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

Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Jbb and Garland need to go.
Niangs minutes need to be cut (not erased)
and DPJ needs some burn
 
Pierre Pan said:
Unfortunately, it appears that much of the league has now watched film on Merrill and are playing him much differently; that being said, if they’re playing Merrill tighter, then others should be more open and we need to capitalize on that
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In theory that should happen but Niang didn’t get many open three point looks either. As I posted upthread it looked like what we do to other teams - suffocate their offenses.

I also think our players DO generally play harder night in and night out than most teams (partially because we are younger). We hit teams hard defensively early. Not sure we’ll maintain that advantage as we get closer to the playoffs and other teams turn it up. That’s not a knock on our team; I don’t think we have the second best talent in the conference and we’re overachieving.

If that’s correct I’m puzzled why the coach would be criticized (usually underachieving gets you fired) but I’ve given up trying to convince some people that our only problem is we have an awful coach. Unfortunately it’s not that simple.
 
Pierre Pan said:
Garland played 17 minutes in the first half and had all of 3 points to go with 2 assists and 2 turnovers; there’s nothing stellar about that performance. After Suggs’ injury , I stated that DG stepped things up in the 2nd half. C-Peazy played all of 4 minutes in the first half only and had an immediate impact …..gathering a defensive rebound and pushed the ball up the floor for a hockey assist; he scored on a drive on another possession and did force a drive and have the ball knocked off of his leg on another. I’m not stating that he’s better than DG by any means and I didn’t realize that your question was snarky rhetoric and attempted to answer the question thinking that you hadn’t watched the game.

Now, I’m sorry that I took the time to try and help a fellow poster; don’t worry it won’t happen again. Go Cavs
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The offense was straight garbage in the 7 minutes Garland didn't play in the first half and he had already started cooking on Suggs before he got hurt in the second half.

Blaming the loss, or the offense slowing down, on Garland is dumb. The Cavs would've gotten run out of the gym without him tonight.
 
Rich said:
You can go to statsmuse and look up the teams record with one guy and not the other.

Fwiw, it's heavily slanted in Mitchell's favor.
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As is the strength of schedule for those games. In any event, the Cavs aren't winning a playoff series unless they're both healthy and available.
 
How open was Mobley on those pump fake 3s tonight? I saw atleast 3 of them.

Should he have hoisted any of those or was the closeout too good in yalls opinion?
 
Had my UL pod tonight so couldn't watch the second half. Didn't think the energy was great in the first half and thought we were kind of sloppy with the ball. Definitely thought we missed Mitchell which is to be expected. Looking at the box score we shot well and didn't defend great. The biggest difference though was that they had 14 more FG attempts than us. Some of this is offset by our higher free throw attempts, but that's a pretty huge difference.
 
AllforOne said:
This loss comes down to two things for me:

1. The Cavs were without Mitchell, one of the NBA’s best players;

2. Without him, the playmaking duties fell to Garland, and his pound-the-rock style is the complete opposite of the ball-movement, pace-and-space game that the Cavs have been winning with the past two months.
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I agree completely. The offense looks a lot worse with "Dribblin Darius" dribbling down the shot clock, dominating the ball. I hope Garland has another act to his play because this version is too easy for defenses to shut down. When he's dribbling the air out of the ball the rest of the team is almost forced to stand around to see which way he's going to go. Very few possessions with any decent ball movement tonight. Garland's demeanor and body language were off tonight, like he's feeling the pressure with Donovan sitting one out.

Donovan figured out some things about facilitating the offense without dominating the ball and inhibiting ball movement, while still being a weapon who attacks and who must be accounted for. Darius does too much aimless perimeter dribbling compared to Donovan who gets downhill towards the rim quickly. The difference is notable.
 
Tlyons said:
How open was Mobley on those pump fake 3s tonight? I saw atleast 3 of them.

Should he have hoisted any of those or was the closeout too good in yalls opinion?
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I thought he on a few of them he should have popped the shot off, he had time. Just felt like everyone was slow tonight.

This is just my problem below. This dude having the type of night he had...A game like tonight we definitely could have used TT...

 
Orlando clearly wanted it more. They lost by 27 at home to the Cavs the last time these teams played. They were playing with great intensity and physicality. I think they didn't want to get punked again.

They were 14-5 before the injuries started kicking in, so when they have everybody they're a formidable team. They play five guys in their rotation who are 6'10" or 6'11".

At halftime Assistant Coach Sydney Lowe said Orlando was playing physical and the Cavs "did not reciprocate". Mo Wagner set the tone off the bench for physical play. It just didn't look like the Cavs expected to have to scrap and fight for a win. They came out flat and never really got going.
 
We need more from DG and Mobley. They need to be the two best players on the floor when Mitchell can't go. This team wasn't built on the idea that Don has to be LeBron every night.
 
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