The Cleveland Cavaliers’ season makes more sense if you think of it as two seasons.
Cleveland Cavaliers playoff preview: LeBron James’ team is now a juggernaut
The Cavaliers got off to an awful start, but have been playing as well as anyone in the league since the midway point. Can anyone stop them in the East?
In the first one, the Cavaliers were a disaster. We expected some growing pains with the LeBron James/Kyrie Irving/Kevin Love union, but not like what we saw through the 39th game of the year. The three stars weren’t bonding, the rest of the roster was a disaster defensively and the experiment was blowing up in everyone’s faces. James sulked throughout, delivering passive-aggressive messages while seeing his own play decline. A loss in Phoenix dropped Cleveland to 19-20, light years away from title contention.
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Two things happened to reverse Cleveland’s path in the second season. James took a two-week break to recharge his battered body and general manager David Griffin orchestrated a series of deals to acquire complimentary talent in Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert. Mozgov plugged a leaky middle, while Smith and Shumpert patched up holes on the wing, where Dion Waiters had not worked out.
Suddenly, Cleveland looked like the dominant team we expected. James looked like he jumped into the fountain of youth, the newcomers blended seamlessly and Irving reached another level. The Cavaliers finished the season 34-9, with a point differential that rivaled the Spurs and Warriors. There were problems that bubbled beneath the surface -- Love’s role and health, simmering tension between James and coach David Blatt -- but they weren’t costing Cleveland games.
Yet as we all know, the success of the Cleveland experiment depends on the playoffs, the third season within the season.
How they beat you
With the most explosive offense in the league. Cleveland is scoring more than 111 points per 100 possessions since Jan. 14, which would lead the league by nearly two points if accrued over an entire season. Cleveland has two unstoppable forces in James and Irving and the spacing to give them all the room they need to go to work. Smith is dangerous as a spot-up three-point shooter, Mozgov and Tristan Thompson dive down the lane and Love, despite all his fit issues, cannot be left at any point.
What are the Warriors supposed to do on this possession?
It must be said again: Irving and LeBron are impossible to guard. Irving has the league’s tightest handle, a deadly pull-up jumper and the ability to finish any layup from any angle around the basket. James has taken some of the playmaking burden off Irving, allowing him to think score first. That allows the Cavaliers to profit off Irving’s great skills rather than be limited by his average ones.
And James, of course, is pretty good, too.
How you beat them
The Cavaliers have improved defensively since acquiring Mozgov, but can still be beat by good teams. Love is slow, Smith is not a stopper and James takes plays off. The Cavaliers have dialed back the all-out pressure they showed early in the season, but still allow opponents to shoot too high a percentage at the rim and too many threes, particularly when Mozgov isn’t in the game.
They’re also going to lose multiple playoff games because their offense completely bogs down in tight situations. Cleveland resorts to isolations far too easily, wasting time on the shot clock and making themselves easy to defend.
The Cavaliers have shown some flashes of continuity as the year has progressed, but those flashes haven’t been frequent enough. They are a lot like LeBron’s first Miami team in this respect. While the Heat did win the East despite their crunch-time stagnation, it eventually caught up to them in the Finals.
Most important player
Each member of Cleveland’s Big 3 is important (yes, even Kevin Love), but did you know Timofey Mozgov actually has Cleveland’s highest on-court rating? The Cavaliers outscore opponents by more than 11 points per 100 possessions when Mozgov is in the game, which is higher than James (+9.8), Love (+6.6) and Irving (+6.5). Cleveland is still a good team (+2.8) with Mozgov out, but becomes a juggernaut when he’s in.
Many scoffed when the Cavaliers traded two first-round picks for Mozgov, but this has turned out to be a perfect match between player and team. Mozgov is a limited offensive player that is willing to protect the middle, box out, dive to the rim and set hard screens without needing touches. Cleveland just so happened to be a team that already had plenty of offensive players and needed those specific qualities.
It’s amazing how Mozgov’s diving to the basket opens shots for Cleveland’s offense.
The Cavaliers post a true shooting percentage of nearly 59 percent when Mozgov plays. This is why.
Love hurts
It’s funny how Kevin Love has become a metaphor for how news is consumed on the Internet in 2015. No matter what he says or does, half the world thinks the sky is falling and the other half thinks those who say the sky is falling are being irrational, reactionary imbeciles.
When he plays poorly in the first month, the key line is either his coach saying he’s not a max player or his statement that he won’t opt out. When he doesn’t play in the fourth quarter, it either means he wants to leave Cleveland or he’s making an extraordinary sacrifice for the good of the team. When he does a radio blitz for a sponsor, the key takeaway is either his endorsement of an opponent for MVP or his repeated public pledges to stay in Cleveland. When we talk about his relationship with his teammates, it’s literally a question of whether he fits in or fits out.
This is all silly, of course. Love is going to decide on his future at the end of the year and what happens in the playoffs will make a big difference. It’s just amusing to think of Love as the person that best illustrated how sports allegiances really are like political parties.
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