop off, but if you watched the games, you could see he was playing passively. He was a towel.<\/p>\n

If LeBron, Giannis, Kawhi, or any other player taller than 6\u20191\u201d was the Cavs\u2019 best player that wouldn\u2019t\u00a0\u00a0have mattered. You just can\u2019t be a turd towel in the playoffs if you\u2019re wiping up giant messes. And, typically giant messes happen if the best player on your team is a headstrong smaller guard. That\u2019s just the way it goes. Doesn\u2019t matter how good Mitchell is, there are just times that he will not be able to avoid failing from his size issues.<\/p>\n

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Nate Smith: <\/strong>You mean aside from having 4-5 guys who can shoot on the floor at all times? You can’t be any better as a team than you believe that you are. And you can’t have belief without having higher expectations of yourself – a willingness to improve and compete. Judging from Koby’s comments and JB’s lack of urgency and unwillingness to change what wasn’t working, the Cavs never expected to go anywhere significant in the ’23 playoffs. “Hey, if we made the second round that would’ve been great!” seemed to be the mantra based on Koby’s comments in Ryan Lewis’ Beacon Journal piece<\/a> from April 29th<\/p>\n

No one’s going to panic off of this first-round loss. Just like there’s stuff to be gained from this playoff experience, the 51 wins in a hyper-competitive NBA, there’s a lot to learn from that as well in terms of what we can be successful at, and we know we can be better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a continuation of Koby’s mantra from the beginning of the season as reported by Jeff Schudel<\/a> of the Willoughby News-Herald.<\/p>\n

We have guys under contract for the foreseeable future. We want to grow and add more playoff experience and build toward something. But we have not seen Darius (Garland) in his prime. What does the internal growth look like for Evan Mobley? Jarrett Allen is 24 years old.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I mean that’s great and all, but if you look at the Warriors’ first playoff run in 2013, they went 6-6 and made the second round – with a coach in Mark Jackson we all hate. The ages of Steph, Klay, and Dray were 25, 23, 23 respectively. That’s right in line with where the Cavs are. The Dubs didn’t have built-in excuses. They went out and competed till the hit a level they weren’t ready for.<\/p>\n

That’s my problem with the Cavs. They didn’t compete<\/em>. There was no expectation from the org to be better than “make the playoffs” and there was no expectation from the players themselves for continuous improvement because of it. If JB wasn’t afraid for his job, what motivation did he have to tinker, experiment, execute better when things weren’t working? The Cavs may love winning, but they don’t hate<\/em> to lose, which is the key to competitive grit.<\/p>\n