Game 53: Cleveland Cavaliers (13-39) vs. Los Angeles Clippers (36-16) - 7:30 PM ET

[ducler]

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[Revenged25]

Really looking forward to this game to see how Drummond works with the current roster, even though there will probably be some growing pains as they learn to play together.

[jbk1234]

Campy Russell just called KPJ a great defender and then followed that with Drummond was going to close down the lane which will help our guards defensively.

Wut?

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[jbk1234]

To be clear, I want Drummond to work out. It's just that Campy gets paid to analyze basketball and he just said two crazy things.

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[jbk1234]

It's early, but I don't think Drummond is going to ruin the tank.

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[Stillwater]

Garland needs a timeout... Stupid kids

[Stillwater]

Cedi has to somehow understand stop shooting off balance where his % sucks... It's never improved

[gusman]

You will come to see, sooner rather than later, how much of a negative impact Drummond has a player.

[gusman]

I see he shot a three as well lol. I almost bought nba league pass just to see how much he sucked in his first game. I guess just be happy you don’t have Reggie Jackson to take the energy down even more.

[jbk1234]

Why is KPJ flexing after a dunk when his team is down by 17?

I'm ready to bring Paul Silas out of retirement as a coach.

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[jbk1234]

Granted were playing with different rotations, but when we play good defensive teams our bad habits really come back to haunt.

The ball stops moving, players stop moving, guys dribble themselves into trouble, and take bad shots or turn it over.

I like Beilein's offense, but if he can't get the team to run it, I'm not sure what good it is.

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[Stillwater]

2 reasons
1 this team is not good most games anyway so the growing pains adding a player immediately into the starting line up will help the tank more than hurt it for minimum of 6-8 games
2 they are playing a contender adding misery to reason 1 and Sexton got into early foul trouble so they haven't gotten anything from him
that and Cedi looks negatively impacted by Drummonds addition to the sl so far more than anyone

[Revenged25]

This game was tough to watch and I kept having to turn it off and go back to watching. I liked that the guards were trying to get Drummond involved early and often just the timing was off. Also no one's shot was falling this game, regardless of if they had an opening or not. Just one of those cold shooting nights that you can't really get a good gauge of how things will work and the Clippers are just loaded with scorers. Hopefully we'll get a better idea of how this will look on Wednesday against another bottom team.

[JonFromVA]

You will come to see, sooner rather than later, how much of a negative impact Drummond has a player.

All things relative for a team like the Cavs.

I mean we didn't need to see Andre in a Cavs uniform to know he wasn't a defensive stopper, but he sure does fill the box score effortlessly and he's certainly capable of a number of things that Thompson can't do.

In terms of relative badness, Andre was -22 in 28 minutes, and Thompson was -19 in 19 minutes coming off the bench.

The Cavs seemed super rusty in this one, and if they even have an offensive or defensive system it wasn't apparent.

At $28M/year, yes, those stats look pretty empty ... we'll have to see what Detroit can do with all their cap space .vs. what the Cavs can or cannot get out of Drummond (assuming he even sticks around past this season). It's a frustrating situation for fans who want every player on the team to have positive value, but fact is there's simply more money to dish out than talent worth spending it on for teams like Detroit and Cleveland.

The key is for Detroit is that Andre and Blake are keeping the Pistons out of the deep lottery where you can get young players to eventually spend money on .vs. the Cavs who've already drafted 3 guys who will likely want to get paid and have another on the way. In other words, our roster is locked in, and we might as well spend money trying to improve until the players on rookie deals need to be paid.

Of course it can be argued that the Cavs core is completely unproven and they shouldn't be committing future money until they know for sure lest they end up like Detroit; but the current front office won't be around to see that outcome - just like SVG isn't around to deal with his outcome.

[Stillwater]

This game was tough to watch and I kept having to turn it off and go back to watching. I liked that the guards were trying to get Drummond involved early and often just the timing was off. Also no one's shot was falling this game, regardless of if they had an opening or not. Just one of those cold shooting nights that you can't really get a good gauge of how things will work and the Clippers are just loaded with scorers. Hopefully we'll get a better idea of how this will look on Wednesday against another bottom team.

Bottom line LAC put on a clinic defensively without Beverly and without Leonard. Beilein will use that game tape a lot but he won't need it there isn't a player on the Cavs roster that wasn't taught something in that terrible embarrassing loss.
Even Garland is yelling out obscenities on the court out of frustrations with his teammates
and he's the worst defender on the court.

[jbk1234]

This game was tough to watch and I kept having to turn it off and go back to watching. I liked that the guards were trying to get Drummond involved early and often just the timing was off. Also no one's shot was falling this game, regardless of if they had an opening or not. Just one of those cold shooting nights that you can't really get a good gauge of how things will work and the Clippers are just loaded with scorers. Hopefully we'll get a better idea of how this will look on Wednesday against another bottom team.

If this is the starting line up, Sexton and Garland should just start their rotations to Love's side early every time the other team's guard drives on a high PNR. Love is going to have to pinch down to cover the roll man and someone needs to cover the corner three. They're both pretty worthless trailing the play into the paint. I suspect we're going to see a steady diet of that action from opposing teams.

[Stillwater]

This game was tough to watch and I kept having to turn it off and go back to watching. I liked that the guards were trying to get Drummond involved early and often just the timing was off. Also no one's shot was falling this game, regardless of if they had an opening or not. Just one of those cold shooting nights that you can't really get a good gauge of how things will work and the Clippers are just loaded with scorers. Hopefully we'll get a better idea of how this will look on Wednesday against another bottom team.

If this is the starting line up, Sexton and Garland should just start their rotations to Love's side early every time the other team's guard drives on a high PNR. Love is going to have to pinch down to cover the roll man and someone needs to cover the corner three. They're both pretty worthless trailing the play into the paint. I suspect we're going to see a steady diet of that action from opposing teams.

1 will be coming off the bench soon if kpj doesn't replace Cedi in the starting rotation soon he will probably replace Sexton. Garland needs to prove himself the rest of the season imo otherwise he's
bust material at this point. He hasn't done anything resembles top 5 pg and if Cavs are sitting at 3-6 range Cole Anthony , Lamelo ,Halliburton and others are screaming pick me

[JonFromVA]

This game was tough to watch and I kept having to turn it off and go back to watching. I liked that the guards were trying to get Drummond involved early and often just the timing was off. Also no one's shot was falling this game, regardless of if they had an opening or not. Just one of those cold shooting nights that you can't really get a good gauge of how things will work and the Clippers are just loaded with scorers. Hopefully we'll get a better idea of how this will look on Wednesday against another bottom team.

If this is the starting line up, Sexton and Garland should just start their rotations to Love's side early every time the other team's guard drives on a high PNR. Love is going to have to pinch down to cover the roll man and someone needs to cover the corner three. They're both pretty worthless trailing the play into the paint. I suspect we're going to see a steady diet of that action from opposing teams.

1 will be coming off the bench soon if kpj doesn't replace Cedi in the starting rotation soon he will probably replace Sexton. Garland needs to prove himself the rest of the season imo otherwise he's
bust material at this point. He hasn't done anything resembles top 5 pg and if Cavs are sitting at 3-6 range Cole Anthony , Lamelo ,Halliburton and others are screaming pick me

I still think we're just investing (burning if you prefer) minutes at this point with Garland with little in the way of expectations. Those just shouldn't start until next year because of his injury/conditioning, and physical maturity.

I did notice DG trying hard on D .vs. the Clips even against bigger players, but as jbk1234 suggest they need something schematically to help them out. Like maybe just run some sort of zone variation - and/or get Drummond planted closer to the rim and figure out a way to funnel ball handlers to him.

We've got a lot of time off with the All-Star break ... it'll be interesting to see what we can do with it and who/if anyone catches their second wind.

[jbk1234]

This game was tough to watch and I kept having to turn it off and go back to watching. I liked that the guards were trying to get Drummond involved early and often just the timing was off. Also no one's shot was falling this game, regardless of if they had an opening or not. Just one of those cold shooting nights that you can't really get a good gauge of how things will work and the Clippers are just loaded with scorers. Hopefully we'll get a better idea of how this will look on Wednesday against another bottom team.

If this is the starting line up, Sexton and Garland should just start their rotations to Love's side early every time the other team's guard drives on a high PNR. Love is going to have to pinch down to cover the roll man and someone needs to cover the corner three. They're both pretty worthless trailing the play into the paint. I suspect we're going to see a steady diet of that action from opposing teams.

1 will be coming off the bench soon if kpj doesn't replace Cedi in the starting rotation soon he will probably replace Sexton. Garland needs to prove himself the rest of the season imo otherwise he's
bust material at this point. He hasn't done anything resembles top 5 pg and if Cavs are sitting at 3-6 range Cole Anthony , Lamelo ,Halliburton and others are screaming pick me

To my eye, KPJ is just a taller and rawer version of Sexton. His defense is awful. He doesn't facilitate well. He over dribbles and gets himself into trouble against good defensive teams. Garland needs to bulk up and fill out this summer. A lot of his defensive issues arise from his size. Same with turnovers. The only guys who survive in this league at his size are elite three point shooters.

Next year will be a big year for all three of them as they all resemble a sixth man on a good team at this point. They've got some work to put in.

[JonFromVA]

KPJ has length and athleticism which would let him play SG (maybe even SF), so while he's raw, it's easier to see a role for him. Also worth noting that his TS% has been 57.7% and higher the past 3 months.

All three of our young players primarily understand ISO ball and playing all of them so much makes our offense look stagnant at times. That makes Beilein's challenge to figure out how expand their games. I think they're all trying in various ways, but when things go wrong, players will always fall back on what's comfortable to them.