Another day, another bad opponent, another fairly uninspired win….
We’ve already written about the Cavs’ Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde performances when it comes to playing some of the worse teams in the NBA. The past week has really revealed that a lack of intensity is becoming habitual for this team any time they believe they don’t completely have to get up for a game. An overtime loss to the Grizzlies, a borderline blowout by the Rockets, a close home victory against the injury-stricken Trailblazers, and now a 10-point win over a Nets team that has come out on top in only 2 of 25 games this season.
It may seem like I’m being overly critical about tonight’s game. A double digit win is a double digit win, right?
Wrong.
I’d feel completely differently about the final differential if it had gotten that close thanks to Lebron, Shaq, and Mo being able to ride the bench and a massive lead for the entire 4th quarter. I remember that happening a lot last season. But tonight, Bron played 40 minutes and Mo played 37. (To be fair, Shaq played 25 minutes and had a very productive game.) These playing time totals are especially significant since the team has to fly to Philadelphia to play the Sixers on a back-to-back tonight — not to mention that Delonte was inactive last night and will likely not play against the Sixers either.
If you read select stat lines, you’d think the Cavs would’ve won this game by 20+. They shot 58.2% from the field as a team, won the total rebounding battle, dished out 23 assists to the Nets’ 13, had 7 blocks to NJ’s 2, held the Nets to 39% shooting and 27.8% on threes.
However, some familiar themes allowed a bad team to keep it close. The Cavs coughed up 14 TOs, with Lebron again leading the pack with a season-high 6. New Jersey went to the line 28 times thanks to 23 Cleveland fouls. And mostly thanks to Brook Lopez — who I spent most of the game trying to figure out some kind of trade scenario for —the Nets smoked the Cavs on the offensive glass, 15-8.
The fouls are especially troubling to me. While certainly not great, 23 fouls is not a back-breaking total in itself. (The Nets only committed 2 fewer PFs.) But much like in the game against OKC this past Sunday, the fouls came in bunches early in the game. And as we all know, nothing will jack up the rhythm and rotation of a team like early foul trouble, especially on their bigs.
By the end of the first half, Brook Lopez had drawn 3 fouls on JJ, 3 fouls on Shaq, 3 fouls on Andy, 2 on Z, and 1 on D-Block. (The fact that Darnell saw playing time in the first half tells you pretty much everything you need to know.) The Nets shot nearly 83%FT, and it allowed them to keep the game close when they were getting mauled early in any non-deadball situation.
The result, of course, was the Nets’ being able to hang around when the Cavs should’ve run them out of the building early. Like most bad teams, they played harder as the game went on and they continued to be able to stay close. Hence, the need to play the All-Stars so much against a team that shouldn’t have warranted it.
I grew to hate the post-championship Pistons because of their willingness to believe that they were so good that they could wait until the second half or even the 4th quarter to start REALLY playing. Most times it still worked. But the attitude held them back from multiple championships. I absolutely do not want to see the same thing happen to the Cavs. But so far in the season, they’re giving me very little reason to believe that they don’t have the same issue — just without a title to back it up.
We’ll see how they react against the new (old) look Sixers tonight. But if the game is close, keep your eyes on the TO and PF situations.
-T
