Game 6: Knicks @ Cavs 10/30/2022

[ijspeelman]

Cavs cannot miss from three currently. Mitchell lighting it up

[ijspeelman]

Wade 5/5 from three and playing some solid defense. Some wonky calls against Mobley+Allen on contests. Guards forcing it a bit in the second against the Knicks D leading to easy turnover points

[ijspeelman]

We are really struggling in transition. Everything is 4 on 5 down the floor

[ijspeelman]

Hmm leaving Evan Fournier wide open in the corner twice in transition seems like a bad idea

[JujitsuFlip]

Why I've never been a huge fan of LeVert, zero consistency. He'll give ya 41 points one night and the very next night give ya 1 point.

[ijspeelman]

Why I've never been a huge fan of LeVert, zero consistency. He'll give ya 41 points one night and the very next night give ya 1 point.

Knicks have been playing pretty great drop defense on LeVert. Can't excuse one point, but want to give him a little leeway.

[ijspeelman]

I was skeptical of the use of Okoro down the stretch after a bad first three quarters, but he played great one on one defense on Brunson which completely stalled their offense. Jarrett Allen being taken out for Love and it actually working is crazy, but we needed the spacing and the way the Knicks were playing diminished the skills of Allen as an elite drop big.

I like the idea of using Okoro as a utility player. At the end of the game, the Knicks completely ignored him on offense (go watch the end of the game highlights, legitimately two plays in a row there was no one on the weakside guarding him), but it didn't matter as the game was already out of reach. I assume they will explore matching Okoro and Love's minutes after this.

They are going to be running transition defensive plays Monday and Tuesday over and over.

[JujitsuFlip]

Why I've never been a huge fan of LeVert, zero consistency. He'll give ya 41 points one night and the very next night give ya 1 point.

Knicks have been playing pretty great drop defense on LeVert. Can't excuse one point, but want to give him a little leeway.

All good, team effort, Love stepped up (29), Wade stepped up (22), and Mobley threw in 14.

Mitchell stayed on his hot streak, 38 and 11.

Missed yet another game but glad they were able to gut it out at the end of the game.

[jasonxxx102]

Just all around great game. Donovan Mitchell has been fully unlocked. Playing without pressure he is lights out.

Also just love the defensive effort.

Is it too early to say the Cavs are a legit top 4 in the east?

[JonFromVA]

A step back to when we could trust Isaac to make an impact with defense and hustle. LeVert couldn't make a shot, but he still dished a bunch of assists. Wade's keeping his name in the hat for SF. But Mitchell and Love brought this one home and Knicks fans have got to be wondering that maybe the price wasn't too high to have a player who makes a difference in winning time.

[JonFromVA]

Just all around great game. Donovan Mitchell has been fully unlocked. Playing without pressure he is lights out.

Also just love the defensive effort.

Is it too early to say the Cavs are a legit top 4 in the east?

I thought we were legit top 4 without Mitchell if Rubio returned to something close to pre- injury.

[toooskies]

Just all around great game. Donovan Mitchell has been fully unlocked. Playing without pressure he is lights out.

Also just love the defensive effort.

Is it too early to say the Cavs are a legit top 4 in the east?

I thought we were legit top 4 without Mitchell if Rubio returned to something close to pre- injury.

The question of top 4 was always whether everything would go right for other teams in the league like Philly, Brooklyn, Miami, etc. Those teams have a lot more serious question marks than they did in the pre-season.

[jasonxxx102]

Miami doesn’t look that good but I’m always on the side of them figured it out cause spoelstra is so good.

Philly has no depth they better pray for health

Brooklyn sucks

[JonFromVA]

Just all around great game. Donovan Mitchell has been fully unlocked. Playing without pressure he is lights out.

Also just love the defensive effort.

Is it too early to say the Cavs are a legit top 4 in the east?

I thought we were legit top 4 without Mitchell if Rubio returned to something close to pre- injury.

The question of top 4 was always whether everything would go right for other teams in the league like Philly, Brooklyn, Miami, etc. Those teams have a lot more serious question marks than they did in the pre-season.

The East has sent a different team in the finals every year since LeBron moved to LA, 3 of the top 4 teams won just 51 games, and the Heat won only 53. The Cavs were right on track to finish right in the thick of that last year, maybe even #1 before the cumulative injuries pulled us under.

On top of that, every season has turmoil, risers, and fallers ... the tricky part is just figuring out who it's going to be.

The thing is playing hard and playing D is great way to drive a regular season record, something a young team that hasn't had a long-playoff run should be able to do. Once the playoffs roll around, it comes down to solving the matchups and problems other team's we end up facing cause and we certainly have some challenges ahead, but we're going to create some of our own.

It's too early to run up the flag over our #1 ranked 3pt% (without DG!), but Mitchell is clearly creating problems for opposing defenses and it's worth looking at some of the plays we're running this year (thanks to Luke/whoever) and see if they aren't making a difference.

So, I don't worry so much about the 50-win roadblocks in our way, what I'm more interested about is assuming our team with 4 potential All-Stars can reach their ceiling, what's their trajectory and what does it look like?

For the Warriors, they needed to get Monta moved out, Steph healthy, Klay and Draymond established, Bogut protecting the paint and then get Mark Jackson moved out for a coach who realized what a gift it was to have a team that was one of the best at shooting the 3 ball and not only knew how to get their volume of shots up but how to leverage the threat to create even better shots.

It took them 2 seasons under Jackson winning ~50 games before they suddenly took over the West and maybe that's our formula? But we don't exactly have opponents like the Spurs, Thunder, and Clippers in our path.

So, maybe we're 2+ years away, or maybe our time is now - this is why we watch live action sports, after all.

[JonFromVA]

I just watched all of Kevin's 3pt attempts on nba.com in the game what stood out to me is just how easy it was to tear apart the Knicks defense with simple actions and it didn't matter whether Okoro or Mobley were sitting in the corner unguarded or Allen was being ignored.

There was one play with Allen where the Knicks switched the P&R and Allen set a second screen to free up Kevin because IH wouldn't leave the middle open for Mitchell. By the end, they even tried to show hard on Mitchell, but Love's man couldn't recover fast enough before Kevin's shot was away.

Just a whole lot of hands going up in Kevin's face just after his shot was released.

We could fully space the floor, but it looks like team's are going to have to make us.

[ijspeelman]

I just watched all of Kevin's 3pt attempts on nba.com in the game what stood out to me is just how easy it was to tear apart the Knicks defense with simple actions and it didn't matter whether Okoro or Mobley were sitting in the corner unguarded or Allen was being ignored.

There was one play with Allen where the Knicks switched the P&R and Allen set a second screen to free up Kevin because IH wouldn't leave the middle open for Mitchell. By the end, they even tried to show hard on Mitchell, but Love's man couldn't recover fast enough before Kevin's shot was away.

Just a whole lot of hands going up in Kevin's face just after his shot was released.

We could fully space the floor, but it looks like team's are going to have to make us.

The Knicks whole game plan was to pack the paint and not allow baskets at the rim and its primary goal was succeeded by only allowing 32 points in the paint. Their trade off was allowing 24 wide open threes (defender 6+ feet away) and 19 open threes (defender 4-6 feet away). Cavs shot 45.8% on their wide open attempts (league avg this season 38.3%) and 42.1% on their open attempts (league avg this season 34.3%) Even adjusting for our shooting to league average, we win this game based on their strategy by 3 points (not even adjusting for Knicks shooting luck).

I know we are missing Garland, but I like that we already have a solution for teams packing the paint against us and Garland should help on this end. What is crazier is that Mitchell still broke down the Knicks defense to score in the paint nearly at will or at least cracking open the initial defense to lead to easy shots for teammates.

[JujitsuFlip]

[JonFromVA]

If a) anyone remembers this is a record and b) it last more than a year I'll be surprised.