2024-25 Regular Season Thread

[chuck0609]

Law of averages will eventually kick in to a point with the Cavs. Atlanta simply outplayed them- it’s going to happen in the NBA.

Injuries are derailing them to an extent, but no more than other teams.

Hard to complain at 17-3.

 

[BigZ94]

Offensive foul, dribbler pushes off on step back | NBA Video Rulebook

*unless you play for the Boston Celtics

How can owners of opposing teams tolerate this? Its just blatant cheating

Boston are really really good, they don’t need this special treatment

 

[Beanie4Heisman]

 

[CleveRocks]

Yeah, but.. they simply traded baskets in the first 6 minutes of the game. In the rest of the quarter, they really clamped down on Boston and got stops. Meanwhile Mitchell was unstoppable.. it was defense that made that difference.. Cavs have a chance to win every game if the defense is on it.. but I don't think we can do that for the remaining games and not be banged up come playoff time..

Darius stepped up big, Mitchell was unstoppable.

Also Niang and Okoro showed up at critical times, even though both get shat on in here pretty much every game. Nice to have Caris back..

I will also say Merril defensively has been excellent this year. His shot is not falling, but if he ever gets that back, he will be fire for a quarter..

 

[CleveRocks]

I think this team has the ingredients to make a run, but if we get to the deadline, and we arevstill struggling with long tall, I am wondering if we would look at Memphis as a trading partner. I really like Santi as a bench big, and I think Smart still has some fas in the tank.. ..

 

[Rich]

I think this team has the ingredients to make a run, but if we get to the deadline, and we arevstill struggling with long tall, I am wondering if we would look at Memphis as a trading partner. I really like Santi as a bench big, and I think Smart still has some fas in the tank.. ..

Memphis is pretty damn good getting a guy like Aldama is gonna be hard to pull off.

 

[Kouki]

Offensive foul, dribbler pushes off on step back | NBA Video Rulebook

*unless you play for the Boston Celtics

How can owners of opposing teams tolerate this? Its just blatant cheating

Boston are really really good, they don’t need this special treatment

At this point I'm hoping they don't do anything about it until we meet them in the ECF and then they put the clamps on this.

It's so egregious that I feel like a compilation video going viral is all that is needed to raise awareness.

And the rest of the team is picking up on it as well.

Pathetic.

 

[weepinwillow]

NBA games would be better if refs called that shove-off by the offense more often than not.

It would provide just enough resistance that good defenders would be able to defend and great offensive players would still make tough shots, while lesser offensive players would need to move off the ball to find "good shots" vs "shove a guy out of the way and shoot it".

We need to hire Phil Jackson as a lobbyist on our behalf for the officials (Phil was excellent at whining about calls one game to the next in hopes of getting MJ 2-4 more FT's a night). Send a video compilation of Tatum and Pritchard's clear violations and make the drumbeat loud and proud.

 

[pinoycavsfan]

If/when Cavs meet Celtics in the playoffs, I would like to see our players start shoving Boston on the 1st offensive possession. It will force officiating to call it even.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

"The extension of his left arm from elbow to wrist to push off his defender is illegal, and it is an offensive foul. An offensive player may not push off their legal defender in any way.”

Note that they emphasized "the extension of the left arm from elbow to wrist". They could have phrased it, "The use of his left arm to push off his defender is illegal." But they inserted the "extension from elbow to wrist" part and I think that's what the refs are looking for - a push off where the arm ends up straight.

Players have been clubbing the defender with their forearms, keeping their elbows at a 90 degree angle, but not extending so the arm is straight and the refs are allowing it. Tatum was clubbing Garland in the chest but as long as he did not straighten his arm like Jokic did in the video the refs let it go.

What I don't understand is the last sentence says, "The offensive player may not push off their legal defender in any way." That seems to say that even a bent arm pushoff is illegal, but the refs allow it. It also implies that throwing a shoulder into the chest of a stationary defender is illegal, since that is an armless push off, but that is OK as well.

I think the rule should be rewritten so that any off arm push off, even with the arm bent, is an offensive foul. It would make the game more attractive. There's nothing aesthetically pleasing about seeing the player with the ball battering his man backward foot by foot, clubbing him in the chest with his forearm over and over.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Good column by Fedor on Atkinson having Garland take on Tatum and not trying to hide him.

Cavs guard sends pointed message after feeling disrespected by Boston Celtics during Sunday’s win

The Celtics had a clear plan late in Sunday's game. Find the perceived weak link — and attack.

www.cleveland.com

“They were hunting me out every possession. I’m going to take the challenge and try to make it as difficult as I can. I’m no punk, so y’all want to switch and try to X me out and try to hunt me out, it’s cool. I ain’t no punk though. I’m going to take a challenge.” - Darius Garland

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

From Fedor's post-game podcast:

The Celtics were woefully short-handed and they were playing without two all-star caliber players. And there were various points throughout the course of Sunday’s game that it was a bad sign for the Cavs that they were getting dominated and they were losing by double digits to the Celtics B team, the Celtics C team, the team that’s probably not the one that the Cavs are going to see when May comes around.

That's what I was thinking when the Cavs were down by 14 in the 3rd quarter. The Celtics were playing some guy named Peterson who had only played 7 minutes this season and they were still up by double digits. But then Donovan went ballistic and got some help from Garland, Okoro, and Mobley and they pulled it out.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

More from the podcast:

I think the beauty of Donovan Mitchell, the reason why he is the superstar that he is, is he doesn’t get fazed by that stuff. He doesn’t let it bother him. Who cares if he went 5-for-23 in Atlanta on Friday? Who cares if he went 2-for-8 from the field in the first half against the Celtics?

Great observation. Mitchell was 7-for-31 over his last six quarters heading into the second half against Boston. But he didn't let it affect his confidence and he took over the game.

He recognized what the team needed going into the fourth quarter...And he put the team on his back.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Fedor on the Cavs' defensive approach to limit the Celtics' three-point shots and take them out of their offensive rhythm:

And this is now back-to-back games [against the Celtics] that the Cavs have tried doing a specific strategy on the defensive end of the floor. In the first game, it didn’t work because they didn’t get the result that they wanted, but it kind of worked because...the Celtics didn’t reach their season number for average 3's in a game [they shot 42; they average 51].

The Cavs are switching almost everything against the Celtics when they’re not in their zone defense. And it did kind of take the Celtics out of their rhythm...And in many ways, that is a trap. It is a strategy to keep the Celtics from moving the ball, sharing the ball, getting everybody involved. And it’s almost baiting Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown into an isolation heavy approach.

Are they capable? Of course, it’s Jason Tatum. It’s Jalen Brown. But it takes them out of their usual rhythm. It limits the number of threes that they’re going to get. Because Jason Tatum is not going to settle for a bunch of threes and move the ball and share it and have that kind of rhythmic offense when he sees a perceived mismatch against Darius, Ty Jerome, or Donovan Mitchell.

It’s the same thing when it comes to Jalen Brown. These guys are going to hunt. In this case, they’re going to hunt Darius Garland, who they believe is the weak link. And there are going to be times that Darius is going to get scored on. And he’s going to get bullied.

It becomes a math equation in some cases. Like, yeah, you’re scoring these tough 2's. You’re scoring in the post, but it’s not Sam Houser getting an open three. It’s not Peyton Pritchard getting an open three. It’s not Al Horford getting an open three from the corner. It becomes a little bit of a math equation. And we talked in the Eastern Conference semi-finals last year that the math equation was not favorable to the Cavs.

My comment: It will be interesting when these teams play next time in February if Tatum and Brown will continue to hunt Garland or Jerome or Merrill in order to take those "tough 2's" instead of going with their normal offense to try and free up open 3's. Is it a "trap"? The Cavs would rather have Tatum and Brown taking contested 2's from the elbow than guys like Pritchard and White taking uncontested 3's. But are the Celtics good with that?

The Cavs to their credit, didn’t overreact to Jason Tatum hitting these fadeaways over over Darius Garland or plowing through Darius on his way to the basket. They were like, this works for us. We’re OK with this.

And it did. And I just think it’s a really, really fascinating thing to continue to watch in this particular matchup, because as much as Boston thinks it’s advantageous for them to do this, the Cavs are looking at it saying, well, this is advantage for us too.

 

[WorldWideWoe]

"The extension of his left arm from elbow to wrist to push off his defender is illegal, and it is an offensive foul. An offensive player may not push off their legal defender in any way.”

Note that they emphasized "the extension of the left arm from elbow to wrist". They could have phrased it, "The use of his left arm to push off his defender is illegal." But they inserted the "extesnion from elbow to wrist" part and I think that's what the refs are looking for - a push off where the arm ends up straight.

Players have been clubbing the defender with their forearms, keeping their elbows at a 90 degree angle, but not extending so the arm is straight and the refs are allowing it. Tatum was clubbing Garland in the chest but as long as he did not straighten his arm like Jokic did in the video the refs let it go.

What I don't understand is the last sentence says, "The offensive player may not push off their legal defender in any way." That seems to say that even a bent arm pushoff is illegal, but the refs allow it. It also implies that throwing a shoulder into the chest of a stationary defender is illegal, since that is an armless push off, but that is OK as well.

I think the rule should be rewritten so that any off arm push off, even with the arm bent, is an offensive foul. It would make the game more attractive. There's nothing aesthetically pleasing about seeing the player with the ball battering his man backward foot by foot, clubbing him in the chest with his forearm over and over.

It makes sense by defining push as extending the elbow and excluding rotating the shoulder (by inference, not explicitly) because going up to shoot when a defender is close by and creating contact would technically be an offensive foul.

I think the Celtics are coaching to bring their arm up by rotating their shoulder to create separation. Shitty, but smart. It's like the dynasty Patriots. Must be in the water.