Nòmades D'en Ricky. The Grey Havens.

[El Hespiritu]

DET Pistanks are yet to work consistently as a team but they showed against us a better performance than his W/L drives to think.Laurita Mari Karmen returned after a while.

He looked rusted,misplaced, clumsy, smoothless, wooden-wristed and mostly out of focus.
So he was our best man at court yesterday.

Obviously.

Amor looked rusted, misplaced, clumsy, smoothless, wooden-wristed and mostly out of focus.
So he was our worst man at court yesterday.

Surprisingly.

RRondo was the true himself one half of the game and the CLECaus grey palette version of him the other half. He was even benched for the clutch and I wouldn't tell J.B. was wrong.
Goodwin proved this game he deserved the chance to be there instead.

Kokoro, TweedleDean and Afro JA fought and tried their best. Moble fought, tried and at times even did.
Ce Dios still out of mojo but fighting as well.

All in all, not that bad.

There was some glimpses of Late Pre Season CLECaus with The Three Towers + toughness, hustle and hyper-activity.
Aside Lauri chaotic production, no individual inspiration on attack after Rajon vanished saving maybe Goodwin... which can only take you that far.

Game was decided in the last two possessions and we lost the same we could've won.

Garlandas' lumbar zone will be an annoying issue for the remainder of the season. Let's all make our peace with it: It is what it is.
The idea is to load manage it to get him reasonably fine at post-season (if any... I'm not a fan of advancing myself to maths).

Cari's foot should be OK in a couple of weeks... he might use this time to study his teammates' game.

Addendo:

La Mar irrelevant; situationally fine enough what is a bit disappointing 'cause he was being consistently great. Slow, rigid and unconnected to team offense.

But I'm glad to see him at acourt again.

[JonFromVA]

The team's clunkiness factor is just at another level without Garland out there to manipulate the D.

The Cavs may be guilty of being a little greedy with their handling of him too, unless his back was specifically flaring up before these games they seem to be holding him out .vs. weaker opponents to save him for stronger ones - but that's now backfired on us twice.

This may be an interesting inflection point in his career as well. Early in his career Kyrie used to fight through screens on defense (Byron Scott's old school preference), and he was much more willing to initiate contact to draw fouls in the paint; until a series of injuries decidedly changed his mind on the relative importance of those practices .vs. staying on the floor.

DG will need to cut down on contact if he wants to stay on the floor, and that habit just might stick from here on out. JBB may need to adjust our defensive scheme. Perhaps this even cements Isaac in the starting lineup? And when DG is dragged in to a P&R we may need to pick one of the 17 modern defenses besides what we've been doing.

Goodwin and Rondo as starters isn't looking good, but as reserves? We may be ok, and JBB has defensive weapons and options we haven't seen in Cleveland since the Price & Daugherty days.

[toooskies]

Goodwin has played well. Last night it looked like he was doing more directing of the offense. He was a +10 last night.

Rondo in particular seems to gum up the flow of the team. The more time goes on, the less confident I am that time is what he needs to get the offense working.

[JonFromVA]

Goodwin has played well. Last night it looked like he was doing more directing of the offense. He was a +10 last night.

Rondo in particular seems to gum up the flow of the team. The more time goes on, the less confident I am that time is what he needs to get the offense working.

It's possible, but I try to be fair about this stuff, and it can take time to learn new teammates. It can come down to stuff we can't track very well, like how many practices has Rondo had with the team and with which lineups did he practice with.

But ultimately he is 36 years old and barely holding on to a career.

[El Hespiritu]

RRondo is struggling to keep physically at pace with the exigence of the team and load management on him when it was back to back games, for instance, proves that.

The toe was just bad luck.

All in all I yet sustain that (even if I wouldn't had done it) it wasn't a bad decision to bring him and I think he's trying his best and helping the team on and off court.

I can be critic with most of his games 'cause I think that's fair but I ultimately like him into the roster.
Goodwin is currently showing a better mojo, he's healthier, so he took the spot.

No complains.

Now I'm watching the game vs The Witchers... Laurita took barely two games to re-locate himself to the point he left when he got injured (let's see if he can sustain that 'cause team will appreciate), Kokoro, Moble and Ce Dios got some fire and that made up for another bipolar Amor's performance.

Not worried at all.

Kevin is Kevin and I Love him the way he is with his strengths and frailties.
He just needs to try harder to prevent officiating get under his skin... he's vet enough to overcome that.
Pretty sure he still has some great nights to give us.

WAS sure looks different when KKuzma, Rui and Gafford are available and still we won.
Good news.

One of my points of interest from this game was the duel between Black 本* and Afro Samurai.
Anime rivalry.

My favorite 本* player is Torontontero's Yuta Watanabe tho.

Addendo: Happy to see Rembrant taking some minutes. He helped.
Disappointed to see La Mar not getting some minutes.

Once more... I'm sus about some physical issue not to the point of DNP but bothering him to play his usual way.

Or else he lost at least momentarily J.B.'s trust.

* (edited out of ethnic respect)

[JonFromVA]

One of my points of interest from this game was the duel between Black *** and Afro Samurai.
Anime rivalry.

fyi: the word I replaced above with *** is considered an ethnic slur.

[El Hespiritu]

I had no idea... I'll edit it.

(Edited) Yep... far better now.

[El Hespiritu]

Amor played good again.
Lauri was impactful.
Afro JA hold forth.
Kokoro was great.
Goodwin and Moble were positive.
Ce Dios felt the flow.
Even La Mar got some minutes and did better than lately.

And yet it was an L.

I think a harsh critic against any of our players or J.B. would be unfair.
It was a tied, rough and tense game at the tundra, we fought hard and they just won in the last seconds.
Not particularly excited about this new 10-days guard but nothing against him either.

MIN struggled against our giants on mismatch but they accepted that on defense the whole 48 minutes... nobody was afraid to switch a taller guy and stay with him into the paint and beyond.
Fincho dealt size in exchange of defensive aggressiveness and it worked.
Vandarra and El Motivao Bevs made themselves bigger than they actually are out of pure hustle, The Rapper Ant and Jaden did their job and nobody questions Pueblos (KAT) and D-Load talent.

Again... this season TimberTrolls are no joke.
Not anymore.

The Wolf was stronger than the Knight, in this yesterday's tale.

[El Hespiritu]

Ducler had some messed algorithm I see...

After a deceiving loss vs Charles Chaplinette, where aside Gar-JA nobody was feeling it and Montrollzel feasted on our paint, J.B. ordered a consistent zone defense the whole 1st Q. First time I saw that; usually CLECaus zones barely spend a bunch of possessions working 'til they return to individual.

We dropped them more than 40 points and Beard totally disrupted. The second quarter Cavs gave initially in the zone to allow La Mar body bang James all over the court while Doc tried his own zone.
The result was Harden benched with three fouls and 76ers paint voted as the Most Sociable Girl in College according male students.

Milton tried to be The Walmart Beard and sorta did the trick. J.B. ordered zone again with starters saving Ce Dios by Laurita.
Tobias and Troel hero balled against it. Some Maxey 3FT flop cut it to single digits.

Good first half.

With both starting lineups again at zone, JoJo just understood better what to do but we adjusted to disconnect him, forcing James and Tobias to do-it-by-yourself... they indeed do it with Maxey's following their lead and eventually taking it.
Lauri isn't finding any option to shot so Cedi jumps in early.

They're trying to tie the game finishinig 3rd when Thybulle makes his 5th over Gar.

La Mar tries to make James feel uncomfortable but he seeks Moble for a 4p play and Niang to seal 76ers come back. Bickerstaff orders Stevens to return to pure zone and it works. Couple of turnovers and we start las quarter slightly ahead.

Doc's trick: sturdy small ball zone with Tobias at C and James/Niang Forwarding. I love Niang. He always affects the game without barely anybody noticing it.
Ce Dios charges James with his 4th. Kevin Amor reverts to an air-ball and slow defensive readings machine and asks J.B. for Time.

Maxey rains threes and dunks: we're clutching trailing 2-3 possessions down with starters+Osman vs starters+Niang..
Kokoro can't bother Beard that much.
He breathes free from la Mar and scores the W for Phil.

Still waiting for Laurita and Amor to find the way into their best version.
I enjoyed it despite the L: I love zone defense and this was the most Game Of Zones I've seen at NBA history.

[El Hespiritu]

Afro JA will probably be one month out as minimum.

O Dear.

Once he left, team hold forth with EDavis working on defense and being the party for the bench with his no-FTs.

Laurita and Moble were great again and Amor didn't suck... that and CeDios helped Gar to be less of a scorer and more of a passer, with Kokoro doing the dirty job.

La Mar out, TweedleDean in.
Less zone defense yesterday.
Let's see how we will survive to Allen left behind.

[El Hespiritu]

I wrote a brick around 10 pages long for the Clash Of Band Wagons CLECaus/INDianos.
I wanted to post the first half into IND thread and the 2nd Half here.

My Internet connexion failed after I posted 1st half and I lost the drawn... 6 pages or so.
Now I have no stamina to write it again.

I guess you should be grateful... it was a hell of a brick, trust me.

I'll just summarize my sensations about the whole game instead:

La Mar Is Great

Yep... that will make it.

Addendo: Garlandas/Kokoro/La Mar/TweedleDean/Moble.

I have the sensation this is first time these five guys shared the court... I can't remember any other game where the rotation made them coincide a single minute.

They played a long streak of possessions with this weird lineup and even J.B. put them again half of the clutch time.
It worked as a dream.
I bet the +/- sky-rocketed with them.

Of course, that was nor the CLECaus trade-mark BigBall neither the usual Small Ball spread around the Legue.
It was a kinda more old-school disposition... you could easily identify PG-SG-SF-PF-C.
The only innovative thing was TweedleDean at the theoretic Power Forward playing in fact Shooting Forward style while La Mar (supposedly SF) was playing offense as a pure classical PF; no stretch-sh*t at all just traditional PF hustling into the paint and cutting to the rim.



In defense it was trickier: they played mostly pick up defense but there were so many help and defensive rotations that it was hard to define spots: La Mar often went man to man against the main PG, for instance (Haliburton)

IND played an extreme version of Small Ball... always three and at times even 4 guards at court, almost all of them pretending to be more a Point Guard than a Shooting Guard.

Probably the two teams with a most different approach to the game. It looked tied.
Obviously we resented Afro Ja's absence but EDavis put some good job.

If we can keep this energy and hustle 'til his return, we'll be fine I guess.

[JonFromVA]

If we can keep this energy and hustle 'til his return, we'll be fine I guess.

I'm hoping we get LeVert back (and integrated) and either Rondo starts playing better or JBB gives the backup job back to Goodwin.

We're going to have to do more than just play with energy if getting a career night from Garland and 22 & 12 from Mobley only gets us a gifted win thanks to Jalen Smith's boneheaded take foul against an undersized Pacer's squad.

Cedi, Lauri, and Kevin shot a combined 2 for 15 from 3pt - while we let Indiana shoot 50% from 3pt as a team, so hopefully we do something to try to prevent a repeat of that.

[El Hespiritu]

Guys nailing shots doesn't make me feel confident: one day balls go in and other days go out.
Relying on that to win makes a streaky and irregular team.

Energy, focus, toughness, resilience and collective positional wisdom makes me feel confident: this you can sustain it day in day out.
Relying on that to win makes a solid and regular team.

Of course you need both to have any actual success and one thing reinforces the other but perfect balance doesn't exist.

If I must choose I take team effort over guys on fire every day of the week.

[JonFromVA]

Guys nailing shots doesn't make me feel confident: one day balls go in and other days go out.
Relying on that to win makes a streaky and irregular team.

Energy, focus, toughness, resilience and collective positional wisdom makes me feel confident: this you can sustain it day in day out.
Relying on that to win makes a solid and regular team.

Of course you need both to have any actual success and one thing reinforces the other but perfect balance doesn't exist.

If I must choose I take team effort over guys on fire every day of the week.

The Cavs problem is they've been allowing open 3pt shots. Earlier in the season, teams weren't making them making our 3pt defense potentially look a lot better than it actually was.

Our defense has been predicated on preventing other teams from scoring in the paint. We aren't just relying on the big who's defending the P&R to guard the ball handler and the roll man ... we're sending help, forcing our SF to try to guard multiple players on the perimeter.

Cutting off the paint was throwing certain opponents out of their rhythm / routine, but they're scouting us and getting smarter on how they attack us. Even if our energy level is there, it's still hard for players to move faster than a pass so team's with the discipline to keep moving the ball will either get a good look or run out the shot clock.

I'm frankly amazed how far this team has come defensively in so short of time, so try not to think of this as complaining ... but IMO we still have a long ways to go. We need to evolve our defense and continue to work on additional wrinkles whether that be the zone, a switching D, or just more options on the P&R besides always trying to fight through the screen while the big drops back.

We know full well how much JBB loves hustle/effort/toughness/grit&grind ... heck, he's handing out a chain after every game to whichever played personified that; but that playstyle often leads to injuries especially when combined with a heavy workload.

If JBB wants to coach this way, he really needs to use his bench more ... if those 3pt shots are falling short, it's invariably tired legs.

[El Hespiritu]

The only thing I disagree with you is 3p short = tired legs or More effort = more injures.
Nope.
I won't dig on that; if you think carefully I'm sure you'll realize by yourself why that's not true.

The thing I'm more agree with you is J.B. should extend rotation.
In fact, I've been begging this for months.

As I said, perfection doesn't exist.
I have no major complains. It could be (hardly) better but it could be (easily) worse as well.

To put things in perspective: some months ago this team was one of NBA worst and us getting Moble proves that.

When I think about it, it's astonishing the giant step this franchise took since then.
When I think about RRubio and Sextonto loss, I feel more astonished.
And if I add all the bad luck we had with asymptomatisms (nothing to do with injures) or toes, fingers and back (not immediately related with effort) the astonishment turns into reverential respect.

Me, like you, can be critic (or even satirical, in my case) with things I think could be done in a different way the same I can be critic with players under performing or J.B. missing calls (imo... maybe he was actually right and I just don't realize it) but I honestly feel like this team is doing his best.

They deserve more support for the way they're doing things than asking them to do things otherwise.

Or so I feel it.

[JonFromVA]

Evolution is the name of the game. It's why you want continuity, to keep the same bunch of players together building chemistry. I most certainly want to see it, but I certainly realize there's a timeline to change and it doesn't always come when we recognize the need.

Just like fans clamored in the past for Garland to be more assertive and less differential, and I would just keep saying it will all happen in time as he gets stronger, his shots drop, and his confidence builds.

[El Hespiritu]

I don't regularly care about future game plans or future trades the same I don't care about future picks.... when you read my posts, you can tell I barely refer to those (if any).

I may feel curious about some specific matters (I'm intrigued about how Myles Turner will adjust to Carlisle's Extreme Small Ball at INDiana, for instance) but it's more a question of smelling some fun Troll stuff incoming.

By no means I consider myself wise enough to understand what evolution will happen due to good and wise future trades and picks (or despite them), how timeline to change works or stuff like that.

I'm a simple man.

All of that just exist into my brains and I'm not particularly interested in my own abstract mental basketball.
I'm only excited and motivated for what''s actually happening at court.

I like what I'm watching from now.

If some mentally projected bball different from what I'm watching now ever happens (different game plans, different set plays, different rosters, different coaches, different GMs, different fans... whatever), then I'll watch how it works at court and I'll comment and I'll judge.

One day might occur.



Today, Bulls occurs.

Will you watch it?

[El Hespiritu]

I was pretty disconnected for a month (Spectral Phase).

Watching the game vs MIL replayed now to warm the engine before PI game.

This is the closest this team has been to PO since a while.

Whatever happens I guess we'd enjoy that.
I hope players will.

[El Hespiritu]

Well... it has been expectable.
They are a better team and that's it.

What if Allen... what if Collin... what if Ricky...?

What ifs are for free.
It is what it is.

We have one last single bullet left now.

Let's make it count.

[El Hespiritu]

I guess that was it.

I missed La Mar. Trae felt uncomfortable against him at RS.

But no complains.
Jumping from lottery picks to legit options for a PO spot 'til the last minute in just one season is a huge step.

I think everybody involved (FO, coaching staff, players...) tried their best and gave me a season worth to watch even if the player who brought me to Ohio barely played a couple of months.

Now, I'm rooting for TimberTrolls.
And still I get Utroll Jazz and Black Troll Suns under the sleeve.

I always try to be in good terms with my ex.
Both band wagons and girlfriends.