Game 3: Pacers @ Cavs 10/28/23

JujitsuFlip · Post #1 » by **JujitsuFlip** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 9:06 pm

Allen, Garland, Jerome, and obviously Rubio are all ruled out.

Mitchell is questionable with a "hamstring" but my assumption is because he just played 42:08 minutes last night.

Iwasawitness · Post #2 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 10:55 pm

If Haliburton doesn't play, Cleveland has a real chance of winning this even without Mitchell. But if both Haliburton and Mitchell play, I don't see Cleveland winning this one.

God Cleveland is just having a horrible start with injuries. I really hope that changes soon.

JujitsuFlip · Post #3 » by **JujitsuFlip** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 11:13 pm

Iwasawitness wrote:If Haliburton doesn't play, Cleveland has a real chance of winning this even without Mitchell. But if both Haliburton and Mitchell play, I don't see Cleveland winning this one.

God Cleveland is just having a horrible start with injuries. I really hope that changes soon.

Halliburton in, Mitchell out.

Iwasawitness · Post #4 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 11:16 pm

JujitsuFlip wrote:
Iwasawitness wrote:If Haliburton doesn't play, Cleveland has a real chance of winning this even without Mitchell. But if both Haliburton and Mitchell play, I don't see Cleveland winning this one.

God Cleveland is just having a horrible start with injuries. I really hope that changes soon.

Halliburton in, Mitchell out.

Let's hope that the extra couple of days off will be enough for all three of Allen, Garland and Mitchell to come back for Tuesdays game.

Post #5 » by **ijspeelman** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 11:20 pm

Will miss most of this game so will have to come back after I watch tomorrow. Go Cavs!

JB has good reason to only play 9 guys tonight because everyone else is injured

Post #6 » by **jbk1234** » Sat Oct 28, 2023 11:58 pm

The Pacers are not a good defensive team. They should've moved Buddy for some help on that end.

Iwasawitness · Post #7 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 12:15 am

Georges Niang has not been good so far.

afarmenian · Post #8 » by **afarmenian** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 12:26 am

Calling this now. The cavs are a low 40 win team. They are soft and undisciplined with no coaching to elevate. We have mid 20s guys with little boo boos load managing. Mitchell is gone after this year for pennies on the dollare. This rebuild is a total failure.

jasonxxx102 · Post #9 » by **jasonxxx102** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:06 am

Just amazing job JB. Play your guys 40 minutes in a game that doesn’t even matter and lose it anyways

Iwasawitness · Post #10 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:12 am

afarmenian wrote:Calling this now. The cavs are a low 40 win team. They are soft and undisciplined with no coaching to elevate. We have mid 20s guys with little boo boos load managing. Mitchell is gone after this year for pennies on the dollare. This rebuild is a total failure.

Jesus, what is going on with some of these major overreactions? We were missing Allen, Mitchell and Garland. What on earth were you expecting?

Iwasawitness · Post #11 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:19 am

jasonxxx102 wrote:Just amazing job JB. Play your guys 40 minutes in a game that doesn’t even matter and lose it anyways

Only two guys played 40 minutes and the only reason they were is because they, apart from Mobley, were the ones producing the most consistent offense all game.

Just like in the other thread, I'm starting to wonder if you're just trolling. Bickerstaff definitely makes some really bad decisions and overall isn't a good coach, but you're being overly critical and whiny about even the things he does that actually make sense.

afarmenian · Post #12 » by **afarmenian** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:21 am

Iwasawitness wrote:
afarmenian wrote:Calling this now. The cavs are a low 40 win team. They are soft and undisciplined with no coaching to elevate. We have mid 20s guys with little boo boos load managing. Mitchell is gone after this year for pennies on the dollare. This rebuild is a total failure.

Jesus, what is going on with some of these major overreactions? We were missing Allen, Mitchell and Garland. What on earth were you expecting?

See me at the end of the year....it's no overreaction. 42 to 45 wins first round playoff exit what do you see about this team that looks like a contender to you that's my question.

Yes missing 3 out of 4 player's in the first week....I mean how soft can you get? That's UNHEARD of. 3 player's in their mid 20s taking it easy. My god are you blind?

Iwasawitness · Post #13 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:25 am

afarmenian wrote:
Iwasawitness wrote:
afarmenian wrote:Calling this now. The cavs are a low 40 win team. They are soft and undisciplined with no coaching to elevate. We have mid 20s guys with little boo boos load managing. Mitchell is gone after this year for pennies on the dollare. This rebuild is a total failure.

Jesus, what is going on with some of these major overreactions? We were missing Allen, Mitchell and Garland. What on earth were you expecting?

See me at the end of the year....it's no overreaction. 42 to 45 wins first round playoff exit what do you see about this team that looks like a contender to you that's my question

Nothing, because we haven't been fully healthy yet. That's why this is a major overreaction (and I mean that in every sense of the word) by you. At least wait until the team plays at full strength first and see how they do before declaring the season to be dead. We're not even a week into the season and you're already convinced we'll have a worse record than last season and be a first round exit again.

It's just like the time people thought Cleveland wasn't winning in 2016 after getting blown out by Golden State on MLK day. Stop with the overreactions and actually think.

afarmenian wrote:Yes missing 3 out of 4 player's in the first week....I mean how soft can you get? That's UNHEARD of. 3 player's in their mid 20s taking it easy. My god are you blind?

At this point you aren't even trying to be rational, or make sense. You're really going to boil this down to a case of them being soft? How long have you been watching basketball for? You really want their best guys to play through injuries just to win early meaningless games?

Post #14 » by **jbk1234** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:33 am

afarmenian wrote:Calling this now. The cavs are a low 40 win team. They are soft and undisciplined with no coaching to elevate. We have mid 20s guys with little boo boos load managing. Mitchell is gone after this year for pennies on the dollare. This rebuild is a total failure.

Dude, this was the NBA equivalent of a pee wee league game where everyone played. Seriously, TT, Merrill, Bates, CPJ, and Jones all saw meaningful minutes. The crazy thing is that it was pretty close until they gave up back to back wide open 3s to Hali.

As far as the injuries, you don't mess with hamstrings, especially the first week of the season. That's a great way to have guys out for a month or longer if they make it worse. A bone bruise is serious as well.

The bench guys getting minutes was important for evaluation and familiarity. I think Wade might have moved ahead of Niang on the depth chart. TT is sort of kind of playable, at least in comparison to Jones. CPJ looked okay to me especially because McConnell isn't exactly an easy matchup for a young PG making his first appearance.

This wasn't like last year when we tried to give our deep bench guys minutes against the Rockets second string with a 20 point lead and ended up having to reinsert the starters.

Okoro looks better with one big on the floor to me. That makes him a valuable rotation player at least. Strus is A LOT better than Cedi on both sides of the floor. LeVert is solid injury insurance so long as you don't need him to be the guy with both Garland and Mitchell out.

Do we need to have a conversation with Rubio's agent? Probably. Are either TT or Jones anything other than 3rd string centers? No. That part is frustrating and something that should probably be addressed before the deadline.

Iwasawitness · Post #15 » by **Iwasawitness** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:42 am

jbk1234 wrote:
afarmenian wrote:Calling this now. The cavs are a low 40 win team. They are soft and undisciplined with no coaching to elevate. We have mid 20s guys with little boo boos load managing. Mitchell is gone after this year for pennies on the dollare. This rebuild is a total failure.

Dude, this was the NBA equivalent of a pee wee league game where everyone played. Seriously, TT, Merrill, Bates, CPJ, and Jones all saw meaningful minutes. The crazy thing is that it was pretty close until they gave up back to back wide open 3s to Hali.

This, this, and so much more of this. I'll take this one step further and point out that so far, Cleveland has actually been much better than I was expecting. I predicted they'd lose against Brooklyn, which they didn't. I predicted they would lose decisively against OKC, which they didn't (and only lost because OKC got hot at the right time). I predicted they would get blown out by Indy, and instead they not only kept it close for most of the game, they did it while giving a decent amount of minutes to guys who won't even see minutes during the postseason.

Cavaliers fans should be thrilled right now. Yet for some reason you guys are pressing the panic button three games in. I mean hell, is this how you were guys were acting when the Cavs lost five straight games last season? I'm not even sure if I want to know the answer to that question at this point after seeing how you guys are acting after losing two... while missing multiple starters.

jbk1234 wrote:Do we need to have a conversation with Rubio's agent? Probably. Are either TT or Jones anything other than 3rd string centers? No. That part is frustrating and something that should probably be addressed before the deadline.

Call me crazy, but I actually have liked Jones play so far. That first stretch of minutes he got against Brooklyn was VERY concerning, but after that? I've been happy with how he's played ever since. He has extreme limitations on offense which will always make it difficult to rely on him on that end, but with the amount of offense firepower this team possesses now, I'm not too bothered by it. I think he does have good positioning on rebounding and could, dare I say, even be helpful in that department. And I don't think it gets talked about enough, but I think his defense has been good.

It's Niang that I'm still very concerned about and I don't think enough people are talking about that. He did finally manage to hit some three pointers in this one but overall, he's been lackluster. While Strus has played well beyond my expectations so far, it's been the opposite with Niang.

Post #16 » by **jbk1234** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:50 am

Niang looks out of shape right now, but that can be remedied over the course of an 82 game season. I have to disagree on Jones though. He looks like a homeless man's Javale McGee out there.

JujitsuFlip · Post #17 » by **JujitsuFlip** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 3:39 am

Well, he finally played 11 guys even though only 6 saw any significant minutes.

Post #18 » by **jbk1234** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 4:19 am

JujitsuFlip wrote:Well, he finally played 11 guys even though only 6 saw any significant minutes.

At least two of the first three teams we played have good benches (arguably all three). The biggest leap in the NBA is from third string to second string and that doesn't account for when you're playing good second units. I'm pretty hard pressed to list guys who should've gotten more minutes in a close game. I like CPJ but coming in against McConnell is kind of baptism by fire. There are scores of backup PGs who don't play a lick of defense, but McConnell definitely isn't one of them.

Anyway, our benched was outscored 60-11 tonight.

JujitsuFlip · Post #19 » by **JujitsuFlip** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 4:25 am

jbk1234 wrote:
JujitsuFlip wrote:Well, he finally played 11 guys even though only 6 saw any significant minutes.

At least two of the first three teams we played have good benches (arguably all three). The biggest leap in the NBA is from third string to second string and that doesn't account for when you're playing good second units. I'm pretty hard pressed to list guys who should've gotten more minutes in a close game. I like CPJ but coming in against McConnell is kind of baptism by fire. There are scores of backup PGs who don't play a lick of defense, but McConnell definitely isn't one of them.

Anyway, our benched was outscored 60-11 tonight.

That bench scoring is nice.

At some point they will need to upgrade spots 15, 14, 13, and Rubio.

Even if healthy, so tough to start a season with 3 games in 4 nights.

Post #20 » by **jbk1234** » Sun Oct 29, 2023 4:26 am

JujitsuFlip wrote:
jbk1234 wrote:
JujitsuFlip wrote:Well, he finally played 11 guys even though only 6 saw any significant minutes.

At least two of the first three teams we played have good benches (arguably all three). The biggest leap in the NBA is from third string to second string and that doesn't account for when you're playing good second units. I'm pretty hard pressed to list guys who should've gotten more minutes in a close game. I like CPJ but coming in against McConnell is kind of baptism by fire. There are scores of backup PGs who don't play a lick of defense, but McConnell definitely isn't one of them.

Anyway, our benched was outscored 60-11 tonight.
That bench scoring is nice.

At some point they will need to upgrade spots 15, 14, 13, and Rubio.

Even if healthy, so tough to start a season with 3 games in 4 nights.

We need to upgrade the backup PG and center positions and Niang needs a week at fat camp.