Game 13 | Cavs @ Pelicans | November 22nd 2013 | 8:00 PM EST

[Tornicade]

Those of you blaming MB are hilarious. This teams roster make-up is a mess. I am not an MB apologist, but what does anyone suggest he do? Play Karasev, A foreign 19 year rookie more? Shorten the rotation? These guys don't give consistent energy with minutes they get now. Our SF situation is so bad we often have to play 3 6'3" guards together. If we had an NBA caliber 3 we win this game ( ESP because tryeke owned our under sized lineup down the stretch).

Everyone on this team is wildly inconsistent. After Kyrie, there isnt a ton of seperation between the next 8 to 9 players on the roster. That is going to force MB to have different closing lineups on almost a nightly basis.

Honestly, I liked the way the second unit looked tonight. Dion, Jack, Karasev, Clark & AV. This game was a great teaching moment of the team letting down their defensive intensity, and failing to effectively rebound down the stretch. We limit second chance pts in the 4th, and focus more on getting back in transition, and we win that ball game.

well first he needs to put Waiters back in the Starting Lineup.
2nd he does need to play Karasev more.
3rd need to utilize Sims or Zeller More so he can play AV more at the 4. so he can close games out with Thompson and AV on the floor.
4th when miles come back he should have miles start at the 3.
5th he needs to have 5 set plays for Bennett and run those 5 same plays every game Bennett plays or let the guy spend a couple weeks in the d league.

the guys needs something. and unlike most rookies is not a defensive liability on the floor.

Brown seems eager to go with felix but felix didnt look like he was ready. hopefully this guy can get some 5 minute stretches here and there.

whether people agree or disagree with my examples. there is quite a bit of things Brown can be doing that he isnt sticking too

 

[Erbium]

well first he needs to put Waiters back in the Starting Lineup.
2nd he does need to play Karasev more.
3rd need to utilize Sims or Zeller More so he can play AV more at the 4. so he can close games out with Thompson and AV on the floor.
4th when miles come back he should have miles start at the 3.
5th he needs to have 5 set plays for Bennett and run those 5 same plays every game Bennett plays or let the guy spend a couple weeks in the d league.

the guys needs something. and unlike most rookies is not a defensive liability on the floor.

Brown seems eager to go with felix but felix didnt look like he was ready. hopefully this guy can get some 5 minute stretches here and there.

whether people agree or disagree with my examples. there is quite a bit of things Brown can be doing that he isnt sticking too

So, simply to play devils advocate, we would win more if we played MORE players? Especially more of our inexperienced players?

While I don't argue our best offensive lineup 1-3 is Kyrie, Dion, and CJ, I also think the simplicity shown last night (1st unit rely on Bynum and Kyrie offensively, 2nd unit rely on Jack and Dion) actually seemed to work. For the first time all season I got a sense that everyone knew their roles, and because of this we were actually executing on both ends of the floor.

Like I said in my previous post though, coming up with a closing lineup for this team is going to be brutal. Dion is our second best offensive weapon, however, he doesn't function as well when not the primary option. So do you risk playing him and disrupting the offensive flow? Does Dion actually play defense when not engaged on the offensive end? Or does he sulk for that one second that causes him not get back in transition? If Dion isn't D-ing up, Kyrie is never D-ing up, can we really use these two together in close games?

Tonight once again showed that this group needs to give maximum effort for 48 mins to win.

One last thought on MB. I am going to very interested in how he handles this team should we fall out of it early. Can he coach to develop? If we are out of it, the development of our younger players, ESP our 4 rookies has to take precedence. Can he look past the issues these young guys have to let them learn on the fly? I am not so sure.

 

[CleveRocks]

We looked above average defensively in the first half, an improvement for sure. But NO stepped it up offensively in the second and beat us. This is a good coaching move by NO. They know we have no offensive organization, so they put in there best offensive players are dare us to stop them. The fact is that we have partial defense, and when all of the opposition players can score, there is always a weak link.

We will need to learn blanket defense and be able to hold it together for 48 minutes to win. And until the MB is not going to spend a ton of time on offense. He is going to figure out who is willing and able to defend that 48 minutes. When he has that list he can develop an offense around those players...I think we could get more W's in the early season by coaching on offense, but they would be false victory, because the team would not develop defensively as fast. If we cannot defend Lebron, wade, and bosh, or Duncan, Parker, Ginnobli.. whatever success we have this season wont take us far. Until we can hold teams under 20 points a quarter in at least one quarter consistently, we will need to improve the defense before we seriously think about the O. Consider the Pacers game last night, holding the celtics to 8 points in the third. Thats Defense.

 

[sjhughes]

Putting dion in the starting line up is not going to be the difference in this team being successful or not. I think him being in the 2nd unit with sergey and andy would actually benefit this team in the long run. It is obvious that mike brown wants to use a minimum of a 10 man rotation so that is how i will group my players.

Starters = Pg-Kyrie, Sg - Jack, Sf - Gee, pf - tt , C- Bynum
2nd unit = Pg dion, sg - sergey, sf - Miles (When Healthy), pf - Bennett or clark(With miles out move clark to the 3), C - Andy

the reason being is jack holds dion back, whether people see it or not it is the truth. Yes dion tries to take game over at times and puts his head down and just does dion, however last night he made more effort to penetrate and dish to teammates than kyrie and jack have done all year. I put Jack with kyrie because kyrie can play off the ball some and at other times he can just practice for his uncle drew mix tape.

I truly feel that the second unit would come out with 3-4 shooters and provide a spark rather than the let down we have been seeing for a few game. Both groupings would have their positives and negatives but that comes with any team.
I would go into more depth but im hung over and looking at the computer is hard.

 

[Homestar]

WELP, that sucked. But I was right behind the Cavs bench, and I got this....

Stupid non-working photos. Let's try that again...