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Grantland on the Cavs (2 new pieces on K-Love)

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I never really believed he used HGH or steroids or anything. His size and strength have just been too consistent over the years -- he was huge in high school and added muscle smoothly and naturally over the years, just as you would expect someone to do from 18 to 25. There was never a gigantic leap in any one year.
 
Zach Lowe's take on the early season Cavs. There are three embedded videos that didn't copy over, so it's worth clicking through to see them.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/t...ature-clearing-up-some-big-picture-questions/


Cleveland Cavaliers: Cleveland is at 3-3 after two get-well wins, but their defense has been a disaster, and their offense burped out points at only a league-average rate until exploding Monday against the Pelicans. The Cavs will be fine on that end, but the stickiness of their offense — especially highlighted against Miami’s continued pass-happy scoring — is a humbling reminder of how difficult it is to construct a modern, go-go NBA system.

“It’s a habit you build,” Erik Spoelstra told me last week in Charlotte, discussing his team’s continued success. “You learn how to play together and make the game easier for each other. It’s not something that’s instinctive for any basketball player, from the youth level all the way up through here.”

Cleveland isn’t there yet. No team has finished more possessions via isolation plays, per Synergy, and the Cavs are dead last in total assist chances.1 They’re using post-ups too often as vehicles for a shot, rather than as a way to draw help and whip the ball around.

In Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters, Cleveland has two guys who have spent their basketball lives either dribbling the ball or waiting to get it back so they can start dribbling again. It is their learned instinct to hold the ball when they catch it after a nice passing sequence, as Waiters does here in torpedoing a promising curl play:


They have never been in an environment where they’ve had to catch the ball against a defense tilted away from them and then instantly do something with it — drive, pass, or shoot.


They’ll end up with one of the league’s two or three best offenses, but the journey there might be more ragged than anticipated.

The lack of rim protection has been as advertised on defense, especially when teams drag Anderson Varejao away from the basket. Cleveland doesn’t have the tools to solve that problem without a trade.

The Cavs have toggled between several different styles on defense, but they’ve mostly been very aggressive — a slower, ground-bound version of the LeBron-era Heat, trapping and leaping out hard on pick-and-rolls. That’s taxing on the big men doing the trapping, but it also makes newish demands of both Irving and Waiters. They have to leave their man, crash into the paint, and dart back out. They can’t be late inside, and their recoveries outside have to be on point — no gambling in passing lanes, no lazy footwork, no shaky balance.

Shockingly, two guys who have played zero minutes of meaningful defense in their NBA careers have struggled. This crunch-time possession against the Knicks is indicative:


In the span of a few seconds, Irving dies on a pick, Waiters blows a closeout on J.R. Smith, and Kevin Love does what he does in the lane.

LeBron hasn’t defended up to his standards, lazily switching assignments, losing track of his guy away from the ball, and leaking out before the possession is over.

The Cavs have time to clean this up, but if they aren’t defending in the ballpark of a top-10 level by April, they’re probably not winning the title.

But who is? We know what has befallen the Thunder. Chicago has scored like gangbusters, a great sign, but that’s mostly thanks to an angel food cake schedule and a super-fun bench that has blown the doors off everyone. The Pau Gasol–Joakim Noah starting duo has been awkward, and in what might be the biggest shock of the season, the burly Bulls rank next to dead stinking last in defensive rebounding rate. Quicker guys slither around Gasol, and Noah is clearly not right after offseason knee surgery.
 
Kevin Love Is Ready for His Close-up
kevin-love-tri.jpg


Chris Ryan: Here is a trollgaze power ranking of things that are wrong with the Cavs, in order of relevance to last night’s home loss to the Spurs:

7. Does LeBron have a liftoff problem?

6. Does Kyrie have a sharing problem?

5. Does Dion have a sitting problem?

4. Does LeBron have a minutes problem?

3. Does David Blatt have a running his huddle problem?

2. Joe Harris?

1. Does Kevin Love have a being-the-third-dude-in-the–Big Three problem?

Because he sure is playing like the third dude.


The Spurs cause teams problems. They exploit, torment, nip, and cut. So if Love was going to have a particularly bad night, it’s no surprise it came against San Antonio. But there was something a little eyebrow-raising about Love’s performance. There were plays like this on offense:

FineFlawedBear.gif


And the defensive work he put in prompted tweets like this:


It looked like he and Anderson Varejao were playing different sports. While the Brazilian was slashing, running the floor, and throwing himself around with abandon, Love looked like he was playing with concrete in his sneakers.

When Zach Lowe made his case for Cleveland as title contenders, he painted a tantalizing picture of how Love’s post prowess, basketball smarts, and deadly outside shooting could open up driving lanes for Cavs slashers. Lowe included some examples of past T-Wolves plays that might look good to Cleveland coach David Blatt this season. I watched those plays again last night, after the Spurs game. There was a certain level of attention Love’s teammates in Minnesota were paying to him, possibly to their detriment. I always like to think of great NBA players like movie stars — they tell you where to look when they are onscreen. When he was on Minnesota, Love was definitely a movie star.

The footage from last night’s loss — in which Love put up 10 points and grabbed 11 boards — looked like it was directed by a totally different filmmaker than the one who made those Minnesota clips. Love is like a bit player out there right now — just floating around the outer edges of the frame. Kyrie matters, Dion matters, and, of course, LeBron matters the most. But if the Cavs are going to be who we thought they were, Blatt needs to get his impending free-agent power forward some close-ups.

Taylor, How Was That Last Cavs Play Supposed to Go?
HeartfeltPaleIrishterrier.gif


Moon Pie Sonata
 
It's apparently Kevin Love day at Grantland. Not a huge Kirk Goldsberry fan because he rarely adds much beyond the statistics, but in this case it's useful to see those stats. One of the most interesting stats to me in this article isn't about defense, it's about offense -- Love's shooting percentage on interior shots has fallen off a cliff compared to last year (from 59% down to 42%). Gonna post that on the K-Love thread too.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/cleveland-cavaliers-interior-defense-kevin-love/

Love Hurts: Why Cleveland’s Interior Defense Isn’t Working
Sam Forencich/NBA
kevin-love-david-blatt.jpg

NBA

November 21, 2014
by Kirk Goldsberry


The new-look Cleveland Cavaliers are off to a slow start. Sure, it’s early, and the team is destined to improve. But the Cavs aren’t good right now — especially on defense. With a new coach, a new system, and an overhauled roster, it’s only fair to expect some growing pains. These problems, though, might have more to do with the kind of players Cleveland has, rather than how they’re playing.

Amid all the preseason hullabaloo about Cleveland’s new supergroup, many observers expressed concern about the team’s ability to defend the interior. One of these observers was the Cavaliers’ own general manager.


Through 10 games, David Griffin’s concerns look valid. His team can’t protect the basket. And while this isn’t just a “Kevin Love question,” his struggles to defend down low are certainly part of the issue. Cleveland ranks 26th in defensive efficiency and gives up a whopping 108 points per 100 possessions. They’ve been an absolute sieve in the paint, ranking 28th in the league with opponents converting 61 percent of attempts inside of eight feet. Simply put, if this doesn’t improve, the Cavaliers won’t win the championship.



Whether by design or by default, the Cavs now depend on Love’s interior defense — and thus far, their man in the paint has really struggled. This season, 51 NBA players have faced more than six shots per game near the basket. On that list, Love ranks 49th in opponents’ field percentage. Opponents are making 63.6 percent of their shots inside of five feet when Love is nearby.

But here’s the thing — this isn’t new. Love was among the least effective volume rim protectors in the league last year, too. Like it or not, he is who we thought he was, and any team leaning on Love to help protect the paint will be exposed. The good news is that of the team’s three primary rim protectors, the other two are pretty good. The bad news: Neither of those guys play nearly as much as Love. Through 10 games:

Opp FGA at rim per game Opp FGM at rim per game Opp FG% at rim per game Total blocks Minutes per game
Kevin Love 7.7 4.9 63.6% 3 36.9
Anderson Varejao 6.9 3.3 47.8% 10 26.9
Tristan Thompson 5.9 3.1 52.5% 8 23.4
Love’s superstar status has never had anything to do with his defense, which may say more about what it takes to be a superstar than it does about his overall game. Regardless, the guy has been one of the league’s most brilliant offensive players for years, and that brilliance generally negates his defensive struggles. Unfortunately, so far this season, Love hasn’t found his groove offensively, which only heightens those defensive concerns.



Before the season, I wrote about Love’s evolution as a scorer and how he might fit in Cleveland. In short, I predicted he would post up more and shoot fewer 3s. That hasn’t happened. In fact, Love is shooting more 3s, as 43 percent of his attempts have come from beyond the arc. He’s attempted more 3s than guys like Kyrie Irving, J.J. Redick, Kevin Martin, and Arron Afflalo. It was one thing for Love to be a hyperactive 3-point launcher in Minnesota last season — that team had very few perimeter options. But Cleveland is loaded with great shooters, so it’s hard to justify Love’s early perimeter usage, especially considering his greatness inside the arc.

Eighteen players have posted up at least 50 times this year, per Synergy Sports, but none have been as effective as Love. The Cavs are scoring 1.11 points on those possessions, making all of those 3s even more infuriating.

However, even with Love’s long-range bombing, there’s little doubt the Cavaliers will be a tremendous offensive team this year. The true challenge is fixing the defense, especially the rim protection. If Nazareth has taught us anything about hoops, it’s that “Love hurts / Love scars / Love wounds / And mars” … your interior defense.
 
"Eighteen players have posted up at least 50 times this year, per Synergy Sports, but none have been as effective as Love. The Cavs are scoring 1.11 points on those possessions, making all of those 3s even more infuriating."

Mandatory bed time reading for every player on the cavs and the coaching staff, please and thank you...
 
cavsfever said:
I never really believed he used HGH or steroids or anything. His size and strength have just been too consistent over the years -- he was huge in high school and added muscle smoothly and naturally over the years, just as you would expect someone to do from 18 to 25. There was never a gigantic leap in any one year.
Click to expand...
uh he was skinny as a rail
 
Moral of the story: nothing's ever easy in Cleveland.

I admit, I kind of thought we were gonna steamroll out the gate. Man, do I feel like an idiot now.
 
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