Dude....
--offense often looks confused and ineffective without Lebron or Kyrie playing ISO-ball
Well, the Cavs the most efficient offense in the playoffs so far by a LARGE margin. Scoring nearly 5 more PPG per 100 than every other team.
Also, the Cavs have the second highest TS% and eFG% of any team in the playoffs thus far.
And yet, ISO has been only a small part of our offense. So I'd say the offense is looking just fine.
--defense is good in spurts but can't be relied on consistently for stops.
Cavs have been middle of the pack thus far for defense. Also, Moz is holding opponents to 33% shooting at the rim, K. Love holding opponents to 40%.
Cavs as a team holding the C's to just 42% shooting overall.
So yeah, it can be better, but to say it cannot be consistently relied on is a bit of an exaggeration.
--live by the 3, die by the 3 -- if they aren't falling we have a hard time varying our game
Cavs are shooting 33.3% from 3 in the playoffs. Which would've been 26th in the league during the regular season. So our threes have not been falling. At all.
And yet we are not dying. As I mentioned above, we still have by far the most efficient offense in the league.
So I do not anticipate us dying by the three. If nothing else, we will scrap by without the three, but dominate with it once they are falling like normal.
--front line cannot score reliably outside of Love shooting 3s and the occasional Mozgov alley-oop,
Mozgov is our 4th leading scorer. I only recall one or two oops so far.
Love has been horrible from three this series. He's actually been most effective on the block and drawing FT attempts.
Tristan is not asked, nor required to score on this team, so that shouldn't be a worry.
It's not that we're bad, it's that we should be better. We have two legit superstars and what should be a solid supporting cast, but we are not yet maximizing our talent.
I agree with this. But it's hardly been as dismal as you are thinking.