Game 56: Cavs @ Wizards 2/25/2024

[ijspeelman]

[JujitsuFlip]

At least Mitchell is probable for this contest.

[ijspeelman]

[ijspeelman]

Winning at 1 at half time and its looked real bad. This team feels oddly broken right now

Wizards are making some tough shots, BUT this is the worst team in basketball imo

[JujitsuFlip]

Bounce back game for LeVert, i think the playoff rotation is starting to come into focus.

[jbk1234]

Winning at 1 at half time and its looked real bad. This team feels oddly broken right now

Wizards are making some tough shots, BUT this is the worst team in basketball imo

You got guys going in and out of the locker room/rotation with some kind of illness right now. We instituted a brand new offense with both Garland and Mobley out. Now they're back. The SL Champs came down to Earth. Our schedule got a lot more difficult, not just in terms of opponents, but the number of games stacked on top of one another.

There were going to be bumps in the road, but the important thing is that we're able to best good teams later in the season.

[ijspeelman]

Winning at 1 at half time and its looked real bad. This team feels oddly broken right now

Wizards are making some tough shots, BUT this is the worst team in basketball imo

You guys going in and out of the locker room/rotation with some kind of illness right now. We instituted a brand new offense with both Garland and Mobley out. Now they're back. The SL Champs came down to Earth. Our schedule got a lot more difficult, not just in terms of opponents, but the number of games stacked on top of one another.

There were going to be bumps in the road, but the important thing is that we're able to best good teams later in the season.

Agreed. I do like that we are going to get a good look at the healthy Cavs in a grueling schedule down the stretch

I'm not trying to overreact to like a three game sample... its just looked bad out of the break. Plenty of time to turn it around back to the same 18-2 energy

[Iwasawitness]

If the illness going around the locker room does in fact have something to do with what's going on, then fair enough, but it still does need to be said: the Cavaliers that we are seeing now are a complete 180 from what we saw during that winning streak. It's really strange to see how far off they've fallen. If they want to keep their second seed positioning, they will have to get back to that form when they go through the more difficult part of their schedule that is to come.

[JonFromVA]

Something is going on in DG's head - his irrational confidence is pretty irrational. He makes a shot and goes right to the heat check to try to break the game open when if he just let the offense run he could focus on trying to get another good look from where he just shot or at least from similar distance and his %'s would be a lot higher.

He does need to get his volume up, but not with out of rhythm bricks. I suspect some level of desperation because our offense is struggling to create good looks for our shooters (including DG). Creating all those shots for our bigs in the paint was smart, but there are still ways to get shooters open besides driving and hoping someone cheats.

Defensively, we seem to be leaving quite a few opponents open from 3pt. I suppose it worked because even with Poole's shooting, the Wizards still only shot 30%; but our two rim protectors are supposed to be able to let us play more aggressively on the perimeter. Why are our defenders sinking out of range of their man even when they're not helping?

Tired? Bug spreading around the lock-room? I guess we'll see.

We we're getting a lot of energy from our bench guys when Evan and DG were out that doesn't seem to be there anymore with Sam and Dean's minutes reduced, CPJ's often just cut out, and of course we didn't even try to find a replacement for TT.

And then we got the first sign of Evil JBB returning as he finally got some production from Caris so of course played him 18 minutes straight in the second half.

[jbk1234]

I find some of the criticism of Garland to be remarkable tbh. The Wizards had just finished off a 14-0 run to start the 4th quarter to go up by 6. Garland comes in and scores 10 points himself to get us the lead. Was +22 on the game and people are still nitpicking everything. He's been the best player on the court the last three games, and despite the degree of suckage coming from our role players, with him on or off the court, he's still shouldering the lion's share of the blame from fans.

[JonFromVA]

I find some of the criticism of Garland to be remarkable tbh. The Wizards had just finished off a 14-0 run to start the 4th quarter to go up by 6. Garland comes in and scores 10 points himself to get us the lead. Was +22 on the game and people are still nitpicking everything. He's been the best player on the court the last three games, and despite the degree of suckage coming from our role players, with him on or off the court, he's still shouldering the lion's share of the blame from fans.

I can't speak for others you may have read, only myself because I did in fact "nitpick him"; but we did just lose 2 games we should have been able to win without Don and struggled to beat the Wizards and while he certainly did help close the game .vs. the Wizards he was 6 for 15 overall in the game even with that. That gets to my nitpick that he seems to feel he needs to increase his 3pt volume but he's moving way too fast to the hero shots,

But what I suspect the vast majority of the critics are upset about is that our offense isn't working like it did when he was out. You say the guys around him are just missing shots, but the offense isn't creating the same motion, spacing, and opportunities.

This is a non-trivial issue that is not determined completely by one factor. For instance, the Wizards were not helping off the corners which opened up the middle for us in that game. That did cut off easy drive and kick opportunities. Who JBB puts on the floor is another major factor, and how we do or do not try to get our shooters open is important. TT, CPJ, Sam, and Dean were all important to our success when Evan and Darius were out and they've all had their minutes cut back by hook or crook.

[jbk1234]

I find some of the criticism of Garland to be remarkable tbh. The Wizards had just finished off a 14-0 run to start the 4th quarter to go up by 6. Garland comes in and scores 10 points himself to get us the lead. Was +22 on the game and people are still nitpicking everything. He's been the best player on the court the last three games, and despite the degree of suckage coming from our role players, with him on or off the court, he's still shouldering the lion's share of the blame from fans.

I can't speak for others you may have read, only myself because I did in fact "nitpick him"; but we did just lose 2 games we should have been able to win without Don and struggled to beat the Wizards and while he certainly did help close the game .vs. the Wizards he was 6 for 15 overall in the game even with that. That gets to my nitpick that he seems to feel he needs to increase his 3pt volume but he's moving way too fast to the hero shots,

But what I suspect the vast majority of the critics are upset about is that our offense isn't working like it did when he was out. You say the guys around him are just missing shots, but the offense isn't creating the same motion, spacing, and opportunities.

This is a non-trivial issue that is not determined completely by one factor. For instance, the Wizards were not helping off the corners which opened up the middle for us in that game. That did cut off easy drive and kick opportunities. Who JBB puts on the floor is another major factor, and how we do or do not try to get our shooters open is important. TT, CPJ, Sam, and Dean were all important to our success when Evan and Darius were out and they've all had their minutes cut back by hook or crook.

And this gets back to me sincerely believing that beating up on bad defensive teams with the SL Champs wasn't going scale over the course of the season, to say nothing of the playoffs, even if Garland and Mobley never came back. Also, it's not just Garland who we're attempting to re-incorporate into a different offense, but Garland and Mobley, and while Garland is receiving the lion's share of the blame, it's been Mobley who's been more problematic in terms of incorporation to my eye. It's at least worth asking what it would've looked like had they come back weeks apart.

I do agree that we really miss TT in certain lineups, but maybe it's worth a loss or two to see of Mobley can successfully respond to more physical play this season, or whether we need to reconsider how we use him in certain matchups. It may be that he's a little tentative coming off of knee surgery. It may be that he doesn't get there this season.

[JonFromVA]

I find some of the criticism of Garland to be remarkable tbh. The Wizards had just finished off a 14-0 run to start the 4th quarter to go up by 6. Garland comes in and scores 10 points himself to get us the lead. Was +22 on the game and people are still nitpicking everything. He's been the best player on the court the last three games, and despite the degree of suckage coming from our role players, with him on or off the court, he's still shouldering the lion's share of the blame from fans.

I can't speak for others you may have read, only myself because I did in fact "nitpick him"; but we did just lose 2 games we should have been able to win without Don and struggled to beat the Wizards and while he certainly did help close the game .vs. the Wizards he was 6 for 15 overall in the game even with that. That gets to my nitpick that he seems to feel he needs to increase his 3pt volume but he's moving way too fast to the hero shots,

But what I suspect the vast majority of the critics are upset about is that our offense isn't working like it did when he was out. You say the guys around him are just missing shots, but the offense isn't creating the same motion, spacing, and opportunities.

This is a non-trivial issue that is not determined completely by one factor. For instance, the Wizards were not helping off the corners which opened up the middle for us in that game. That did cut off easy drive and kick opportunities. Who JBB puts on the floor is another major factor, and how we do or do not try to get our shooters open is important. TT, CPJ, Sam, and Dean were all important to our success when Evan and Darius were out and they've all had their minutes cut back by hook or crook.

And this gets back to me sincerely believing that beating up on bad defensive teams with the SL Champs wasn't going scale over the course of the season, to say nothing of the playoffs, even if Garland and Mobley never came back. Also, it's not just Garland who we're attempting to re-incorporate into a different offense, but Garland and Mobley, and while Garland is receiving the lion's share of the blame, it's been Mobley who's been more problematic in terms of incorporation to my eye. It's at least worth asking what it would've looked like had they come back weeks apart.

I do agree that we really miss TT in certain lineups, but maybe it's worth a loss or two to see of Mobley can successfully respond to more physical play this season, or whether we need to reconsider how we use him in certain matchups. It may be that he's a little tentative coming off of knee surgery. It may be that he doesn't get there this season.

Of course you know we didn't just beat up on bad defensive teams during that stretch, we just beat up on a lot of them. That we couldn't beat up on the Sixers without Embiid or the Wizards (who are 29th ranked on D and trying to lose games) is problematic.

Where we agree is it's not just about one thing, and we should be patient to an extent with Garland and Mobley; but the funny thing is the SL Champs as you put it didn't need weeks to get rolling when the announcement came down. Everyone was ready to move, shoot, and sacrifice for each other.

Personally, I remain a big Garland and Mobley supporter and while I will point out issues when I notice them, I really think the problem is our coach. Bickerstaff seems to the one first and foremost struggling to buy in to what we were seeing. I see little to suggest he understands how it was working or why it was working, how to recreate it, and how to help integrate those players back in to it.