Cavs 97 Sixers 91. Cavs go to 10-4 on the season.
Delonte West is the subject of tonight’s bazooka point.
After a Coach’s DNP on Friday against Indiana, Delonte got in the game for 4:10 at the start of the 2nd quarter tonight. Coldstone attempted to convert Delonte into the role of facilitator/shot creator that Mo Williams normally has at this point in the game and it didn’t go well.
Delonte forced the ball into the paint and largely looked for his own shot as opposed to looking to the run the offense. Within the rhythm of the system, Delonte is very good at doing this usually - like LeBron and Mo he’s an excellent end of the shot clock player. Unfortunately, tonight he played like an end of the shot clock player at the beginning of the shot clock. It looked bad and the 11 points the Cavs lost on their lead during his time on the floor completely changed the game.
This and the DNP on Friday beg the question: How does Delonte fit into the rotation?
Counting Delonte, the Cavs have four players getting time at the 2 - D. West, Boobie, AP, Jamario Moon.
That’s pretty crowded. And it’s why it made sense for Coldstone to try to utilize Delonte as a back-up 1 tonight, where he played all last season during first quarters after Mo was taken out of the game.
This is truly a dilemma for the Cavs because last year Delonte was quite possibly one of the ten best defenders in the NBA, and there’s no doubt that Delonte playing at his highest level makes Cleveland a better team. However, it’s also hard for the coach to pull minutes away from guys like Parker and Boobie when they’re shooting 56% and 47% from 3P - and they show up for practice and make the team flight to away games.
Consistent playing time is the only way for us to get a real gauge of how effective Delonte can be this season, so I think that should be Coldstone’s goal. This may mean moving West back into the starting line-up, in a manner similar to what he did with JJ Hickson.
Time will tell, but it’s definitely something to track. Boobie is playing 22.4 MPG, Parker is playing 31.4 MPG, and Moon is playing 16.1 MPG right now (although Moon’s minutes have been going up) - somewhere in there, likely between Boobie and Parker, Coldstone has to at least try and find a consistent niche for Delonte.
Also worth noting is that the issue of divvying up minutes between the four Shooting Guards is foreshadowing really for what could very well happen if the Cavs make a trade. It highlights the fact, I think, that if the Cavs do pull off a deal before the deadline, they’re going to have to give up a rotation player to get one - and Ferry will have to be convinced that what he gets back is a true net positive gain.
Pistons on Wednesday.
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