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Game Thread | Cavs @ Nuggets | Jan. 6, 2023

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Wham with the Right Hand

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The Cavaliers, sitting in 4th place but just 2.0 games behind Boston, hit the road for a five-game western swing starting in Denver. The Nuggets are in first place in the West with a 25-10 record. They are 15-3 at home and have won 11 of their last 14 after beating the Clippers by 31 last night at home.

This doesn’t look like a winnable game on paper and realistically, I doubt any team in the NBA would be favored to win in Denver. It’s been a month since the Nuggets lost at home.

With that in mind, the Cavs have decided to give Donovan Mitchell the night off. After scoring 71 points in 48 minutes on Monday he looked exhausted in going just 6-for-20 from the floor on Wednesday, so he needs a rest after picking up the slack for an injured Darius Garland for the past couple of weeks. With the Cavs highly unlikely to win this game even with Mitchell it makes sense to give him three days of rest before taking on beatable opponents in Phoenix, Utah, and Portland.

With Garland probably out as well this looks like a strategic loss for the Cavs.

The Nuggets are a team oriented around offense and center Nikola Jokic, who is well on his way to winning his third consecutive MVP award. According to cleaningtheglass.com, Jokic leads the NBA in on/off at +24.8. Among players with more than 400 minutes, F Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is second at +19.7 and G Aaron Gordon is 4th at +16.7. Denver’s starting lineup of Murray, KCP, Gordon, Porter, and Jokic is a +15.1, second best in the NBA of lineups with over 400 possessions.

By the way, the Cavs’ lineup of Mitchell, LeVert, Wade, Mobley, and Allen ranks 6th among lineups with over 100 possessions at +24.5.

One apparent weakness of the Nuggets is their bench. Their entire bench is between -5.7 and -18.8 except for 34-year-old point guard Ish Smith, who averages just 9 minutes per game. But their starters are pretty much unbeatable. They’ve been lucky with injuries; so far four of their starters have started 31-37 of their 38 games and Michael Porter Jr has started 24.

The Cavs will be without three starters in Garland, Mitchell, and Wade so this game should be over by halftime. (I’m assuming Wade is a starter when everyone is available). The only things in the Cavs’ favor are 1) Denver played last night while the Cavs were off, and 2) the Nuggets will probably be overconfident and we see undermanned teams win all the time in the NBA.

Jokic is averaging 25.6 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 9.5 assists, so Jarrett Allen will have his hands full. Jokic is 6’11”, 284 pounds and extremely skilled. I’m sure there’s never been an NBA player this tall and this heavy with the handles, passing ability, and scoring ability of this guy. He’s shooting 61.5% from the field and 35.4% on 3’s. He’ll have a huge weight advantage over Allen and will be able to muscle his way to wherever he wants to go.

The Nuggets feature balanced scoring as PG Jamal Murray averages 18.0 ppg, PF Aaron Gordon 17.1, SF Michael Porter Jr 16.7, and KCP 11.4. Porter shoots 42% and KCP 47% on 3’s.

As a team the Nuggets rank 6th in scoring. Cleaningtheglass has them 2nd in points per possession, so they are highly skilled at putting the ball in the bucket. They like to shoot from close in, ranking 6th in frequency of shots at the rim, 16th from mid-range, and 26th from the 3-point line. The interesting thing about the Nuggets is they lead the NBA in 3-point percentage at 39.8%, yet only four teams shoot fewer 3’s. Obviously they only take 3’s when they have an open look, which is the way you should do it. My guess is that contested 3’s are the lowest percentage shot in the game.

At home the Nuggets are shooting 41.9% on 3’s. I assume a lot of that is due to opponents being forced to double Jokic who then kicks it out for an uncontested 3. I think the Cavs should just defend him with one player and let him get his 40-50 points on 2-point shots. Doubling him and giving up open looks to the best 3-point shooting team in the NBA is not a winning strategy.

The Nuggets are 3rd in accuracy at the rim, but with Allen and Mobley around the paint it will be interesting to see if the Cavs can force some misses or make them pass it out.

Defensively the Nuggets are 26th in points per possession according to CTG, which throws out garbage time stats. They’re one of the worst defensive teams in the league, so if Garland and Mitchell could play this could have been an interesting contest. But the Cavs have Stevens and Okoro starting tonight so we can pretty much forget about offense.

Last night the Nuggets played the 21-18 L.A. Clippers and were up by 34 points at halftime. None of the Clippers starters played more than 18 minutes as they mailed it in, just like the Cavs are doing tonight. The Nuggets’ starters played 24 minutes or less, so they won’t be tired tonight. I think the league has figured out that you’re not going to beat the Nuggets in Denver, so you might as well rest your starters.

The Clippers play tonight in Minnesota so they made a strategic decision to keep their starters fresh for a game they have a chance to win. I don’t expect the Cavs to be down by 34 at halftime, but I don’t think this game will be competitive. However, with Okoro, Stevens, LeVert, Mobley, and Allen on the floor the Cavs will have some physicality and defense, so if they play with intensity they might be able to hold Denver below their average of 119 points per game. But where our points will come from I have no idea.

Finally, the Cavs have no bench with three starters plus Rubio and Windler out. It’s Neto, Love, Cedi, and Lopez. Not a lot of defense there against the league’s second most efficient offense. I’ll probably be going to bed at halftime.
 
The Cavs will probably lose tonight, but this is too defeatist. If Garland plays tonight, they should have a puncher's chance. Darius, Evan, and Jarett are not chopped liver. Let's roll out a starting 5 of Garland, LeVert, Osman, Mobley, and Allen and see what happens.
 
Just take the L and get everyone right for the rest of the road trip. Give some time to end of bench guys -- see what they can do.

Even if we were fully healthy, I have doubts we would be able to beat Denver in Denver right now. I've been watching a lot of Denver recently, including last night against the Clippers. They were up by 40 most of the game. They have the #1 offense in the league and last night they actually decided to play some defense and they obliterated a Clippers team that had its stars healthy and playing.
 
Just take the L and get everyone right for the rest of the road trip. Give some time to end of bench guys -- see what they can do.

Even if we were fully healthy, I have doubts we would be able to beat Denver in Denver right now. I've been watching a lot of Denver recently, including last night against the Clippers. They were up by 40 most of the game. They have the #1 offense in the league and last night they actually decided to play some defense and they obliterated a Clippers team that had its stars healthy and playing.
All of the Clippers starters played under 20 minutes last night.
 
All of the Clippers starters played under 20 minutes last night.
Yes. All of those minutes came in the first half when they got destroyed and were losing by over 30 at halftime. That's why they didn't play the second half. Ty Lue threw the white flag and started the second half with his bench and didn't look back. Clippers were on the first night of a back to back. They were thinking about the next game.

Same logic applies to us. Give Donovan some rest so he is at his best for the coming road-trip. We'll need him at full strength.
 
Grrr! I hate this defeatist logic. You throw everyone you can into every game and try to win every game.

That said, I understand the strategic logic that says accept the inevitable. Especially with our bench depleted, even I don't have much hope.

It just goes contrary to everything I believe about playing sports.
 
Well JBB finally did something smart offensively (resting DM)! As another poster pointed out even with DM winning in the Mile High City would have been tough!
 
I don't like mailing it in, but I understand why. If only the we can trick the Cavs into thinking they are playing at home...
 
I feel like this is a win. Cavs are pretty good against denver for some reason.
I agree they match up pretty well. The Nuggets are 6th in frequency of shots at the rim and 26th in 3's. They would rather attack the rim and that goes into the strength of the Cavs' defense with Mobley and Allen.

The Nuggets are not a good defensive team and the Cavs, when healthy, have some firepower in Garland and Mitchell. When Love and Cedi are shooting well from deep and when LeVert is on the Cavs can put up a lot of points on the Nuggets.

The problem tonight is no Garland and Mitchell. That's 50 points of offense, not counting the assists. With no Rubio or Wade I figure the Cavs are missing four of their six or seven best players against a team that is 14-3 at home.
 
I'm thinking this game goes like that game against Minnesota where DG went off for 50 except DG will not go off for 50.
 

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