GT #79: Bullets @ CAVS 8 PM (TNT/1500 AM)

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

In Spain. Couldn't watch game. Admittedly a long way to travel to get out of watching it!

Nonetheless a pretty solid move all things considered

[DANNYLANDOVER]

John Wall took 7 midrange shots, making 3 of them. One of the attempts was a buzzer beater at the end of the 1st, an appropriate shot. Two more were at the end of the 4th quarter after long isolations. Not sure if one should blame Wall or Brooks. Overall, Wall took 4 midrange jumpers with 16 or more seconds to go in the shot clock, not counting end of quarter possessions, two-for-one scenarios, or milking the shot clock to hang onto the lead. He made one of them.

Again, players make mistakes. Basketball at this level of competition is hard. I'm not going to blame Wall in hindsight for the turnover at the end of the game. I'm not going to blame him for a missed layup or a turnover here or there. These things happen and they're out of a players' control. But bad shot selection is controllable. There's no need for it if you are disciplined and value possessions. Wall took 4 really bad shots throughout the course of the game. He made 1 of them, which gave him a 25% success rate on his bad shots. A team normally expects about a 50% success rate on offensive possessions, so Wall effectively wasted 2 possessions with poor, selfish decisions (and that's not even counting the isolation possessions at the end of the 4th because I'm not sure whether to blame Wall or Brooks). Two possessions would likely have won us the game.

From @ESPNStatsInfo: The Cavaliers were down 106-90 in the final 6 minutes Thursday. Entering today, teams were 2-461 this season when trailing by 16+ points in the final 6 minutes of the 4th quarter.

....but yeah. The NBA is hard.

...and we now have two out of the three losses. Sums up this entire season so far!