The Cavs beat the Warriors by 3 points tonight, in a game that really shouldn’t have been that close. It was a typical sort of contest in Oracle Arena - 105 possessions (the Cavs average 91 per game) - with plenty of weirdness to go around thanks in large part to the man who is about to become the NBA’s winningest coach … Don Nelson.
1) D-League call-up Cartier Martin gets 19 minutes, most of them spent guarding LeBron. When was Martin put on Golden State’s roster? Yesterday, of course. Just enough time to learn the Warriors’ defensive scheme.
2) Nelson leaves two timeouts on the table when he refuses to allow Monta Ellis to call one with about 5 seconds left in the game and the Warriors down by three. Now I know that some people might argue that not using the timeout will throw off the defense - precisely because they’re expecting one to be called - but that concept doesn’t apply when your offense is just as confused.
Also, I didn’t know it was possible for a coach to kill a timeout, even his player makes the “T” sign. Thank you for this nugget of wisdom, Don.
3) Monta Ellis played 45 minutes. Corey Maggette played 44. Monta has played 48 minutes 7 times this season. The disappointing thing was that even though ME and CM were in the high 40s minute wise, Nelson still played 11 players.
4) The shooting on the Golden State end was just bizarre. 36-85 for 42.4% from the field but 10-15 from 3P (66.7%) and 32-38 from the line, including 17-18 from Maggette! Strange to see that kind of imbalance, where 2’s aren’t going in and 3’s are. I know Nelson didn’t really have anything to do with this, but I’d like to believe he did.
Nelson is closing in on Lenny Wilkens for the all-time lead in total wins. Wilkens has 1332 and Nelson has 1320. Right now, Golden State is 11-24 so they are on pace to get the record for Donny N. this year. It’s unfortunate because something seems wrong about a coach who’s never been to the NBA Finals being the league leader in wins.
Then again, Lenny never made it there either - and, in fact, none of his teams ever even won 60 games. More than anything else then, this goes to show that cumulative records are all about longevity. And while longevity is a valuable quality, it shouldn’t be confused with greatness.
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