Open Discussion (Cavs + related issues)

[Ohio]

Yeah, Kyrie was phenomenal offensively this year. Quite easily his best year all-around on offense. Definitely took a step forward. Maybe not as much as we'd have hoped overall, but still notable improvement.

If he does want to win an MVP one day, he will have to be better than terrible on defense in the regular season. Even Curry, who sucks at defense, manages to be respectable on defense in the regular season. That certainly helped him win two MVPs.

Offensively, Kyrie is already there. Christ, if he got calls like Touch Fouls™ from Boston, he'd be averaging damn near 30 PPG on 50/40/90 right now. His improvement in playmaking was noticeable this year as well.

And overall I liked what I saw from Kevin this year. The improvement in rebounding especially was a huge plus for this team.

Our issues this year weren't with the Big 3. For a long stretch of this season, our role players were fucking worthless. Now there's a lot that went into that...injuries, acclimating new players, etc. But our role players, overall, were awful this season in pretty much every aspect of the game. I do expect this to change in the playoffs, though. Just as I expect the Cavs to play with more consistent effort, especially on defense.

 

[Jordan]

I think Lue and his staff, overall, are largely responsible for this team's poor defense. That's not to say there's not legit weaknesses and holes, but we shouldn't be this awful on that end.

I think he's done a poor job keeping the overall team accountable. We shall see if they have a magic gear coming up, because if they defend this poorly in the post-season like they've done in the regular season, even in the East, we are in trouble.

I wouldn't leave Griffin off that... Agreed on Lue, though. I don't want him fired this offseason, even if we don't win it all, but I think serious changes need to be made.

 

[Raja khan]

Any word on if the new big guy will be playing tonight ?

 

[Simmy]

An excerpt from taken from the 'Return of the King' book detailing Griff's mind-state after Game 4 of The Finals appears oddly familiar to the situation this team is presently faced with:

The more Griffin thought about it, the more he grew amused. It got to the point where he was laughing to himself. Of course the team was down 3–1, he thought, they had to be down. His team never did anything the easy way. It was always about coming to the brink of disaster. This wasn’t a crisis, Griffin decided, not at all. This was his team playing their game.

 

[LeShaq]

^ That's it

That is who this team is. It's just what they are.

Hopefully that can change in time.

 

[LeShaq]

One great thing about this year is that neither Kyrie nor Kevin have had any real, serious injury issues. That's a big plus going forward.

Kevin had his knee scoped, sure, but he's had the same procedure done before and it just seems like something he'll have to get done every now and then for maintenance reasons. Seems like that's just how his body reacts to playing (loose bodies in the knee).

Hopefully both guys will feel confident in their bodies and be healthy heading into the summer. Looking forward to seeing Love with another offseason in the weight room under his belt.

The more these guys trust their bodies, the harder they will be able to play consistently.

 

[Ohio]

^ That's it

That is who this team is. It's just what they are.

Hopefully that can change in time.

LeDrama is here to stay, I'm afraid.

 

[Derek]

Because .380% is just a funny percentage for an All-Star PF. That's all. .540% isn't. Still low for a starting PF, but not that funny.

Demarcus Cousins is .533 for his career, although he was a career high .562 this past season. Is he inefficient? Especially considering those are against regular season competition.

 

[OnTheReg]

^ That's it

That is who this team is. It's just what they are.

Hopefully that can change in time.

If we win rings, this team can be as dramatic as it wants to be. It's frustrating, yes, but so far we've been successful with it.

 

[Chris Parker]

One great thing about this year is that neither Kyrie nor Kevin have had any real, serious injury issues.

I don't see how you can say a knee scope is not serious. Sure, sometimes it's nothing and Adrian Peterson comes back fine. But these are risky things. And while he's been fine offensively and doesn't seem to have been hindered by it so far, we also thought Kyrie was doing fine and suddenly discover he's had knee tendinitis this season.

Just because you split the apple on the guy's head doesn't mean it wasn't risky. Indeed, we often aren't even informed of what's going on. Remember how we found out much later about LeBron's back injections or Shumpert's bad groin in '15? It seems a little pie-eyed to say, oh yeah, knee surgery, no ish, he could do this every year.

[see also, Kyrie's sore knee]

 

[LeShaq]

I'm really not worried about the team, overall, heading into the first round. Of course, it will rapidly become clear whether they are taking defense seriously or not. But I'm assuming that they will now that the playoffs have arrived. Or, at least, they will when they have to.

These are three things I'm watching:

1. How fast can we get Korver back up to full speed? -- Korver is a real weapon, and when he's on his game our offense can be unbelievably good. Still don't think we've seen a ton of KI/JR/KK/LJ/KL yet (although I might be wrong on that). Having Full Conditioning Korver would be a big boost in this run. I don't think he's at that point yet.

2. How soon can Tristan regain full thumb health? -- My understanding of Tristan's injury is that it makes it difficult to grip things, as in gripping the basketball for rebounds. Since rebounding is Tristan's core strength as a player (along with defense), this might be an issue. I think that the healing time for sprains is generally 6 weeks (TT hurt his thumb, I think, on April 4, 2017. So about 10 days ago). We may not need Full Tristan in the first couple of rounds, but the sooner he can be back to himself, the better.

3. Will Tavares get any kind of playoff run? -- Probably not. And my guess is he'll just be in the "use in case of emergency" zone. But maybe he does get some time, particularly if Tristan struggles with thumb issues.



If we are healthy and playing smart, we should be in great shape to at least make The Finals. What might happen in The Finals, who knows? But hopefully Kyle and Tristan can be at full speed for them if we make it.

 

[fan0283]

I'm really not worried about the team, overall, heading into the first round. Of course, it will rapidly become clear whether they are taking defense seriously or not. But I'm assuming that they will now that the playoffs have arrived. Or, at least, they will when they have to.

These are three things I'm watching:

1. How fast can we get Korver back up to full speed? -- Korver is a real weapon, and when he's on his game our offense can be unbelievably good. Still don't think we've seen a ton of KI/JR/KK/LJ/KL yet (although I might be wrong on that). Having Full Conditioning Korver would be a big boost in this run. I don't think he's at that point yet.

2. How soon can Tristan regain full thumb health? -- My understanding of Tristan's injury is that it makes it difficult to grip things, as in gripping the basketball for rebounds. Since rebounding is Tristan's core strength as a player (along with defense), this might be an issue. I think that the healing time for sprains is generally 6 weeks (TT hurt his thumb, I think, on April 4, 2017. So about 10 days ago). We may not need Full Tristan in the first couple of rounds, but the sooner he can be back to himself, the better.

3. Will Tavares get any kind of playoff run? -- Probably not. And my guess is he'll just be in the "use in case of emergency" zone. But maybe he does get some time, particularly if Tristan struggles with thumb issues.



If we are healthy and playing smart, we should be in great shape to at least make The Finals. What might happen in The Finals, who knows? But hopefully Kyle and Tristan can be at full speed for them if we make it.

Add our defensive scheme and effort to that list. Every playoff series since Lebron came back we always identify a guy on the other team who we dare to shoot, whose screens we go under thus keeping our not so elite defense from getting stretched. I don't remember us even having this type of basic gameplan this regular season. Yet another reason I think Lue doesn't care to gameplan in the regular season.

My concern is that we don't put too much faith in this scheme type as a viable strategy against all teams. Iggy made us pay in 2015. Green almost made us pay last year. It worked on Barnes but he's been replaced with Durant. I wanted defensive athletes who could cover the floor to a better degree. One of the reasons RJ was so instrumental to our matching up with them last season. Sorry I dont think Love will help us on this front. On rotations he's several milliseconds slower than RJ. That fraction of a second makes a world of difference against the best perimeter oriented teams

 

[bigfoot5415]

My concern is Pacers have a lot of guys that give the Cavs fits at times: Miles, Ellis, George & Turner.

All guys that can turn it on.

 

[Sir'Dom Pointer]

My concern is Pacers have a lot of guys that give the Cavs fits at times: Miles, Ellis, George & Turner.

All guys that can turn it on.

Ellis? he is done. Pacers can't guard anyone from the Cavs... Teague can;t guard Irving, Ellis can't guard Korver or any 3pt specialist for that matter, George can't guard Lebron, Young can't guard Love and anyone can guard TT.

 

[cavsfever]

With respect to Love, I don't buy that it's mostly a mental/clutch thing. The guy has some real significant physical limitations as an interior player, period. Defensively that is pretty clear, but it is true on offense too. I still can't get over his 36% field goal percentage on layups (shots from 0-3 feet) in last year's playoffs, on a significant sample size. He actually had a lower shooting percentage from 0-3 than from three point range! That is quite rare even for guards. He has such good technique rebounding that he can still be a very effective rebounder despite his limitations in terms of length, quickness, and leaping ability, but I still wouldn't count on him for a specific key rebound late in the fourth against stronger interior players.

His physical limitations show up more strongly and his superior technique/smarts matter less when the effort level amps up, and that is in the fourth quarter and the playoffs. At those times his arsenal becomes more limited and he can end up looking like just a spot up three point shooter. With that said, his three point shooting has actually been markedly better in the playoffs than the regular season for two years running now, and that says to me that this is not an issue of being a bad player in the clutch.