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2023-24 Season | Game #54 | Magic @ Cavs | Feb. 22, 2024 | 7:00 p.m.

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AllforOne said:
There really are a lot of posters on this site who are happier when the Cavs lose. Like, they have it in their heads that JB is the worst coach in league history, or that the whole roster is soft, and they’re ecstatic about losses because it “proves” they are right … and they’d rather be right than win. It’s an interesting position to take.
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I disagree. Nobody likes following a team that looks all disjointed.
 
Again Garland is getting blamed for LeVert 's shitty play, he needed to be out at the deadline.
 
CavsKermit said:
How'd the offense look when Garland wasn't running it?
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It looked better with CPJ and even without a PG on the floor there was more pace albeit it wasn’t really successful due to turnovers and some poor shooting by LeVert; DG stepped up in the second half when he pushed the ball on a few fast breaks and got some nice assists. However, all of that occurred when Suggs got injured who had completely stifled DG . Even without Suggs, Anthony Black gave DG trouble.
 
CavsKermit said:
We really need Niang to play physical against other physical teams or I'm not sure why he's on the court at all.

I mean Mo Wagner lead the Magic in scoring tonight and he doesn't start for them.

Mitchell being out hurt because he's really friggin good, the Magic have a couple of really good perimeter defenders, LeVert's handle is really awful, and this board overrates CPJ by a factor of 100.
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Well, neither Garland nor LeVert do a good job of pushing the pace and getting those solid “early offense” looks. A big complaint tonight, and something CPJ does well.

Side note: he’s not on Cedi’s level, but man LeVert is hard to watch.
 
Reasons we lost:

1. Orlando was 14-for-25 on 3's (56%). They average 35% and rank 29th of 30 teams. They just had an unbelievable night from the 3-point line, almost surely their best of the year. Normally they would make 9 of 25 for 36%, but those extra five 3's added 15 points in a 7-point win.

2. No Donovan Mitchell. If DM wasn't sick we win despite the Magic's crazy good shooting from deep.

3. Their bench outscored ours by an insane 39 points in a 7-point loss. Mo Wagner had his highest scoring game of the season with 22 points in 25 minutes. He averages 11.1. Niang was a -20 in 16 minutes. He has the worst on/off on the team after 54 games but Bickerstaff stubbornly continues to play him. Is he trying to make a point to the front office that they made a mistake signing him?

Wade played 13 minutes, Niang 16. If I'm JBB Wade would have played 29, especially against a team with three 6'10" starters plus 6'11" Wagner and 6'10" Isaac coming off the bench. The Magic are the league's tallest team and we needed all the size we could get, but slow and dumpy George was still out there killing us on both ends of the floor.

4. 17 turnovers. The Cavs were sloppy and careless against a team that ranks near at the top in forcing turnovers.

Orlando is a good team when they have all their main guys healthy, and they did tonight. They played with great effort and physicality on defense and hit an incredible percentage of 3's. I think they remembered how the Cavs trashed them by 27 points at their place last month. It just looked like they wanted it more.

We still would have won with Mitchell.
 
Ice continues to look good out there.

Pace was too slow but the Magic had a good defensive gameplan called Donovan Mitchell Out tonight.

Just to come back to Okoro. Dude guarded Wagner and Banchero all night and made it hell for them... and dropped 17 on 7-9 shooting himself.

Probably needed a little more Merrill and CPJ tonight with how Vert and Garland were playing.

Vert has got to find his 3 point stroke again and Garland has to let it fly. DG missed a wide open 3 that he stepped into off the right side of the rim that just left my mind blown. Shot wasn't even close...idgaf, keep shooting them.

Vert can cut out this Larry Hughes routine already, and I believe he will.

Lord every turnover just felt extra stupid or directly lead to a layup.

Niang's defense means he can't have any dumb plays on offense.

They had an answer every damn time we made a run.

Mobley needs to keep taking that sweeping slight fade jumper across the middle of the paint. It's unguardable on most nights. Felt like Mobley should have just shot more, period.

We barely got off 70 shots and only took 22 3 pointers, but shot 55% and 45%.

Our max pg has to step it up.
 
Wham with the Right Hand said:
Reasons we lost:

1. Orlando was 14-for-25 on 3's (56%). They average 35% and rank 29th of 30 teams. They just had an unbelievable night from the 3-point line, almost surely their best of the year. Normally they would make 9 of 25 for 36%, but those extra five 3's added 15 points in a 7-point win.

2. No Donovan Mitchell. If DM wasn't sick we win despite the Magic's crazy good shooting from deep.

3. Their bench outscored ours by an insane 39 points in a 7-point loss. Mo Wagner had his highest scoring game of the season with 22 points in 25 minutes. He averages 11.1. Niang was a -20 in 16 minutes. He has the worst on/off on the team after 54 games but Bickerstaff stubbornly continues to play him. Is he trying to make a point to the front office that they made a mistake signing him?

Wade played 13 minutes, Niang 16. If I'm JBB Wade would have played 29, especially against a team with three 6'10" starters plus 6'11" Wagner and 6'10" Isaac coming off the bench. The Magic are the league's tallest team and we needed all the size we could get, but slow and dumpy George was still out there killing us on both ends of the floor.

4. 17 turnovers. The Cavs were sloppy and careless against a team that ranks near at the top in forcing turnovers.

Orlando is a good team when they have all their main guys healthy, and they did tonight. There played with great effort and physicality on defense and hit an incredible percentage of 3's. We still would have won with Mitchell.
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The “incredible percentage of 3s” thing is not a coincidence though. It’s something that happened to us a lot last year and also early this year when we weren’t playing well. It’s because of how our defensive scheme works with Allen and Mobley, it emphasizes the interior, right?
 
AllforOne said:
There really are a lot of posters on this site who are happier when the Cavs lose. Like, they have it in their heads that JB is the worst coach in league history, or that the whole roster is soft, and they’re ecstatic about losses because it “proves” they are right … and they’d rather be right than win. It’s an interesting position to take.
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I want the Cavs to win, but I also understand the NBA. At some point a season will need to end up as a disappointment for the Cavs to move on JBB and Garland. Two people I don’t believe the Cavs can reach the promise land with. I do not think that the FO is smart enough to move on from these two unless the Cavs clearly underachieve. I hope I’m wrong, and of course I could be wrong, so yeah, not hard to still root for wins. We don’t have any assholes on this team. One of the easier teams to root for.
 
Tlyons said:
Ice continues to look good out there.

Pace was too slow but the Magic had a good defensive gameplan called Donovan Mitchell Out tonight.

Just to come back to Okoro. Dude guarded Wagner and Banchero all night and made it hell for them... and dropped 17 on 7-9 shooting himself.

Probably needed a little more Merrill and CPJ tonight with how Vert and Garland were playing.

Vert has got to find his 3 point stroke again and Garland has to let it fly. DG missed a wide open 3 that he stepped into off the right side of the rim that just left my mind blown. Shot wasn't even close...idgaf, keep shooting them.

Vert can cut out this Larry Hughes routine already, and I believe he will.

Lord every turnover just felt extra stupid or directly lead to a layup.

Niang's defense means he can't have any dumb plays on offense.

They had an answer every damn time we made a run.

Mobley needs to keep taking that sweeping slight fade jumper across the middle of the paint. It's unguardable on most nights. Felt like Mobley should have just shot more, period.

We barely got off 70 shots and only took 22 3 pointers, but shot 55% and 45%.

Our max pg has to step it up.
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Agreed and this is the first game back after break....With a team that did not have Don...
 
MattyIce8 said:
I don’t think we handled it well, but one team was allowed to be more physical than the other tonight
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Which is why we are getting destroyed in the playoffs. Orlando and Knicks will out muscle us, the Heat will out coach us. Boston has more talent and Milwaukee has a superstar. Bring on the Pacers I guess although they are on the rise.
 
couldn’t watch live. Now that I’ve watched it, the thing that stood out to me was the connection we had on defense was missing. It was a slow game, so the point total wasn’t high, but they were breaking us down and getting easy shots - hence the high shooting percentage.
 
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