For a lack of anything better to do while watching this debacle, I made note of every bad shot and careless turnover by this team tonight. Contested jumpers after holding the ball, forcing shots without any ball movement, etc. If it was a rhythm shot off of ball movement, an open shot, or a shot at the rim, I did not note it because make or miss, I can live with those. Here's what I found.
The Cavs wasted a whopping 33 possessions tonight on these bad decisions. The Cavs were 3-24 from 2, and 1-6 on 3 on these shots, with 3 unforced turnovers.
The Cavs for the game shot 34-88 for 38.6%.
They shot 29-67 (43.3%) on 2s, 5-21 (23.8%) on 3s.
If you take out the bad shots, the Cavs shot 26-43 for 60.5% on 2s and 4/15 for 26.7% on 3s. That's correct. Off of ball movement and driving and kicking and playing real offense and being selective about their shots, the Cavs shot 60.5% on 2s tonight. Obviously when they played stupid, they didn't.
If they could have eliminated the foolishness, and shot 60.5% on their 2s, 26.7% on their 3s, and run plays instead of the turnovers, they would have score 31 more points tonight. Would anyone be complaining about the talent if the final tonight was 129-126?
Now sure it doesn't work that way, they might not have shot at that pace the whole way even playing good smart offense. But it did cost them dearly on the scoreboard, maybe 10 points, maybe 20. It doesn't matter tonight because we didn't play one ounce of defense, but it has cost us several games already this year, and you might not be clamoring for the demise of this team if they were 11-8 or 10-9 right now.
