Who deserves the blame for the still weak offense?

[BimboColesHair]

This isn't my read of this board or the media at all. I would say the vast majority of people here thought Dion would be facing the toughest adjustment, with those fears driving many to call for trading him or at least discussing concerns with his fit. The only talk about Kyrie was the freakout after his 0 assist game. In fact, most people thought his transition would not be as difficult on account of his All Star game and international play.

There was a lot of chatter over whether or not Kyrie can spread the ball enough to keep everyone in rhythm, and a lot of people who want to see him pass more and shoot less. Shoot, they spent a good portion of the pregame on opening night on TNT saying that Kyrie has to change his game the most on this team and play like more of a facilitator than a scorer in order for the team to work.

And on this board the talk about Dion on this team is not that he has to make dramatic changes to adjust his game (which I think he has to do, and throwing him into the fire is the only remedy for that, but that's another topic all together), it's the lazy idea that "he has to go to the bench so he can do his thing and run the 2nd unit" spiel we have heard since hes been in the league. Unfortunately for those people, there is no 2nd unit Dion can run on this team, as one of Kyrie, Love, or LeBron seems to always be on the floor over the course of the game.

 

[shoes22]

Unfortunately for those people, there is no 2nd unit Dion can run on this team, as one of Kyrie, Love, or LeBron seems to always be on the floor over the course of the game.

That's not really an issue if one of Kyrie, LeBron or Love is out there...the problem is when all three are out there along with Dion.

 

[Douglar]

Basketball reference has some new advanced stats that are handy.

OBPM - Offensive Box Plus/Minus- A box score estimate of the offensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.
DBPM - Defensive Box Plus/Minus - A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.
BPM - Box Plus/Minus - A box score estimate of the points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.
VORP - Value over Replacement Player- A box score estimate of the points per 100 TEAM possessions a player contributed above a replacement-level (-2.0) player, translated to an average team.

Here is a report on the Cavs rotation players-- While Dion's personal box score numbers have not been absolutely horrible so far this year, these numbers show something that has been true to my eye early in this season. The team offense curdles like someone put vinegar in the milk when Dion is on the floor. It has been so severe that the team looks noticeably better if you just replace Waiters with an average guy on the floor like Delly or Harris

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pi/shareit/FyYU8

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<table>
<tr><th>Player</th><th>PER</th><th>TS%</th><th>TRB%</th><th>AST%</th><th>OBPM</th><th>DBPM</th><th>BPM</th><th>VORP</th></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">LeBron James</td><td "text-align:left;">24.7</td><td "text-align:center;">58.0%</td><td>9.5</td><td>31.5</td><td>5.0</td><td>-0.6</td><td>4.4</td><td>5.3</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Kyrie Irving</td><td "text-align:left;">21.1</td><td "text-align:center;">56.9%</td><td>4.5</td><td>22.1</td><td>4.1</td><td>-2.6</td><td>1.6</td><td>2.9</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Anderson Varejao</td><td "text-align:left;">19.0</td><td "text-align:center;">65.1%</td><td>11.8</td><td>9.8</td><td>1.4</td><td>0.6</td><td>2.0</td><td>2.3</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Kevin Love</td><td "text-align:left;">18.2</td><td "text-align:center;">54.3%</td><td>17.2</td><td>9.1</td><td>1.7</td><td>-1.0</td><td>0.6</td><td>2.0</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Shawn Marion</td><td "text-align:left;">11.2</td><td "text-align:center;">50.2%</td><td>10.7</td><td>6.8</td><td>-1.7</td><td>1.5</td><td>-0.1</td><td>0.8</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Tristan Thompson</td><td "text-align:left;">16.1</td><td "text-align:center;">50.7%</td><td>15.2</td><td>3.0</td><td>0.0</td><td>-1.9</td><td>-2.0</td><td>0.0</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Joe Harris</td><td "text-align:left;">6.5</td><td "text-align:center;">52.8%</td><td>6.4</td><td>6.4</td><td>-1.8</td><td>-2.1</td><td>-4.0</td><td>-0.3</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Matthew Dellavedova</td><td "text-align:left;">5.2</td><td "text-align:center;">40.0%</td><td>3.0</td><td>16.9</td><td>-1.9</td><td>-2.4</td><td>-4.4</td><td>-0.4</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Mike Miller</td><td "text-align:left;">0.2</td><td "text-align:center;">33.3%</td><td>8.2</td><td>4.4</td><td>-3.5</td><td>-1.3</td><td>-4.7</td><td>-0.8</td></tr>
<tr><td "text-align:center;">Dion Waiters</td><td "text-align:left;">7.3</td><td "text-align:center;">44.9%</td><td>3.7</td><td>6.7</td><td><b>-4.2</b></td><td>-2.4</td><td><b>-6.6</b></td><td><b>-2.0</b></td></tr>
</table>[/parsehtml]

 

[KI4MVP]

We have the 4th most efficient offense in the league, perhaps the thread needs a title change?

 

[oracio]

View: https://twitter.com/mcten/status/534470419601178624


I think the right answer was indeed chemistry…

 

[SteelSmack]

I think the right answer was indeed chemistry…

You can just as easily say the offense picked up when Kyrie started moving the ball. Chemistry might have something to do with that, but so did LeBron calling out Kyrie for selfish play.

 

[shoes22]

You can just as easily say the offense picked up when Kyrie started moving the ball. Chemistry might have something to do with that, but so did LeBron calling out Kyrie for selfish play.

And same with Kyrie calling LeBron out for not being aggressive enough.

 

[SalvadoranCavsfan]

We have the 4th most efficient offense in the league, perhaps the thread needs a title change?

I agree, we now need to figure out who/what to blame for our terrible defense.

 

[godfather]

I agree, we now need to figure out who/what to blame for our terrible defense.

It's very simple. We can't stop guards from penetrating to the basket, and we have no one that protects the rim for us.

This then requires a lot of help defense on dribble drives to the hoop, which leads to a lot of open shooters.

I don't think they have a legit answer to this problem. We're not a good defensive team, and that's not going to change with the roster we have.

It's not a lack of effort, sure there are some breakdowns here and there too. But overall, we just don't have the personnel.

If we can't shoot lights out, we lose. It's that simple.

 

[Just Checkin]

We finally saw the starters play some zone and I think we'll see more of that to cover up some of our deficiencies. A couple outliers were seen last night though: Denver generally doesn't shoot the ball well and they lit it up and Shaw finally solidified a working rotation his season.

One more thing: Due to Love's lateral quickness why aren't we just icing the PnR?

 

[godfather]

We finally saw the starters play some zone and I think we'll see more of that to cover up some of our deficiencies. A couple outliers were seen last night though: Denver generally doesn't shoot the ball well and they lit it up and Shaw finally solidified a working rotation his season.

One more thing: Due to Love's lateral quickness why aren't we just icing the PnR?

I don't think you want to have to play zone 48 minutes a night though. This is the NBA.

I think one adjustment that should be made. They gotta stop allowing Kyrie to guard super quick point guards like Ty Lawson.

Kyrie is trying!! He is, no one should seriously knock him. It's not his fault that he can't do something that he doesn't have in him to do.

He just doesn't have the lateral quickness. If he gets up on them, he gets burnt off the dribble with ease. He always looks like he's stuck in quick sand. If he slags off (which really is his only defense) he leaves them open for jumers.

I think he would have done much better on Afflalo. Who is 6-5 and 215. He doesn't have a serious size mismatch on the 6-3 nearly 200 pound Kyrie.

I thought that was one of the perks of starting Marion, you can use his size at least against a guy like Lawson.

Marion can shade off of him, while still using his length.

I think Kyrie is actually not that bad of a defender off the ball. On the ball, against super explosive players, he's helpless.

Tomorrow we play SA, god help us if he's the one guarding Tony Parker. He should guard Green, and Marion should get the job of guarding Parker.

 

[Just Checkin]

I don't think you want to have to play zone 48 minutes a night though. This is the NBA.

No one is suggesting that. But mixing in a bit of zone like Carlisle does in the NBA certainly has its benefits.

One good thing about the L is that Joe is gonna learn to not leave corner shooters that much room by overhelping.

 

[godfather]

No one is suggesting that. But mixing in a bit of zone like Carlisle does in the NBA certainly has its benefits.

One good thing about the L is that Joe is gonna learn to not leave corner shooters that much room by overhelping.

They did play a little zone last night, and it didn't do much. You're right, there were times we were overhelping. But to be fair, I think a lot of times help is needed, because we're really, really bad at defending the paint.

I think once they were torching us up from down town, sooner or later, you almost gotta say well, 3 equals more than 2.

It's obviously what the problem is though. We don't have great lock down perimeter defenders that can keep guys off from dribble penetration to the basket, and we don't have someone on the back end the can cover for them.

So, in result, we're having guys needing to help out a lot, and that's resulting in a lot of wide open shots.

You can't have both weaknesses like that on defense. You're just going to get torched night in and night out.

There's one slight adjustment they can make, and that's at least not allowing Kyrie to be the one guarding these guys as much as possible.

It won't fix all our problems, but it's a starting point at least.

 

[Benedict_Boozer]

^Our team didn't look comfortable at all in that zone. It actually created a couple missed shots but I don't think we are there yet in terms of execution.

I think we might have to look at it in terms of baby steps at this point. Blatt should just drill the P&R D to death until we are at least adequate schematically, then we can start cleaning up other areas.

 

[Cavatt]

Denver also shot lights out. That busts the zone pretty good.