toooskies wrote:jbk1234 wrote:At a certain point, if you're relying on guys like Love and Exum to stay healthy, it's a shame on you situation. But McGee played all season until the trade deadline and outside of two games, one of which was against the Bulls who were without LaVine, I didn't see any improvement when Love came back.JonFromVA wrote:
We lost Drummond when we traded for Allen. That was his heads up that he wasn't going to get his big deal from the Cavs, then sent him home. Hartenstein was a bright spot for the season, but it cost us McGee. We had a somewhat interesting second unit with Sexton-Windler-Osman-Wade-McGee for all of 22 minutes, and Sexton-Exum-Osman-Nance-McGee for all of 12.
Continuity is important.
That we were able to incorporate Allen and Hartenstein as well as we did is a testament to their low-maintenance style, but once we started churning G-League players in to key positions of the team, most of this past season became a tosser.
It's not just that none of our starting units played more than 137 minutes together this season, it's also about that none of them played at all before January 15th in a season with only a few practice sessions.
Continuity is important but again, I don't think that's the biggest issue. You can't be as bad as the Cavs were at defending the three and converting three point attempts and win.
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You can go on and on about 3-point defense, which is highly variable and not terribly reliable as a stat from year to year and is the consequence of a lot of things, including coaching. The Knicks went from 28th to 1st, probably thanks to Thibodeau's coaching more than anything.
So I'm very much of the opinion that the Cavs can turn around their D with coaching. But the team was regularly taking 10+ bad threes a game, just by letting Cedi/Dotson/Okoro shoot it this year.
Here's the list of PGs, SGs, and SFs that shot above 35% from 3 this year: Sexton, Garland, Prince, Quinn Cook. (Throw in Love, Nance, and Wade in this category if we're counting PFs.)
Here's the list of PGs, SGs, and SFs that shot below 35% from 3 this year: Cedi (5.5 shots at 31%), Dotson (3.5 at 29%), Okoro (3.2 at 29%), Windler, Delly, Exum, Martin.
You can't shoot 10 shots a game expecting to make 30%, but the Cavs did it all year long.
Cedi and Windler were shooting reasonably well to start the year; Windler's shot dropped off terribly right before he had surgery, so I take back criticizing him too much earlier, his numbers faltered because he was hurt. Can't see anything that might've affected Cedi, but after an average December/January he fell off badly in February onward. Dotson was a 36% shooter the previous two seasons, so he fell off this year as badly as Cedi (but he started badly, finishing back at his 36% number in April).
So maybe the Cavs get better just by Cedi and Windler getting over their down 2021 year. Maybe we bring Dotson back and his shot returns.
Or maybe it's about not having a coherent plan on offense or defense, which is as much or more on the coaching staff than any of the players. Thibs turned the Knicks from 28th in 3 point defense last year to #1 in the league this year with similar personnel.
Yep ... all Mike Brown ever needed were players willing to give some effort and time for them to learn his defensive system.
As for Cedi, I think he was just trying to do more than we've seen him try in the past - be the guy he is for Team Turkey. A guy like him only gets so many chances to cross the line from role player to star in the NBA, and I can't blame him for trying. If he can be walked back to a more conservative play style in a bench role, he should be fine.