Summer League Game 5 - Cavs vs. Heat - Friday, July 18, 2014, 10:30pm ET

[MRMsix6]

Joe Harris is really impressing. He's improved exponentially since coming back from that sprained ankle. Lights out shooter, good feel for the game and court vision, good size. Easy to see him on an NBA roster and getting minutes real soon.

 

[SteelSmack]

Harris is definitely an NBA talent. Stays in front of his man, which few guys in the summer league seem to be able to do, and does everything he needs to on offense. More importantly, knows what he needs to do.

 

[TheRoo]

Having Harris learn from Mike Miller and hopefully Ray Allen would be great for his development.

 

[SteelSmack]

Gray finally got some 3s to drop this game... could have used them in the last game. :/

 

[Just Checkin]

Powell not looking bad tonight.

 

[redscoon]

Feel good for Powell. He had been atrocious up until tonight.

 

[SteelSmack]

Powell looks way better tonight than any other game. Actually looks like he might make it into the league.

 

[wuck]

Defense starts at with zone/man and immediately after first past goes into man/zone or different kind of zone while keeping to a help defense. I've never seen anything like it. And they're making this, something very advanced, look easy.

This is a mixed defensive approach that Blatt is known for. Thanks for making me watch the game to see his system on display.

 

[Cavatt]

I think Blatt just said,"we are gonna foul here." Lue was like "what??!"

 

[QuadrupleDouble]

God I'm so excited for Blatt. I haven't seen any summer league games, but I would watch this just to see what he can do with shit.

How good is this man at polishing a turd? That's what we will need to know on how he will make the accessory roster pieces look around our big 3

 

[Andrew]

Do you think that Johnson (Heat) get should get some burn by some team? Dude's motor is insane...not much to take away from this game except Blatt really didn't like that 1 missed free throw...

 

[Simmy]

I missed the game today, guys. Thoughts? Anything worth mentioning? I noticed that Wiggins & AB didn't play, the Cavs attributing that to rest and the fact that it was always pre-planned. Sounded fishy but then saw Fred McLeod's post mentioning we did it last season with Tyler and Dion (has this been confirmed?) which kind of had me more at ease.

I might have to catch the game later tonight on replay on League Pass.

 

[wuck]

. Sounded fishy but then saw Fred McLeod's post mentioning we did it last season with Tyler and Dion (has this been confirmed?) which kind of had me more at ease.

Yes, we held them out the last SL game. Miami held out Napier tonight. It's not uncommon, though the timing wasn't ideal today.

 

[rabman_gold]

Don't got much to share since I didn't spend the whole time in front of the TV, buuuut....

1) At the beginning, seemed a little "in the motions" type of ball around the 12-6 score and Cherry was shooting, dribbling into traffic.
2) Then Blatt brought him aside at free throws, and *insert meme here of soup nazi* "NO BLACK HOLE FOR YOU!"
3) Cherry was actually facilitating somewhat from then on. Pass game opened us up and the shit moved. Simple european basketball at its most basic and efficient. The most effective on our team in this movement wasn't exactly the standout, but Joe Harris showed his flexibility in using the offensive system from experience. 9 point lead at the first quarter.
4) This quarter brought us an implementation of defense and these guys were receptive to it. On the inbounds pass from a halfcourt line, there was communication. First it was a pure zone to swarm all over, then they tried to pass it across the court and was switched to man to man. But that wasn't the end! They tried pick and roll and we went to switch. Swarming defense. And they barely chucked a shot with ~3 seconds left, just to get an offensive struggle board. But it was clear that it worked there. In this case, because of the amounts of junk offenses and defenses thrown in D-League and Summer League, they'll just counter with free style offense and don't really react surprised. This type of surprise will be effective against professional NBA teams because there's so many variations.

I feel with the 8 point lead at half and stupid last second fouls in both quarters, we clearly have shown to be more effective with Blatt than I originally thought we'd start at. But it's clear give or take the learning curve, he's going to work out fine. He had barely any time to work with these fellas, but Blatt seems to have the ability to communicate well with players. If he can do that with the bigger guns, I think our success rate will double Brown's from last year and will be double the effect rate from the 2009 and 2010 playoffs.

The third quarter were just more experimenting and letting guys get theirs. Didn't see the fourth, so will need to rely on intuition on how it went.

That's all I got.

 

[DatDudeZ3]

Something that shocked me about Harris last night... I didn't know he was that good of a passer, and he has some zip on those passes. He's a very aware and heady player, he can also shoot it obviously, could play in the NBA right now on a team that wasn't contending.