Rubio being able to navigate his way inside the paint really was huge for us. hopefully Rondo can do the same but Portland really stacked the paint even going under screens on Garland (a poor decision)
He did do that last night though, even with them stacking the paint. Resulted in 6 FTAs.
Teams are going to stop consistently packing the paint, just like they stopped blitzing every high PnR, as long as Garland, Rondo, Cedi, Lauri, Stevens, etc keep showing the willingness to shoot wide open 3s.
If teams want to dare the Cavs to shoot to beat them as opposed to pound them inside I am all for it with Garland, Cedi, Love, Lauri, and even Windler recently shooting the way they did last night. That defense won’t last.
Someone said teams “figured out” the Cavs in the game thread and that the Cavs “aren’t running what made them successful earlier in the season” and I simply can’t agree.
Teams are getting desperate to try and stop them and are throwing every trick in the book defensively to try and stop them. In the last month alone we’ve seen heavy game plans from opposing teams: blitzing PnRs, hedging PnRs, guys swinging to the high side on our ball handlers in PnRs, matchup zones, 2-3 zones, 3-2 zones, press. Any desperate look they can give the Cavs to get them out of their rhythm offensively.
As long as they keep breaking those different defensive looks, like they have been, we’ll go back to a more traditional defense against them and the spacing will open back up.
But they have to keep taking open looks at 3 when they’re given them like last night.
