What the Cavaliers Need to Fix Before Game Two
What the Cavaliers Need to Fix Before Game Two
Written by Kevin Nye (@kevinpnye) on 17 April 2018
Written by Kevin Nye
(@kevinpnye) on 17 April 2018
Game one between the Cavs and Pacers was about as bad a game as Cavs fans can imagine. What types of tangible changes need to be made for the Cavs to right the ship going into game two?
Game one between the Cavs and Pacers was about as bad a game as Cavs fans can imagine. What types of tangible changes need to be made for the Cavs to right the ship going into game two?
First thing's first: Game one was ugly. It was sloppy, it was disjointed, and it was inefficient. Plenty of things went wrong that simply won't go wrong every time out there, which is just a nice way of saying "it can't get much worse." At least, it can't get much worse in theory. In practice? Who knows?
Here are four things the Cavs can do differently that should help them straighten things out for game two vs. Indiana.
1) More Larry Nance, Jr.
Larry Nance, Jr. has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He does the kinds of things that don't typically show up in a box score unless you start to look at Net Ratings and plus/minus or on/off numbers. He has solid counting-stats (15 points, 12+ rebounds, 2.1 steals per 36 minutes), but it's the ratings that get your attention.
Basketball-Reference had the Cavs' DRtg at 111.9 for the season. It was basically that same number after all the trades happened (consistently bad is still consistent, I guess). However, in Larry Nance's 499 regular season minutes, the Cavaliers posted a 105 DRtg. 499 minutes isn't exactly a season's worth of proof, but the Cavs averaged 98 possessions per 48-minute game. So Nance was basically a Cavalier for 1000 total possessions, or about 500 defensive possessions. That's enough to get a sense of things.
If you think that's too small a sample size, consider that his LA Lakers were 17-25 in the 42 games he played out there. Despite that awful win-loss record, Nance had a DRtg of 103 in Los Angeles. That's extremely good.
But OK, maybe his DRtg numbers are weirdly inflated and they suck on offense, right? Wrong. Nance had a 124 ORtg in LA and a 127 in his 23 games with the Cavs during the regular season.
In short, he works. It's hard to explain why sometimes, but he just makes things work. The guy who's playing in front of him, Jeff Green, posted a 115 ORtg and 114 DRtg with the Cavs this year. Call me crazy, but I think I want the team to be playing the guys who outscore their opponents.
2) Inform Jeff Green that he's a terrible three-point shooter
I harp on this a lot, but it's a big deal. Jeff Green was 0-3 from deep in game one and it felt a lot worse than that. It felt that way because he was wide open for his shots. And yet, here's this delightful tidbit about his plans going forward.
No. Don't shoot it. Seriously. Do not shoot it. Please. I know you had a three-game stretch a few weeks ago when you were 9-14 on three-pointers, but you were 23% from deep over the previous 37 games. 37 games. 23% on three-pointers. And that was barely even a fluke - you've had two seasons above 34% in your career. You've been below league-average eight of ten seasons. You shot 35% on wide-open three-pointers (league average for all three-pointers was 36.2% this year) and - this is hard to believe - 22% on three-pointers when the nearest defender was 4-6 feet away.
Please stop shooting three-pointers, Jeff Green. I know you'll make some occasionally, and I'll be very excited when that happens, but you're an effective slash/drive/inside scorer, so do that instead. The one thing you're unequivocally bad at is shooting. When the Pacers see this video clip of you saying "if I'm open, I'm gonna shoot," they are salivating. They don't have to guard you.
The possible solution here is to have Jeff Green play the 5-position and make Kevin Love be the outside-shooting PF. Green is effective inside, a good enough passer to operate in there, and if he's going to get a big like Myles Turner to guard him, he can back out and try to out-quick him (or get a post-up for Love on the opposite side).
3) Have a plan
I'm a known Ty Lue nonbeliever, and I know that he does a lot more than what I give him credit for, but do you remember how he said he wanted Jordan Clarkson to always be out there with a point guard? The stats back it up - Clarkson is better with either Calderon or Hill on the floor - but that doesn't matter, I guess.
Clarkson played zero minutes with Jose Calderon and about four minutes with George Hill. His other 16 minutes (two were at the end of the game, so 14 "meaningful" minutes) were sans point guard.
Admittedly, that wouldn't have changed the game, but it's one piece of game-planning that went completely sideways and was instantly abandoned. Another piece was Kyle Korver being the first man off the bench. He played about four minutes in the first quarter (he didn't play well, but nobody was playing well) and never reentered the game. What was the plan? Was there a plan?
Next game, there should be a plan. Ten point runs or slow starts shouldn't negate the plan - basketball is a game of runs.
4) Let luck swing back the other way
The Cavs aren't going to shoot 23.5% on three-pointers for the rest of the series (unless Jeff Green takes them all). Realistically, a bounce-back will come at some point, even if it's just a return to average. Cleveland attempted 34 three-pointers Sunday and made eight of them. Their normal three-point percentage would have meant making 12-13 of them. If they'd hit 12, that makes the final score 98-92, which is at least a bit more competitive.
They'll come away with some more points on Wednesday. Hopefully, for the Cavaliers, it's more points than the Pacers score.
First thing's first: Game one was ugly. It was sloppy, it was disjointed, and it was inefficient. Plenty of things went wrong that simply won't go wrong every time out there, which is just a nice way of saying "it can't get much worse." At least, it can't get much worse in theory. In practice? Who knows?
Here are four things the Cavs can do differently that should help them straighten things out for game two vs. Indiana.
1) More Larry Nance, Jr.
Larry Nance, Jr. has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He does the kinds of things that don't typically show up in a box score unless you start to look at Net Ratings and plus/minus or on/off numbers. He has solid counting-stats (15 points, 12+ rebounds, 2.1 steals per 36 minutes), but it's the ratings that get your attention.
Basketball-Reference had the Cavs' DRtg at 111.9 for the season. It was basically that same number after all the trades happened (consistently bad is still consistent, I guess). However, in Larry Nance's 499 regular season minutes, the Cavaliers posted a 105 DRtg. 499 minutes isn't exactly a season's worth of proof, but the Cavs averaged 98 possessions per 48-minute game. So Nance was basically a Cavalier for 1000 total possessions, or about 500 defensive possessions. That's enough to get a sense of things.
If you think that's too small a sample size, consider that his LA Lakers were 17-25 in the 42 games he played out there. Despite that awful win-loss record, Nance had a DRtg of 103 in Los Angeles. That's extremely good.
But OK, maybe his DRtg numbers are weirdly inflated and they suck on offense, right? Wrong. Nance had a 124 ORtg in LA and a 127 in his 23 games with the Cavs during the regular season.
In short, he works. It's hard to explain why sometimes, but he just makes things work. The guy who's playing in front of him, Jeff Green, posted a 115 ORtg and 114 DRtg with the Cavs this year. Call me crazy, but I think I want the team to be playing the guys who outscore their opponents.
2) Inform Jeff Green that he's a terrible three-point shooter
I harp on this a lot, but it's a big deal. Jeff Green was 0-3 from deep in game one and it felt a lot worse than that. It felt that way because he was wide open for his shots. And yet, here's this delightful tidbit about his plans going forward.
No. Don't shoot it. Seriously. Do not shoot it. Please. I know you had a three-game stretch a few weeks ago when you were 9-14 on three-pointers, but you were 23% from deep over the previous 37 games. 37 games. 23% on three-pointers. And that was barely even a fluke - you've had two seasons above 34% in your career. You've been below league-average eight of ten seasons. You shot 35% on wide-open three-pointers (league average for all three-pointers was 36.2% this year) and - this is hard to believe - 22% on three-pointers when the nearest defender was 4-6 feet away.
Please stop shooting three-pointers, Jeff Green. I know you'll make some occasionally, and I'll be very excited when that happens, but you're an effective slash/drive/inside scorer, so do that instead. The one thing you're unequivocally bad at is shooting. When the Pacers see this video clip of you saying "if I'm open, I'm gonna shoot," they are salivating. They don't have to guard you.
The possible solution here is to have Jeff Green play the 5-position and make Kevin Love be the outside-shooting PF. Green is effective inside, a good enough passer to operate in there, and if he's going to get a big like Myles Turner to guard him, he can back out and try to out-quick him (or get a post-up for Love on the opposite side).
3) Have a plan
I'm a known Ty Lue nonbeliever, and I know that he does a lot more than what I give him credit for, but do you remember how he said he wanted Jordan Clarkson to always be out there with a point guard? The stats back it up - Clarkson is better with either Calderon or Hill on the floor - but that doesn't matter, I guess.
Clarkson played zero minutes with Jose Calderon and about four minutes with George Hill. His other 16 minutes (two were at the end of the game, so 14 "meaningful" minutes) were sans point guard.
Admittedly, that wouldn't have changed the game, but it's one piece of game-planning that went completely sideways and was instantly abandoned. Another piece was Kyle Korver being the first man off the bench. He played about four minutes in the first quarter (he didn't play well, but nobody was playing well) and never reentered the game. What was the plan? Was there a plan?
Next game, there should be a plan. Ten point runs or slow starts shouldn't negate the plan - basketball is a game of runs.
4) Let luck swing back the other way
The Cavs aren't going to shoot 23.5% on three-pointers for the rest of the series (unless Jeff Green takes them all). Realistically, a bounce-back will come at some point, even if it's just a return to average. Cleveland attempted 34 three-pointers Sunday and made eight of them. Their normal three-point percentage would have meant making 12-13 of them. If they'd hit 12, that makes the final score 98-92, which is at least a bit more competitive.
They'll come away with some more points on Wednesday. Hopefully, for the Cavaliers, it's more points than the Pacers score.