A Hornets Nest of Rebellion - How do we stop the Cavs?

[TheKingofSting]

Hopefully we don't play in the first round.

[HornetJail]

MKG needs to be guarding Kevin Love. Dead serious. Let Lance guard Lebron straight up. Whatever happens, happens, but I think it makes the most sense. Let Lance tap Lebron's face or blow in his ear or whatever and have Hendo double off of Waiters or someone while Kemba takes care of Kyrie.

Kemba vs. Kyrie
Hendo vs. Waiters
Lance vs. Lebron
MKG vs. Love
Big Al vs. Varejao

off the bench we have Zeller, Vonleh, Williams to throw at Tristan Thompson and the other scrubs on their bench.

[mrknowitall215]

MKG needs to be guarding Kevin Love. Dead serious. Let Lance guard Lebron straight up. Whatever happens, happens, but I think it makes the most sense. Let Lance tap Lebron's face or blow in his ear or whatever and have Hendo double off of Waiters or someone while Kemba takes care of Kyrie.

Kemba vs. Kyrie
Hendo vs. Waiters
Lance vs. Lebron
MKG vs. Love
Big Al vs. Varejao

off the bench we have Zeller, Vonleh, Williams to throw at Tristan Thompson and the other scrubs on their bench.

I think LeBron & Love would eat Stephenson & MKG alive in the paint with those matchups and their size advantage, especially with Jefferson being the last line of defense on the help side. It's going to be interesting trying to figure out what can and cannot work defensively against the new Cavaliers though. I read your assessment and respect it, because I can't even put together a defensive lineup right now that I think would be best just yet, but I would rest my laurels on the starters defending their respective position at the moment

[Rajaness]

Lebron is hard to stop the whole game by one person. It will be a team effort just like all teams that done so in the past. With the addition of lance, we now have two good perimeter defenders. I'll start with mkg and end with lance on guarding him in the game. If mkg makes lebron work for this points, it will be easier for lance to keep up the effort. That's 12 fouls they have to go thru. I know lance would enjoy getting his revenge on ending lebrons streak going to the finals.


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[HornetJail]

MKG needs to be guarding Kevin Love. Dead serious. Let Lance guard Lebron straight up. Whatever happens, happens, but I think it makes the most sense. Let Lance tap Lebron's face or blow in his ear or whatever and have Hendo double off of Waiters or someone while Kemba takes care of Kyrie.

Kemba vs. Kyrie
Hendo vs. Waiters
Lance vs. Lebron
MKG vs. Love
Big Al vs. Varejao

off the bench we have Zeller, Vonleh, Williams to throw at Tristan Thompson and the other scrubs on their bench.

I think LeBron & Love would eat Stephenson & MKG alive in the paint with those matchups and their size advantage, especially with Jefferson being the last line of defense on the help side. It's going to be interesting trying to figure out what can and cannot work defensively against the new Cavaliers though. I read your assessment and respect it, because I can't even put together a defensive lineup right now that I think would be best just yet, but I would rest my laurels on the starters defending their respective position at the moment

I can't completely disagree, but Marvin Williams would get so badly wrecked by Kevin Love it isn't even funny. Big Al has a better chance of defending him than Marvin. Out of our PFs, I would trust Vonleh the most, but not enough. I'd have trusted Jeff Adrien over any our current PFs, honestly. Bismack would be the guy I'd want on him, but pairing two centers on the floor at the same time seems to be against Steve Clifford's religion. Bismack and MKG would be the guys I would trust on Kevin Love, and I would trust either of Lance or MKG on Lebron for stretches.

[BobsBuddy]

Lots of good observations in these posts...
Yes we can beat any team in the East if LS KW,MW,MKG and AL are all hitting shots and defense is top five in the league
If not then we could end up anywhere behind Cleveland,Miami,Toronto,Chicago, Washington in top tier And Atlanta,Detroit,Orlando,Brooklyn,New York,and even Boston in the second tier.
We have allot of question marks?
MKG has got to get some offense.
How good of defenders will MW/Al be starting together? Should MW start at 3 and we trade for starting 4.?
Will CZ be able to develop as stretch 4 right now or do we trade him and develop Vonleh?
Should we trade Neal,Hendo, or PJ(Will he go to Jail?) as it's obvious we have too many guards?
Will Roberts be a good backup and if not can J"shot" Pargo run the point?
Can Biz backup AL?
Finally the unknown? Who's going to go down Hurt.?

[LofJ]

MKG needs to be guarding Kevin Love. Dead serious. Let Lance guard Lebron straight up. Whatever happens, happens, but I think it makes the most sense. Let Lance tap Lebron's face or blow in his ear or whatever and have Hendo double off of Waiters or someone while Kemba takes care of Kyrie.

Kemba vs. Kyrie
Hendo vs. Waiters
Lance vs. Lebron
MKG vs. Love
Big Al vs. Varejao

off the bench we have Zeller, Vonleh, Williams to throw at Tristan Thompson and the other scrubs on their bench.

I think LeBron & Love would eat Stephenson & MKG alive in the paint with those matchups and their size advantage, especially with Jefferson being the last line of defense on the help side. It's going to be interesting trying to figure out what can and cannot work defensively against the new Cavaliers though. I read your assessment and respect it, because I can't even put together a defensive lineup right now that I think would be best just yet, but I would rest my laurels on the starters defending their respective position at the moment

I can't completely disagree, but Marvin Williams would get so badly wrecked by Kevin Love it isn't even funny. Big Al has a better chance of defending him than Marvin. Out of our PFs, I would trust Vonleh the most, but not enough. I'd have trusted Jeff Adrien over any our current PFs, honestly. Bismack would be the guy I'd want on him, but pairing two centers on the floor at the same time seems to be against Steve Clifford's religion. Bismack and MKG would be the guys I would trust on Kevin Love, and I would trust either of Lance or MKG on Lebron for stretches.

If we move MKG to the 4 to defend Love we'd have to bring in another shooter. Because of the size hit we'd take I'd prefer to put Hairston in over Neal. So I guess we'd go:

Kemba vs. Irving
Hairston vs. Waiters
Lance vs. Lebron
MKG vs. Love
Jefferson vs. Varejao

Like you said though Biyombo makes the most sense to pair with Jefferson defensively. It sucks that because of his and MKG's (to a lesser extent) offensive shortcomings we can't play both of them at the same time. A lineup of Kemba, Lance, MKG, Biyombo, and Jefferson would be rediculously good on defense.

[Braggins]

I think we match up pretty well against them in most aspects with the exception of being extremely weak to K Love. Marvin will get demolished inside and can't take advantage of Love's poor defense and Zeller likely can't guard him anywhere on the court and is even worse offensively. It might be best to go small against them with MKG at PF matching up against Love. He will likely have trouble guarding him as well but he probably has a better shot than our actual PF's and might actually do alright (he is reportedly spending a lot of time in the weight room). The main reason I like MKG matched up with him is so MKG can hopefully attack him off the dribble and try to force him to be somewhat of a liability on defense. If we aren't using MKG at PF for Love I would probably put him on Lebron and have Lance guard Kyrie since they'll be running him off a lot of PnR's with whoever Jefferson is guarding. Kemba has trouble fighting through screens sometimes and I think Lance will do better at defend Kyrie on an island. Kemba should be able to do fine against Waiters or Ray or whoever their starting SG ends up being.

[LofJ]

I think we match up pretty well against them in most aspects with the exception of being extremely weak to K Love. Marvin will get demolished inside and can't take advantage of Love's poor defense and Zeller likely can't guard him anywhere on the court and is even worse offensively. It might be best to go small against them with MKG at PF matching up against Love. He will likely have trouble guarding him as well but he probably has a better shot than our actual PF's and might actually do alright (he is reportedly spending a lot of time in the weight room). The main reason I like MKG matched up with him is so MKG can hopefully attack him off the dribble and try to force him to be somewhat of a liability on defense. If we aren't using MKG at PF for Love I would probably put him on Lebron and have Lance guard Kyrie since they'll be running him off a lot of PnR's with whoever Jefferson is guarding. Kemba has trouble fighting through screens sometimes and I think Lance will do better at defend Kyrie on an island. Kemba should be able to do fine against Waiters or Ray or whoever their starting SG ends up being.

If Zeller didn't play so damn soft he could definitely put pressure on Love with his face up game. He has the athleticism but he just isn't strong enough to effectively guard him. Unless he's added some serious muscle to his upper body he won't be able to put enough pressure on him on defense or offense. So yeah I agree MKG is our best option to guard Love.

My biggest concern about that plan though is who would we move into the lineup in place of Williams/Zeller? I sure as hell don't want Neal out there guarding Kyrie/Waiters with Kemba. And as long as Taylor/Henderson continue to rain bricks I don't want them out there either. That leaves Hairston as the only other option. I have doubts about his ability to defend quick guards. So best case scenario is that Taylor comes back strong and starts to hit shots consistently from the outside. I don't have any faith in Henderson ever findinng the 3 point line. I think a lineup of Kemba, Taylor, Stephenson, MKG, and Jefferson gives us the best shot of defending the Cavs.

[mrknowitall215]

Within Clifford's defensive scheme last season, it must be noted that Josh McRoberts/Cody Zeller did a good job of defending Kevin Love as a member of the Timberwolves in the Bobcats' two meetings against Minnesota, limiting him to 18.5 points on 49% shooting and 10 rebounds in which the teams split wins, 1-1

Love had 18 points in the first half, but was 0 for 7 from the floor in the second half against Josh McRoberts and improving rookie Cody Zeller.

Cody Zeller's improvement into a starter is not only our best shot at defending Kevin Love with Cleveland, but also our best shot at becoming a legit playoff contender that'll fight for home court advantage in the postseason, because Marvin Williams starting at PF alongside Al Jefferson might have us barely squeezing into the playoffs as a #6-8 seed

[LofJ]

Within Clifford's defensive scheme last season, it must be noted that Josh McRoberts/Cody Zeller did a good job of defending Kevin Love as a member of the Timberwolves in the Bobcats' two meetings against Minnesota, limiting him to 18.5 points on 49% shooting and 10 rebounds in which the teams split wins, 1-1

Love had 18 points in the first half, but was 0 for 7 from the floor in the second half against Josh McRoberts and improving rookie Cody Zeller.

Cody Zeller's improvement into a starter is not only our best shot at defending Kevin Love with Cleveland, but also our best shot at becoming a legit playoff contender that'll fight for home court advantage in the postseason, because Marvin Williams starting at PF alongside Al Jefferson might have us barely squeezing into the playoffs as a #6-8 seed

I hope Marvin doesn't end up being that much of a detriment, otherwise you're right all the pressure will be on Zeller. Also, unfortunately for us guarding Love as a Cavalier won't be as easy as it was when he was in Minnesota. We had the luxury of throwing more looks at Love because he was their main threat to score, that won't be the case now that he'll be playing with Lebron and Irving. So to defend them effectively we're going to have to play great team and individual defense to have a chance.