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Game Thread 2019-20 Season Game #54 | Cleveland Cavaliers vs Atlanta Hawks | Feb 12th, 2020

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Kevin Love (sore right Achilles) will not play Wednesday against the Hawks.
That means Larry Nance will get the start for the final game before the All-Star break. Love hurt his Achilles in the game before the trade deadline, so the team will hold him out to give him plenty of time to get healthy. Love will certainly be getting games off going forward, so he will be a bit annoying to own in fantasy. Besides Nance being a big winner, Cedi Osman, Kevin Porter Jr. and Tristan Thompson get a slight boost with more minutes.
 
Last Cavs game for nine days. Hope they get a win over the 15-40 Hawks, who are 6-23 on the road. The Cavs have lost 12 straight at home; it's time to put a stop to that. Unfortunately, the Cavs looked horrible three days ago, suffering their worst defeat in franchise history - a 41-point loss. It's not likely they'll be able to turn it around that quickly, even with a couple days of practice with new center Andre Drummond.

The Cavs beat the Hawks 121-118 in December. The Cavs scored 42 points in the 1st quarter and hung on. Young had 30 points and 11 assists while John Collins had 27 points and 10 boards. The Cavs backcourt did well; Sexton, Garland, and Porter combined for 61 points on 28-for-44. The Hawks don't play much defense.

In terms of offense the Hawks are 20th in points per game, but they are capable of lighting it up against bad defenses. They scored 152 against Washington in regulation time, for example. They like to penetrate, ranking 4th in points in the paint and 30th in 3-point shooting percentage. They're bricklayers from deep but like to attack the rim. They don't get a lot of offensive rebounds, ranking 25th, and they turn the ball over a lot, ranking 29th. Obviously the key is protecting the rim and making them chuck it up from deep. Now that we have Drummond that might be easier to do.

The Cavs rank 30th in turnovers, so we have the two most turnover prone teams in the NBA going at it tonight. This could get ugly. The Cavs had 23 turnovers to the Hawks 16 back in December.

Defensively the Hawks rank 29th in opponent's points per game and also 29th in opponent's points in the paint. They're easy to score on and now with Drummond we're better positioned to take advantage of their weak interior defense. The Hawks hack a lot, ranking dead last in opponent's free throw attempts per game. The Cavs are among the best (4th) in that category so we should be at the line a lot more than the Hawks.

Another weakness is defensive rebounding where the Hawks rank 27th. With two of the league's top offensive rebounders in Dre and TT the Cavs should get a ton of second chance points. This is one area where we have a Cavs strength matched up against a Hawks' weakness.

It's pretty simple for the Cavs - attack the rim relentlessly and either make the layup, get fouled, or miss the layup and get a put-back. Take advantage of the Hawks' weakness in defending the rim and preventing offensive rebounds.

That being said, the Hawks just traded for center DeWayne Dedmon, a 30-year-old journeyman averaging 5.5 points and 5.1 rebounds off the bench for Sacramento. Dedmon is 7'0", 245 pounds. In two games with the Hawks he has 24 points, 17 rebounds and 7 blocks, so the Hawks appear to have improved their rebounding and interior defense. But they still gave up 135 points Monday to Orlando, even with Dedmon.

The Hawks seem to be playing better recently, winning 5 of their last 11 including wins over the Clippers and Sixers. Most of the losses were to strong teams; Toronto, Dallas, OKC, and Boston twice. They lost to the Celtics by 5 and 8 points. They made some trades at the deadline so they might be better now or what. Dedmon seems to be helping.

Kevin Love has a sore Achilles and will not play. It's probably smart to sit him out.
 
Drummond with a good block.

I’m confused as to why the Bigs constantly bring the ball up. Dump it off to the fucking guards.
 
Sexton does not have the handle.
Good shot Garland.
 
Drummond is having an insane start defensively
 
Excellent block by Cedi.
 
If Garland doesn't get double digits this game, I'm going to be so disappointed.

Trae Young is in Parma trying to get around Drummond.
 
Silver need to get rid of the replay shit.
 
Garland think he‘a Kyrie.that layup always miss the mark.
 
Collins is a nice big man. I am impressed with him.
 
Garland think he‘a Kyrie.that layup always miss the mark.

I was thinking the exact same thing. There was no need for that scoop shot, he could have just gone for a normal layup and scored easily.
 

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