How good are the 2021-2022 Cavaliers?

[ohioaninsc]

Originally Posted by TheProf

It's going to be Atlanta. They are blowing out Charlotte, so the Cavs are going to have a tall order on Friday... I'm actually glad they are getting an extra day's rest.

I don't think we lost badly to Brooklyn. Yeah, that first quarter was as ugly as it gets. And when we fell down, what 24? 26? in the 2nd, I was seriously looking at my remote. But, as this team has done all season, we settled down and fought back and actually had Brooklyn nervous for a minute as we cut the lead to 4 at 1 point in the 4th. Then we had a deadly sequence late where Durant hits a 3; Garland comes down and is bullied in to missing at the rim (the kid had to be gassed) and then KD hits again... Game over... But we still didn't roll over and cut it to 5 in the last min., got the ball and had a chance, but either Garland or Markkanen missed a 3, Nets rebound, KD is fouled; hits the 1st then Rondo has a bizarre lane vio on KD's rare 2nd shot miss.... and that was all she wrote.

Atlanta is going to be a serious handful. The Hawks are on a roll and have the swagger of making it to the ECF last year... They blew us out a few weeks ago in, next to the Orlando meltdown the last week, was our worst game of the season. I honestly believe Allen will return and if we can get Tower City going again with Darius taking it to another level, we have a shot.

But we absolutely must get more scoring help for our core scorers - Garland, Mobley, Markkanen and Love. We absolutely must get more out of LeVert who started missing 7 of his first 8 shots last night in Brooklyn. Can't have that... And Cedi's got to get something going. Being at home in the Rock, on what should be a wacko crazy Friday night downtown (Guardians home opener, too) will hopefully fire up the kids -- young players feed off home crowds more often. Maybe the Cedi-Love combo can get it going, too. Keven can't keep carrying the entire bench... I have little hope that Okoro can repair his seriously declining offensive game, but we absolutely need him to muscle up on Trae Young... which Isaac has done in the past and really thrown Young's shooting off. As has been shown time and again, when you get physical and bump guys around, even the most precise outside shooters -- KD, Curry, Young, on and on, you can throw them off... I have some hope we can pull this thing off, esp if Allen returns, which I have a strong feeling he will.

If Allen plays tonight we have a chance...if he's still out, then the season is over tonight.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by ohioaninsc

If Allen plays tonight we have a chance...if he's still out, then the season is over tonight.

Cavs made it a game without Allen vs KD and Kyrie on the road. I like the Cavs at home with or without Allen.

Charlotte isn't very good either. Not impressed just because the Hawks beat the Hornets.

[TheProf]

Bummer for an ending.... Great first half and the crowd was pumped, but just 40 points in the 2nd half. Hawks definitely upped their D, but our offense was absolutely stagnant in the 2nd half, esp the 4th with 11 turnovers and a bunch of 24-second vios/near vios.

Garland was great most of the game, and this was a true coming-out season, but he has had a 4th quarter problem in a number of games, and tonight we couldn't afford it. He will grow. I also think JB was outcoached, pure and simple. We didn't trap Young late nearly enough and, when we did, we forced the ball out of his hands, and only a few times did the other guys beat us.

Mobley was great under the brightest lights: 18 points, 8 rebs, 5 assists, 2 blocks including his last one I thought may have saved the game.

LeVert's a bad fit. He slows our rhythm down and we tend to stand and watch him. If he knocked down shots like Kyrie or DeRozan, that would be one thing, but he often burns the clock and then clanks mid-rangers. It kills our momentum. I think we need to, perhaps, sign his last-year $18M contract, bundle him with our Lottery protected pick, and grab a big-time wing.

Okoro was a non-factor on both ends; LeVert actually played better D than Isaac. It's hard to give up on a guy that young in only his 2nd year, but he really disappointed esp later in the season.

As I said: bummer; definitely took the wind out of my sails; I really believed we could win tonight. Oh well; hopefully the team learns and grows from this.

[TheProf]

... wow, no Cavs talk... I guess I'm the only one who's picking up the pieces of a broken sports weekend; a weekend I had been yearning for all week as though it was Christmas morning and I was a child.

footnote/update: ... as I type and as expected, Miami is stomping the life out of Atlanta, which makes Friday all the more frustrating. The Cavs, if we were right, would give the Heat a run for their money, although we'd likely go down. But the Hawks just are NOT that good, but we made them look like the Warriors. We let 1 man, Trae Young, a guard from Collin Sexton's class, beat us. Young is an All Star, no doubt, but the Cavs have a better overall team. But we played down to their level, and below, in the 2nd half. In my opinion: poor coaching by JB, and our All Star guard just lost composure in crunch time; but it was not all Darius' fault, by any means; I put this more on JB. Kevin Love played 10 minutes?? and just 95 seconds in the 2nd half!? What was that all about?

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by TheProf

... wow, no Cavs talk... I guess I'm the only one who's picking up the pieces of a broken sports weekend; a weekend I had been yearning for all week as though it was Christmas morning and I was a child.

footnote/update: ... as I type and as expected, Miami is stomping the life out of Atlanta, which makes Friday all the more frustrating. The Cavs, if we were right, would give the Heat a run for their money, although we'd likely go down. But the Hawks just are NOT that good, but we made them look like the Warriors. We let 1 man, Trae Young, a guard from Collin Sexton's class, beat us. Young is an All Star, no doubt, but the Cavs have a better overall team. But we played down to their level, and below, in the 2nd half. In my opinion: poor coaching by JB, and our All Star guard just lost composure in crunch time; but it was not all Darius' fault, by any means; I put this more on JB. Kevin Love played 10 minutes?? and just 95 seconds in the 2nd half!? What was that all about?

The lack of depth at point guard doomed the Cavs, as I anticipated in post 90. Terry Pluto reinforced the point in this column. Garland was gassed. Bickerstaff's coaching performance raises serious long-term concerns IMO.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba...9626b336d5f984

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by WRnative

The lack of depth at point guard doomed the Cavs, as I anticipated in post 90. Terry Pluto reinforced the point in this column. Garland was gassed. Bickerstaff's coaching performance raises serious long-term concerns IMO.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba...9626b336d5f984

No question. I didn't want to come off flaming Darius; he was great this year but he needed help. LeVert is not a bad player, but a poor fit for Cleveland. Caris would be great for a halfcourt team like Milwaukee, but our Cavs are a running, fling the ball around to the open man. LeVert is a dribble-dribble guy, and he consistently was eating up the shot clock in the 2nd half forcing so many desperate 9-11 heaves. But JB kept pair LeVert with Garland; gave Caris waaay too many mins IMHO. Neither Cedi nor Stevens ever left the bench, with the former potentially providing fire power while the latter surely would have done a better job facing up Young... and where was the timeout after Markkanen intercepted that pass with 25 seconds left and a 3-point deficit. The coach should have immediately signaled for it... we had 2 timeouts left and, there, we would have got the ball at halfcourt with time to draw up a play... To me, it was JB Bickerstaff who melted down in the clutch, not Darius Garland.

[bjimmy24]

Didn’t have enough down the stretch. Not enough time together once the big three was back. Sexton would have been great to have. Levert should not be brought back. Hopefully injuries don’t strike again next year, we could be a top 6 seed. They have to have a meaningful offseason and everyone has to come ready to go and in shape, hopefully with a little chip on their shoulder getting beaten so bad in the play in.

[ohioaninsc]

Garland was 9-27...need to get a more efficient shooting game from your best player.
Stevens should have gotten some min...physical defense slows Trae Young down a lot...but Stevens is the only physical defender we have...should have used him some.
Offense got way too stagnant and that is on JB...he made zero adjustments...

Very disappointed in him this season...good coaching would have helped us overcome some of the injuries.

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by ohioaninsc

Garland was 9-27...need to get a more efficient shooting game from your best player.
Stevens should have gotten some min...physical defense slows Trae Young down a lot...but Stevens is the only physical defender we have...should have used him some.
Offense got way too stagnant and that is on JB...he made zero adjustments...

Very disappointed in him this season...good coaching would have helped us overcome some of the injuries.

I would have definitely given Stevens some run, esp when Young was going crazy; and giggling all the way back up court after he scored. As I said before, a defense needs to bump around a shooter which often throws a shooter off. Surprisingly we got some of that from Markkanen on Durant in the 3rd and 4th quarters in Brooklyn, and not surprisingly, KD started missing shots; even tossing a few highly rare bricks...
I also don't understand why we weren't trapping Young to get the ball out of his hands. Let one of those hams like Heurter or Bogdonovic or Gallinari or Hunter beat you, not Young, whose 2nd half 32 points was the most in his career!

JB definitely deserves to be back, but he will be watched next season. If the Cavs stumble badly out of the gate, he won't see the Cavs bench in 2023, ... except from a paid seat.

[ohioaninsc]

Looking ahead...in the draft...The Cavs need a wing player/shooting guard who can score and get his own shot and defend. If he's available I hope they can draft Ochai Agbaji from Kansas...he's 6'5, 215...can shoot, can handle the rock, can defend, and is a smart player. He wouldn't be needed to be a major contributor but he could he a nice piece off the bench throughout the season.

If they can sign Collin Sexton to a team friendly deal (think $13-15 mil a yr) then that will allow them to get a free agent backup PG (maybe Rubio again?) and that would put them in great shape for a big year.