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The Suns are 13-9 in the Western Conference, where 11 of the 15 teams are .500 or over. The Suns are in 4th place and have won 5 of 6, including a 100-91 win over the Celtics last night. However, the Celtics were missing Jaylen Brown.
Devin Booker leads the Suns with 23.1 ppg but they have seven players in double figures. Chris Paul has a line of 16.4/4.7/8.5. Deandre Ayton is averaging 13.9 points and 12.8 rebounds at center.
The Suns win mostly with defense, ranking 4th in scoring defense. They are very good defending the 3-point shot, ranking 4th in opponent’s 3-point percentage. They not bad at defending 2-point shots, either, ranking 10th. Last night they held Kemba Walker to 4-for-20 from the field.
On offense the Suns are below average, ranking 22nd in points per game. They’re 29th in points in the paint and 29th in free throws per play so they don’t appear to take it to the rim much. They’re 7th in 3-point rate so they jack up a lot of 3’s but only rank 21st in percentage made. They’re better from 2-point range, ranking 8th. Looks like they hit a lot of mid-range shots. They move the ball, ranking 7th in assists per possession.
So this looks like it will be a fairly low scoring game since both teams are better defensively than offensively. When the Cavs have the ball it’s the 29th ranked scoring offense against the 4th ranked scoring defense so good luck with getting to 100 points, Cleveland.
Larry Nance Jr has a broken bone in his left hand and will be out for six weeks. With Love also out for at least this road trip the Cavs are fresh out of power forwards other than third stringer Dean Wade. I expect to see Taurean Prince playing some 4 and also seeing Drummond and Allen on the floor together like we’ve seen the last couple of games.
According to Bickerstaff the Cavs have been getting lax on defense.
“I think we’ve taken a step back with our defense....We’ve got to get back to our foundation of our defensive system and get back to scrapping and clawing a little bit more as well.”
"I think we’ve gotten complacent defensively,” [Andre] Drummond said. “I think it’s become so routine for us that we forget the simple things that we need to do...”
Losing Nance for an extended period of time isn’t going to help the defense. Drummond feels the defense can get back to where it was.
“It’s something that we’re capable of doing and have done before. It’s more of just restarting that engine again and just showing them like, ‘Hey, this is what we did before to be good. Let’s get back to this again.’”
The Suns have a better record in a tougher conference and are playing at home. In addition, they’re on a roll lately while the Cavs have been slumping. It’s a team that’s won 5 of 6 against a team that’s lost 5 of 6. The only advantage for the Cavs is that the Suns played last night.
Rather than focusing on what happens tonight I want to see how the Cavs play over this five-game road trip. Do they get back to playing the kind of defense they showed early in the season? Can they tweak the offense to start shooting more 3’s? Will they use the “Twin Tower” lineup more and how will that work? Can Drummond string together some more efficient games like Saturday when he was 12-for-17 and didn’t take a lot of bad shots?
Devin Booker leads the Suns with 23.1 ppg but they have seven players in double figures. Chris Paul has a line of 16.4/4.7/8.5. Deandre Ayton is averaging 13.9 points and 12.8 rebounds at center.
The Suns win mostly with defense, ranking 4th in scoring defense. They are very good defending the 3-point shot, ranking 4th in opponent’s 3-point percentage. They not bad at defending 2-point shots, either, ranking 10th. Last night they held Kemba Walker to 4-for-20 from the field.
On offense the Suns are below average, ranking 22nd in points per game. They’re 29th in points in the paint and 29th in free throws per play so they don’t appear to take it to the rim much. They’re 7th in 3-point rate so they jack up a lot of 3’s but only rank 21st in percentage made. They’re better from 2-point range, ranking 8th. Looks like they hit a lot of mid-range shots. They move the ball, ranking 7th in assists per possession.
So this looks like it will be a fairly low scoring game since both teams are better defensively than offensively. When the Cavs have the ball it’s the 29th ranked scoring offense against the 4th ranked scoring defense so good luck with getting to 100 points, Cleveland.
Larry Nance Jr has a broken bone in his left hand and will be out for six weeks. With Love also out for at least this road trip the Cavs are fresh out of power forwards other than third stringer Dean Wade. I expect to see Taurean Prince playing some 4 and also seeing Drummond and Allen on the floor together like we’ve seen the last couple of games.
According to Bickerstaff the Cavs have been getting lax on defense.
“I think we’ve taken a step back with our defense....We’ve got to get back to our foundation of our defensive system and get back to scrapping and clawing a little bit more as well.”
"I think we’ve gotten complacent defensively,” [Andre] Drummond said. “I think it’s become so routine for us that we forget the simple things that we need to do...”
Losing Nance for an extended period of time isn’t going to help the defense. Drummond feels the defense can get back to where it was.
“It’s something that we’re capable of doing and have done before. It’s more of just restarting that engine again and just showing them like, ‘Hey, this is what we did before to be good. Let’s get back to this again.’”
The Suns have a better record in a tougher conference and are playing at home. In addition, they’re on a roll lately while the Cavs have been slumping. It’s a team that’s won 5 of 6 against a team that’s lost 5 of 6. The only advantage for the Cavs is that the Suns played last night.
Rather than focusing on what happens tonight I want to see how the Cavs play over this five-game road trip. Do they get back to playing the kind of defense they showed early in the season? Can they tweak the offense to start shooting more 3’s? Will they use the “Twin Tower” lineup more and how will that work? Can Drummond string together some more efficient games like Saturday when he was 12-for-17 and didn’t take a lot of bad shots?
