Imo you can't judge Blatt off last finals
I can't think of a single coach who would've pulled that one out their ass
right? LeBron was going for damn near 40/10/10 You could put Red or Phil out there and they still couldn't save that ship.
I am 100% in on Kevin Love's importance to the whole equation. Hell, David Blatt damn near creamed himself when he found out Kevin Love was a legitimate possibility. Use him!
Blatt let LBJ do his thing last year; how could you not? A side effect of that was that James and Irving decided they
needed to figure out how to play with one another.
Kevin Love took a backseat. Everyone thinks about his insane outlet passes,
Kevin Love is a damn good passer in general! He's been taught the game by old school players. Passing is a serious weapon in the game of basketball. All the kids nowadays are obsessed with pulling up from 3, dunking on people, and breaking ankles.
Love's passing is an art, not an incidence.
Back to the Cavaliers.... I heard an interesting outsider's perspective of our team.
"It's like you are going to get hit with a great performance (30+) from any of Love, Irving, or LeBron, but it doesn't feel like their machine is operating in synchrony."
They feel like it's an individualistic outburst that wins any given game for the Cavaliers. Once Irv, Bron and Kev learn to play off of one another; to use their teammates unique
superstar games and parlay it into something greater than the sum of the big 3's totals.... Greatness awaits. I remember Miami initially would win games because Bron, Bosh and Wade all had 30.
^ That's not exactly the epitome of a
high level functioning team. Miami started winning titles when they established a brand of basketball and perfected that recipe by building a team where everyone knew their role and was in the right spot when they needed to be.
Once this team develops those instinctual playing habits, and forms that unselfishness (the extra pass) it's no longer going to be one player on the Cavaliers swinging a game, but rather the entire Cavaliers team overwhelming an opponent. Run the simulation 100x's... we'll beat you with games of incredible output from a singular player; and we'll beat teams because we have sky-high potential to out-rebound and out-assist.
My final point goes back to that hockey assist. Another thing I vividly remember about the Heat championship teams was their extra pass to the corner. I can't tell you how many times Battier, Chalmers, Miller got the extra swing pass and buried it.
Very excited to have Mo Williams back, best guard he got to play with was Delonte. Now, Mo is kicking the extra pass to Shump, JR, Kevin Love, LeBron......
This is the best team Mo Williams has ever played on. The criticism of Mo was fair; but at the same time JR Smith needs to receive the same criticism because his performance was very similar, only on a higher stage. We asked JR to step into the #2 seat, and he pissed himself. So did Mo. Gotti is going to fucking thrive here though, I can feel it. Bring back the godfather horn.
