Game 33 | Cavs (18-14) @ Horncats (10-23) | January 2nd, 2015 | 7:00pm EST

[crabbyshark]

What about the 1st and 2nd quarters? What about the other games he hasn't played? It's funny how you pick the smallest possible sample sizes to make these determinations when much larger ones exist.

They've been putrid on offense since James has went down. Only the most devoted of the blame James crowd can argue otherwise.

And Sam The Bullshit Whisperer?
4. So what's it all mean? It means the other guys will have to buckle down find some resolve. On the bright side, Kyrie Irving has shown it all season. And the Cavs actually looked pretty good with Irving and Kevin Love leading the way in a close loss at Oklahoma City -- the first game LeBron missed this season. In fact, the Cavs looked better in that game than they have in some wins WITH LeBron.

http://www.foxsports.com/ohio/story/lebron-james-cavs-cavaliers-kevin-love-kyrie-irving-010215

 

[Rich]

And Sam The Bullshit Whisperer?
4. So what's it all mean? It means the other guys will have to buckle down find some resolve. On the bright side, Kyrie Irving has shown it all season. And the Cavs actually looked pretty good with Irving and Kevin Love leading the way in a close loss at Oklahoma City -- the first game LeBron missed this season. In fact, the Cavs looked better in that game than they have in some wins WITH LeBron.

http://www.foxsports.com/ohio/story/lebron-james-cavs-cavaliers-kevin-love-kyrie-irving-010215

"That GAME." "SOME wins."

We've got a whopping 34 games to go on, don't we? So why continue going to single quarters instead of taking the entire body of work? This is insanity unless the crux of your argument is that in that single game the offense looked better than it did earlier in that one game and not then trying to transpose that onto the entire season, ok then. In that one game the offense flowed better w/ James off the court. But that is in no way indicative of the season. The offense (and the margin is REALLY starting to grow) is WORLDS better with James on the court over the course of the entire season than with him off of it.

You just watched a game where the offense was awful. But out of that game, you pick the one quarter where it didn't completely suck. Do you afford James the same latitude? When the offense, with James, hasn't looked good in a particular game, do you instead pick the one quarter during the game where it did? No.

And you shouldn't. It's absolutely foolish to use these tiny sample sizes to prove some sort of point when instead you've got a more complete body of data at your disposal. While the offense can and does sputter with James, it does a lot more sputtering without him. This is indisputable.

 

[Rainman]

Two of those games included no Shawn Marion and almost no Kevin Love. If LeBron misses the full two weeks it'll be interesting to see how the numbers look then.

Hope he decides to sit a full 2 weeks

 

[crabbyshark]

"That GAME." "SOME wins."

We've got a whopping 34 games to go on, don't we? So why continue going to single quarters instead of taking the entire body of work? This is insanity unless the crux of your argument is that in that single game the offense looked better than it did earlier in that one game and not then trying to transpose that onto the entire season, ok then. In that one game the offense flowed better w/ James off the court. But that is in no way indicative of the season. The offense (and the margin is REALLY starting to grow) is WORLDS better with James on the court over the course of the entire season than with him off of it.

You just watched a game where the offense was awful. But out of that game, you pick the one quarter where it didn't completely suck. Do you afford James the same latitude? When the offense, with James, hasn't looked good in a particular game, do you instead pick the one quarter during the game where it did? No.

And you shouldn't. It's absolutely foolish to use these tiny sample sizes to prove some sort of point when instead you've got a more complete body of data at your disposal. While the offense can and does sputter with James, it does a lot more sputtering without him. This is indisputable.

It's not "indisputable." When LeBron is playing like balls the Cavs do things like lose 103-80 to the Pistons.

When LeBron decides to stop playing like balls there is no doubt the Cavs are better with him than without him.

 

[Sebastian]

I'm glad the Real Kevin Love came back from that injury. Do you suppose the Real Kevin Love killed the bad Love in some epic Superman III style battle?

 

[Jordan]

It's not "indisputable." When LeBron is playing like balls the Cavs do things like lose 103-80 to the Pistons.

When LeBron decides to stop playing like balls there is no doubt the Cavs are better with him than without him.

Can you define "when Lebron is playing like balls"? Because, I gotta be honest, even bad LBJ is better than 90% of players in this league.

 

[KilgoreTrout]

This is probably one of the best wins of the season. Not THE best but damn close. The collective effort and not dying down in the moment after they could have is pretty awesome.

I'm not going to lie. I'm completely stoked about this win considering we were trailing for a good portion of this game and when we were trailing in other games we couldn't muster the moxie to come back.

I like it and I also like how the team actually ran plays that gave our best players the opportunity to do them. We were screening, we were moving, we were playing real basketball and I almost completely lost hope that we couldn't do that anymore.

I don't mind the ISO type of ball when it is performed in the flow of the the actual play that is being called. That is why plays are called. That is what the coach is looking for.

I think Blatt redeemed himself BIG TIME in this game. His offense caters to his stars and if LeBron is indeed the leader of this team then he needs to accept what we're trying to do. I think this game goes a long way with him personally.

Windy said he thinks Blatt is the Isreali version of Greg Popovich and that players resent that.

I say, give me the Isreali version of Greg Popovich 10 times out of 10.

The players resent having a smart coach? That's sad, if true.

 

[JFT]

Best parts of the game tonight for me were:

1) only 7 turnovers, so not a lot of big mistakes like recent games;
2) 8 steals overall, with 4 from Kyrie and 4 from Dion;
3) 5 blocks, with 3 from Tristan;
4) Kevin with 27 pts, 5 reb, 9-15 FGM, and 3-4 from 3 point land.

I'll take this one...even if against Charlotte.

 

[crabbyshark]

Can you define "when Lebron is playing like balls"? Because, I gotta be honest, even bad LBJ is better than 90% of players in this league.

"Chill mode."

One of the arguments I keep making is that with no LeBron, Kyrie and Love's PER will go up. We'll see how the team is playing in two weeks!

 

[stick]

My favorite moment of this game was Tristan's block on MKG when the ball got swatted into Gilchrist's face as he was prone on the ground.

 

[Cavsfan1985]

A win is a win and I think we can build on it. Players need to get used to each other and the new rotations. Big test Sunday.

 

[Andrew]

I thought this was a step in the right direction, it wasn’t top heavy in scoring and it was done by committee with the offense and they got the job done. Love with 27, Irving with 23, Waiters with 17 and Thompson with the double-double with 14 and 14. The offense has seriously been struggling as of late and it was just nice to see an even distribution of points amongst the guys. Not too many threes attempted and those games will come but I felt going into the paint against the Hornets is key and they thought so too with 40 down there.

One minor grip would be for Miller to shoot the damn ball more than once. I mean, this dude, when he is on, is killer behind the 3 and he needs to shoot more, he is out there over-thinking.

Nice little rhythm and solid win tonight, if you can average single digit turnovers (7 tonight) a game, that would be huge. Dallas is going to be challenging but it can only strengthen this squad, hopefully.




On a side note, was anyone else's Fox Sports Ohio audio staticy only during playing time? I think its the acoustics in that arena since the visiting analysts are high up and you heard their echo on the broadcast as well.

 

[Rich]

"Chill mode."

One of the arguments I keep making is that with no LeBron, Kyrie and Love's PER will go up. We'll see how the team is playing in two weeks!

There is no argument on this. This is logical. That still doesn't mean that them increasing their production will equal the loss of LeBron's production. I fully expect Kyrie and Love to do more.

 

[Snarly]

WTF people thinking young players should be playing like vets in a winning system is just dumb. They need this and to play hard the rest of the way to prove they are better players. Love did tonight, Kyrie and the main man who has to step up Is Waiters with out Bron. Don't write them off yet, the more we win with this team with out Bron will be fantastic.

 

[Sebastian]

Not going to dog Kyrie or Dion tonight. They'll be better next game. They have to trust that they don't have to do all the scoring with Love playing well. They'll watch film and learn.