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David Blatt is a former NBA coach

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He doesn't know how to utilize LeBron and Love strengths yet. This is why i think the Cavs would've been better off with a defensive minded head coach and the defense would've create good enough offense( fast breaks, etc). Blatt wants to run an offense that doesn't require anyone to be a legit #1 option, but that style doesn't quite work in the NBA. It only works for one team(Spurs) because they have smart veterans who want to do whatever it take to win, but you can't run that style of basketball when you have a bunch of young players who haven't won anything significant in terms of winning games and having playoffs experience.


The Cavs need to seriously consider trading for a starting interior defender because Love isn't going to get any better defensively playing in this offense-first system. Thompson is not needed. He's a good ooffensive rebounder, but he doesn't have the B-Ball IQ to be a key piece on a championship team. The Cavs have too many talents to be this mediocre on both ends. The players are to be blamed, but the system plays a bigger role.

A defensive minded team play with good energy night in and night out even while struggling on the offensive end, but the Cavs don't have an identity right now. They're below average defensively and average offensively, they don't look like a playoffs team right now.

I know it's not the most popular opinion around here, but i think the team would be better off with just one guy as the playmaker in the starting lineup with LeBron and Love being focal points of the offense, but it seems like Love isn't getting involved enough and when he does get involved, he has trouble finding his rhythm.


In a perfect world, the Cavs would be a deadly team with just LeBron and Love, a good interior defending starting C, a good scorer off the bench, and a bunch of shooters, but i know Kyrie isn't going anywhere, but it's so obvious that the Cavs need Love more to play well in order to win than they need Kyrie to play well to win. Love has the bigger impact, but right now, his teammates and head coach can't figure out a way to bring the best out of him, same goes for LeBron.
 
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Blatt confused me with the rotations in this game. Randomly out of nowhere going with Mike Miller and Harris with Haywood I believe? Lebron playing the entire 1st quarter and 3rd quarter?

I know he is still experimenting but we need to find a rotation and stick with it for awhile to build some continuity.

I can't really blame him too much for the offense because Lebron was holding the ball way too much and forcing stupid shots for large chunks of the game. There was no ball and body movement at all. The minute we run into trouble Lebron and Kyrie revert back to iso ball immediately. Guys have to buy into the system or it's not going to work.
 
Benedict_Boozer said:
Blatt confused me with the rotations in this game. Randomly out of nowhere going with Mike Miller and Harris with Haywood I believe? Lebron playing the entire 1st quarter and 3rd quarter?

I know he is still experimenting but we need to find a rotation and stick with it for awhile to build some continuity.

I can't really blame him too much for the offense either because Lebron was holding the ball way too much and forcing stupid shots for large chunks of the game. There was no ball and body movement at all. The minute we run into trouble Lebron and Kyrie revert back to iso ball immediately. Guys have to buy into the system or it's not going to work.
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The line up with Harris, Miller, and Haywood. wtf haha
 
Bandwagoner305 said:
He doesn't know how to utilize LeBron and Love strengths yet. This is why i think the Cavs would've been better off with a defensive minded head coach and the defense would've create good enough offense( fast breaks, etc). Blatt wants to run an offense that doesn't require anyone to be a legit #1 option, but that style doesn't quite work in the NBA. It only works for one team(Spurs) because they have smart veterans who want to do whatever it take to win, but you can't run that style of basketball when you have a bunch of young players who haven't won anything significant in terms of winning games and having playoffs experience.

In a perfect world, the Cavs would be a deadly team with just LeBron and Love, a good interior defending starting C, a good scorer off the bench, and a bunch of shooters, but i know Kyrie isn't going anywhere, but it's so obvious that the Cavs need Love more to play well in order to win than they need Kyrie to play well to win. Love has the bigger impact, but right now, his teammates and head coach can't figure out a way to bring the best out of him, same goes for LeBron.
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Sometimes I think Love's own teammates have to get frustrated with his bad defensive habits. At the very least, Kyrie is showing a much more aggressive nose for the ball than past seasons.

Love's attitude has always been that his stats say how much he's contributing to the game, but realistically guys lets be honest: Kevin Love is a poor defender. No stats please.

Teams are not scared of attacking Kevin Love routinely. They will happily live with those opportunities, as they should. Kevin is going to get tested defensively all season.

Kyrie and LeBron have displayed their talent in waves. It hasn't even reached synchrony yet. Kyrie and LeBron have displayed a natural pairing. So why not Love?

I seriously think it's because if you were on Kevin Love's team, you'd get pissed if your teammate gives up uncontested layups. I'm not saying they're freezing him out, but if Love battled more on defense, I think his teammates would certainly look to feed him a little more.

The real test of Blatt will be if he can (on a dime) change his modality of thinking about the game of basketball. This isn't Europe. This is the big boys league, it's a different situation all together than what he's accustomed to.
 
It's hard to buy in a system when it hasn't proven to be effective at the NBA level. I know people like to compare him to Erik Spoelstra, but before LeBron and Bosh joined the Heat, Spo's system was proven to worked at the NBA level. It wasn't easy for the players to bought in since that system requires players to expend a lot of energy on the defensive end, but they did found their identity as an undersized defense-first, fast-tempo offense team. LeBron and Wade were the two main options and they managed to scored at a high efficient level, which resulted their team to be an efficient scoring team.
 
Frank Reynolds said:
Sometimes I think Love's own teammates have to get frustrated with his bad defensive habits. At the very least, Kyrie is showing a much more aggressive nose for the ball than past seasons.

Love's attitude has always been that his stats say how much he's contributing to the game, but realistically guys lets be honest: Kevin Love is a poor defender. No stats please.

Teams are not scared of attacking Kevin Love routinely. They will happily live with those opportunities, as they should. Kevin is going to get tested defensively all season.

Kyrie and LeBron have displayed their talent in waves. It hasn't even reached synchrony yet. Kyrie and LeBron have displayed a natural pairing. So why not Love?

I seriously think it's because if you were on Kevin Love's team, you'd get pissed if your teammate gives up uncontested layups. I'm not saying they're freezing him out, but if Love battled more on defense, I think his teammates would certainly look to feed him a little more.

The real test of Blatt will be if he can (on a dime) change his modality of thinking about the game of basketball. This isn't Europe. This is the big boys league, it's a different situation all together than what he's accustomed to.
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I don't think LeBron and Kyrie have clicked yet. It's still basically a "your turn, my turn to Iso" type of chemistry they have. I don't they'll have the same elite level of chemistry that LeBron and Wade had, but i think they'll figure it out soon. Love needs to play like he give a damn.

He has no emotions and give zero effort on the defensive end. I've already seen LeBron shook his head in disbelief with the level of defense Love has displayed thus far, that's not the type of defensive effort you need from one of you're best players when you're trying to be a championship contender. This is why i think it was a mistake that Cavs hired an offense-first coach. With a defense- first coach, you'd see better defensive effort from Love and better overall team defensive effort.

It's better to have a good defensive system with an average offense scheme than to have a good offensive system with an average defense scheme. Bosh is now considered a good above average defender because he plays in a system that brings the best defensive effort and instinct out of him on full display, he wasn't considered much of a defensive threat when he was a Raptor. Can you imagine Tom Thibodeau coaching this team? He'd bring the best defensive instinct out of everyone on the roster, but he'd have enough fire power on the offensive end to put the Cavs in a positive that the Bulls haven't been in due to lack of scoring.
 
Look forward to seeing whether we have ourselves a keeper on this one, or whether, as predicted, there would be struggles for the coach with the least power in the NBA relative to his players.

This differential in authority makes things very difficult.
 
I think the first thing Blatt needs to establish is some kind of identity for the team.

What is our identity? What do we hang our hat on? I really don't think we have one right now on either side of the ball..
 
Can we really blame him? the Cavs held the Wiz to 91 points, that's great. The offense was terrible, lack of ball movement, dribbling galore and the turnovers. You can't win like that, I'm not buying it that he's the problem.
 
Benedict_Boozer said:
I think the first thing Blatt needs to establish is some kind of identity for the team.

What is our identity? What do we hang our hat on? I really don't think we have one right now on either side of the ball..
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Well, don't forget that Blatt was praised for being able to adapt his system to his players. For example all the up-tempo years in Maccabi followed by the slow paced team he ran last season. Perhaps he just isn't totally comfortable with the players here yet, and the players still likely haven't learned how to gel with each other, either. This is a whole new coaching apparatus as well as a whole new roster.
 
I appreciate how candid Blatt was in his post-game interview, but this was concerning:

Reporter: "Coach, are you concerned with the body language of this team, they just looked down early?"

Blatt: "I'm concerned about everything right now. Every single thing. This is the same team that a week ago or a couple of days ago was scoring 120 points a game. You know, we're not a different group of people and we're not a different team. But we're just playing in the dark right now."

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Reporter: "There's not much you can say after a loss like that but it took you a lot longer than normal to come out here, were players saying something, I mean, how are they feeling?"

Blatt: "(In a dismissive tone) No, no. We'll talk more about things tomorrow."
 
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