Cavs dominated the surging Grizzlies tonight, specifically by slapping Memphis around in their areas of strength. The Grizzlies were the #1 team in the league in paint scoring coming into tonight’s game, whereas the Cavs came in as #1 in paint defense. In this case, defense trumped offense. Memphis went quietly into that good night with a total of 34 points in “the painted area” (c) Hubie Brown. The Cavs, on the other hand, exploited Memphis’s weak interior D for a gargantuan 64 points in the paint.
All that aside, what I want to look at briefly tonight is the team’s behavior with LeBron as the primary ballhandler. James matched his career-high with 15 dimes tonight. In the 6 games without Mo and Delonte, he has averaged 11 AST per game in ~38 minutes. For the sake of argument, we’ll call that 11 AST per 36 minutes, or roughly +2.5 AST per-36 better than his season average (7.5 AST / 36 min). Only once during that span has he dished out less than 11 assists, with the road win over Miami as the outlier. (LeBron led the team with 4 AST in that game. The team combined for 14 total AST. Yikes.)
As the ball flew around on offense tonight on the way to the Cavs’ running the Grizzlies out of the Q, I started to wonder whether or not the team really is in better hands with LeBron basically playing point. Obviously, his personal assist totals are up, but what has it meant for the Cavaliers as a whole?
If we isolate the assist lens to LeBron in combination with the starting point guard, the Cavs are averaging 22.3 team assists per game since Mo and Delonte went to the sidelines. This is partially because Boobie has been averaging a meager 2.3 AST per game in an average of 36 minutes per game. However, if this were the team’s season AST average, they would rank 6th in the league in AST/gm.
As of right now, the team’s season average for assists is 21.5 per game, which ties them for 11th overall. But this means we’re talking about a difference of only +0.8 team assists with LeBron running the offense the majority of each contest.
On the season, Mo averages 5.1 AST per game in 36 minutes. He and LeBron combine for 12.6 AST per 36 so far this year. Boobie and LeBron have combined for 13.3 AST per 36 over the last 6 games, giving the Boobie / Bron tandem a slight advantage of +0.7 AST per 36. That differential is almost identical to the difference in total team assists above.
Obviously, 6 games isn’t a big enough sample size to make these numbers truly reliable. But it at least suggests that the Cavs only gain a slight positive advantage in this particular category if Bron runs the point.
However, we should also keep in mind that the Cavs’ opponents in these last 6 games have been Memphis, the Clippers, the Pacers, the Timberwolves, the Heat, and the Thunder. Only 2 of those teams are better than .500 today, with the Heat dead even at 24-24. So it’s arguable that the assists have come in higher totals during this span simply because the teams they’re coming against are more likely to give up easy baskets. (This is also why I’m not looking at scoring to try to figure out how much better the offense is working with Mo and DWest out.)
So from what I can tell, it’s more accurate to say that the Cavs’ ball movement is maintaining with their usual ballhandlers out, not morphing into a juggernaut. But it’s an imperfect analysis to be sure.
Miami on Thursday. Let’s hope the Cavs can manage more than 14 team assists. Otherwise we’ll be looking at either a regrettable loss or a Bron-Wade scoring contest. I know which one I think is more likely, but we’ll see where it goes.
Win streak: 9. Days to trade deadline: 15.
-T.
