It is not fun to watch the Cavs when they don’t have a player who can protect the rim on defense. It is even less fun when almost no one on the perimeter is shutting down driving lanes (yes, that was Thaddeus Young straight blowing by LeBron in crunch time).
The Cavs are developing a quality that I’ve seen other great teams have in the past - something I’ll call “the switch mentality.” What this means essentially is that when they know they are better than the opposition, the Cavs actually decide that playing hard for about 3-5 minutes will be enough to secure a victory … and that is what they proceed to do.
This can be rather unappealing, as it’s arrogant and cocky behavior, and as I’ve noted before - courtesy of Houston GM Daryl Morey - great teams don’t win close games, they avoid them (and also why there needs to be whole hell of a lot less emphasis on buzzer beaters when discussing who and who isn’t a great player).
The Cavs have fallen victim to this on a couple of occasions this year, most notably in the last second loss to Utah, but the team’s efficiency differential is still great at +8.05 (although ORL now leads the NBA at +8.17 - next best are the LAL at +6.15).
Overall then, particularly without Shaq and Z, the switch mentality may be irritating, but it is not alarming. One thing that is alarming is the Cavs’ free throw shooting, which continues to be horrible. They can probably survive it because they have the best True Shooting % (FG% + 3P% + FT%) in the Eastern Conference, but it is a little bit scary to see free throw numbers around 50%. The final alarming thing is the fact that Clevelanders have to listen to AC and Fred McCleod 82 games a year. Wow. Every play in the minds of those guys is a product of excellent effort by the Cavaliers players.
Celtics on Sunday. They blew out the Pacers tonight, if that means anything. It doesn’t. C’s don’t match-up well at all with the Cavs minus Shaq and Z, as it allows the Cavs to pretend to be the Hawks.
Hope you guys have a good weekend.
