Post Game Thread - @ Cleveland

[bobheckler]

An underwhelming 10-point win against a team aspiring to win their 20th game before the sands of the season run out.  And they kept the game closer than that 10-point margin looks.

Tatum with 21 first half points on 8-14 shooting and we thought "oh boy, here we go!  He has just been held back by Kyrie hogging the ball and stifling the team's offense!  Now he's free!  Go Jayson!".  Then...Jayson Tatum with 0 second half points on 0-2 shooting.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a player have that hot a half and then come out of the locker room for the 3rd and have goose eggs the rest of the way.  He had 2 rebounds, 2 assists and zero points in 18 second half minutes.  Jayson Tatum, The Phantom.

Horford showed up.  He scored, he rebounded and just generally led the way.

Smart with 21 points, 3 steals.  I have to tell you, if I was NOP and I'm making demands from Danny for Anthony Davis I'd probably be asking for Marcus Smart before I'd ask for either J.  They are still riding high on their potential, more so than their actual performances.  Smart had a couple of minutes where he was in almost every play, either scoring on one end or blowing them up on the other.

Hayward didn't have a gaudy boxscore (maybe a 'Gordy' one) but I feel like the offense just looks coherent when he's in and handling the ball.  He's very much of a 'heads up' player, as in "when he's going somewhere with the ball his head is always up looking around to see where his teammates are".

Brad started the game with Al Horford and Baynes in the line up.  That let Baynes battle with Tristan Thompson while Al went out to the arc with Kevin Love.  Not a bad strategy.  But later in the game he went small.  His team on the floor was Yabusele, Morris, Hayward, Brown and Rozier.  I didn't pay attention to what happened to the score when that team was on the floor, Yabby only played 6 minutes so it wasn't for long, but I thought it worked pretty well.  One small guard, 2 big 6'7"-6'8" wings and bigs that were about the same height as the wings, just physically stronger.  No player over 6'9".

Speaking of Baynes and Thompson, Thompson with only 3 rebounds in 18 minutes.  I wasn't watching that match up specifically, but Baynes was on Thompson most of the night.  Holding Thompson to single digit rebounds is absolutely amazing.  He is probably the closest thing we have to Moses Malone in today's NBA.

The Cleveland Cadavers have the 2nd worst offense by Points Per Game with 104.4 and the 3rd worst in FG% with 44.2%.  They scored 106 points and shot 48.8% against us last night.  This is why I'm saying this win was underwhelming.  Our defense is still pretty porous.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071781



bob


.

[BingBang!]

Maybe Tatum and Brown are sucking on purpose to try not to be the young rising star that goes along with the picks and the salary match to NO for AD. Or maybe they're just second and third year pros, barely over 20 years old, that can't concentrate through an entire 48 minute game. Or.... … … this much I can see is Jaylen in particular is playing windmill defense a lot of the time, which is why I think Brad keeps yanking him. Tatum has a lot of basketball deficiencies he's working on (like defense and passing) but at least he's showing improvement/trying. I seem to remember him disappearing in the second half last year as well. Jaylen has show nice progress offensively so it must be the defensive end that's limiting his minutes.

[mrkleen09]

I'll Take It.

[sinus007]

Hi,
Yes, our defense was like Swiss cheese at times.
OTOH, I've got an impression that both teams didn't try to leave their hearts on the floor. They just put check marks in appropriate boxes - next.
Speaking of which. For all intents and purposes, the next game will be a dress rehearsal for the playoffs. Let's see who does what. 7pm EST on NBATV.

AK

[dboss]

The Cavs suck but so what we won and that is all that matters.

The Celtics shot the ball well and rebounded well their defense however is still not getting enough stops.

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