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Round 1 Game 2 | Cavs vs Pacers | April 18, 2018 | 6:00 EST

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You're not gonna get it. So stop expecting it. He's not a 2nd option player. It's like expecting Jeff Green to be a solid starter at the 4 in the playoffs. That's not who he is.

You guys are setting yourselves up for disappointment that Kevin Love isn't as good as you want him to be. He's a 3rd option.

100% bingo. Also lets make this clear love is a GREAT 3rd option, and he can fill in occasionally as a 2nd option. But in an Era when you need 3-4 all stars to have any chance at winning a championship the cavs need more. Also this is one of the reasons Im so against trading love. i think the cavs with the draft pick and other pieces can pick up a 2nd option that will fit in perfectly (Beal). The big issue is that if you trade Love for a 2nd option you are just opening a huge hole of a 3rd option, and there aint no one on this team that is looking capable enough to fill that
 
Need to do SOMETHING about guarding Turner and keeping them from scoring in the paint.

Why not play the only 7-footer we have?

He’s listed at 6’11. Maybe if he was actually 7’ Lue could see him.
 
People complaining about Love should take a look at what Paul George did tonight so they can see what a real #2 looks like. :chuckle:

6-18, 19 points, 3 turnovers, 2-4 FTs, 10 rebounds, 43 minutes. Basically on par with what Love did tonight but with higher usage.
 
That opening quarter dominance by James was boner-worthy, the next 3 quarters? Typical Cleveland Cavaliers.

Glad a missed defensive assignment didn't cost them this game, much to still improve on...let's go steal home court back.
 
Going to Be a Lonnnggg series this! a tough series , it will take a lot out of us going forward! :ambivalence:
 
So Lebron agreed to answer the question about Pops wife before the interview.
 
Going to Be a Lonnnggg series this! a tough series , it will take a lot out of us going forward! :ambivalence:
Or...it will prepare us for opponents who will play us just as tough. I'm glad we're getting hit in the mouth early in the playoffs. It's good for the young guys.
 
Even if he found out seconds before and agreed, it still comes off like an easy ambush for “production purposes,” as LeBron’s opinion on anything gets a ton of play. The EJ TNT bit was certainly damage control but hopefully this backlash is a reminder that human decency shouldn’t be sacrificed for clicks and views to the entire sports media.
 
You're not gonna get it. So stop expecting it. He's not a 2nd option player. It's like expecting Jeff Green to be a solid starter at the 4 in the playoffs. That's not who he is.

You guys are setting yourselves up for disappointment that Kevin Love isn't as good as you want him to be. He's a 3rd option.

So Love at one point in Minnesota was one of the best 1st options players in the league, and now he can't even be a 2nd option on a team with Lebron?
 
Cavs have LeBron but the Pacers have the better team
Gregg Doyel, gregg.doyel@indystar.com Published 11:22 p.m. ET April 18, 2018 | Updated 8:36 a.m. ET April 19, 2018

CLEVELAND – They had no chance. Not the Indiana Pacers. Not on this night. Not with Cleveland’s LeBron James starting Game 2 on a rampage, attacking everyone and shooting everything and making them all. Indiana was the deer. LeBron was the headlights.

And yet …

Somehow, someway, they almost won. They did have a chance. Yes, even on this night, even with LeBron James nominating himself for MVP and perhaps even for four more mythical letters: G.O.A.T. LeBron had a start for the ages, scoring the game’s first 16 points as the Cleveland Cavaliers took a 16-1 lead – slow down and read that again – but the Cavaliers are a one-man team, and the Pacers are so much more than that, and that’s the takeaway from Cleveland’s 100-97 victory Wednesday night in Game 2 of their 2018 NBA playoff series.

LeBron James, without question the greatest physical talent to ever play this game, revealed himself in all his glory. It happened in front of a rabid home crowd at Quicken Loans Arena. It happened on a night the referees removed the Pacers’ best player, Victor Oladipo, for all but 62 seconds of the first quarter.

And the Pacers could have won anyway.


This is not a story about the fantasy of a moral victory, but the reality of what we are watching: a series that the Indiana Pacers, not the Cleveland Cavaliers, should win. The Pacers are the better team. LeBron is the best player on the court, on any court today, perhaps on any court that has ever existed, but the Pacers are the better team. The better team tends to win a best-of-seven series.

This Eastern Conference series shifts to Indianapolis for Games 3 and 4 on Friday and Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, where the Pacers were 27-14 this season. They could and maybe even should win two at home, where they already have beaten Cleveland twice in two attempts, for a 3-1 lead that would put all the pressure in the world on the Cavaliers.

But, you know, maybe they don’t win two at home. Hell, maybe they don’t win one. You saw what happened Wednesday night. If LeBron explodes like that again, well, it’s hard for the Pacers to win when their initial instinct is to duck for cover.


“We just didn’t keep our poise out there,” Pacers coach Nate McMillan said. “I thought we really didn’t establish ourselves.”

LeBron did. After going the first 10½ minutes before taking his first shot in Game 1, James took the Cavs’ first shot of Game 2. And their second. And third. He took their first six shots, and made them all, and after Kevin Love missed, LeBron took the next one, a 3-pointer. And made it.

The score was 16-1, and the Pacers on the other end were crumbling under the sheer weight of LeBron’s greatness. With every basket he made, a loud and angry crowd – stoked into a fury by some “Cleveland against the world” nonsense played on the scoreboard before tipoff – was sounding louder, angrier. And the Pacers were playing scared, looking for somewhere to hide, not helped at all by two player-control fouls on Victor Oladipo in the first 62 seconds.

“He can help us on the floor,” McMillan said of Oladipo. “Not sitting over there next to me.”

Several players on the Cavs bench reacted to Oladipo’s second foul – he bumped into LeBron on the defensive end and might actually have fouled him, but the searing memory of the play is the 275-pound James flopping theatrically against the 210-pound Oladipo – by jumping to their feet and raising two fingers to celebrate.

Imagine that. Defending Eastern Conference champions, two years removed from the 2016 NBA championship, and employers of the world’s greatest player already off to a 3-for-3 start from the floor … and they’re thrilled that Oladipo has two fouls. Because maybe the Cavaliers know what I’m trying to tell you:

All things being equal, the Pacers are better.

All things were not equal on Wednesday night. First, LeBron. He does play for Cleveland, he is on their roster, and he did play a historically rare game: 46 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, on 70.3 percent shooting from the floor (17-for-24). Before LeBron did it Wednesday night, just one player in NBA history had reached those four metrics in a playoff game: Elvin Hayes (46 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists; 73.1 percent from the floor) in 1975. Including the regular season, just six players have done it, period, a list that includes Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.

Second, the officials. They did their best to even things up – they fouled out Cavs guard George Hill in 20 minutes, and most of those fouls were, say, interesting – but calling those two fast fouls on Oladipo created a vacuum that LeBron filled with 16 consecutive points.

That’s what it took for Cleveland, big bad Cleveland, to beat the Pacers by three whole points.

The mood in the Pacers locker room afterward was calm, relaxed, as close to upbeat as you’re going to see in an NBA locker room after a playoff loss. The Pacers weren’t happy with this loss, don’t read that into what I just wrote, but they know what had just happened: They had just proved, in Game 2, that their Game 1 victory was no fluke.

“Obviously we’re upset about the loss,” Oladipo said, looking not upset at all. “We felt as though we had a chance to tie it, had a chance to win, and we feel confident going home.”

They should feel confident. LeBron himself was equal parts praising – “They’re a really, really good team,” he said of the Pacers – and petulant. Asked what the Pacers’ near-comeback from a 16-1 deficit said about their resiliency, LeBron answered:

“Um, they’re resilient?”


Thanks, King. He probably knows what his bench knew, and what I know, and what I’m thinking Pacers fans are starting to believe: LeBron is the Cavaliers’ only chance. He’s always been their best player – he’s been the best player on every team he’s ever played on – but he hasn’t had a supporting cast this bad since his first go-around in Cleveland, which is why he left for Miami in 2010:

He was tired of carrying so much dead weight.

LeBron lugged that dead weight to the finish line Wednesday night, but just barely. After scoring the Cavs’ first 16 points, he scored 11 of their final 18. In between he tried to let his teammates pull their own weight, but Kevin Love is a whining baby who wants a foul every time he misses a shot, which is often, and J.R. Smith is a hot-or-cold head case, and almost everyone else on the team is just another guy. If Kyle Korver is hot, he’s wonderful. But he’d better be, because he can’t defend anybody.

Yes indeed, LeBron was the difference on this night, and only LeBron. Cleveland wasn’t better than Indiana. LeBron was better. He scored 46 of Cleveland’s 100 points, grabbed 12 of their 30 rebounds, shot 13 of their 22 free throws. He was 17-for-24 from the floor, as I was saying, but the rest of the Cavaliers – even with so much defensive attention on LeBron – were a combined 20-for-49 (40.8 percent).

The Pacers shot 52.6 percent from the floor. They had more rebounds than Cleveland (36 to 30). More assists (22 to 15). But Cleveland had LeBron, and Cleveland attempted 10 more free throws (22 to 12), and Cleveland won this game by three.

But after two games in Cleveland, the home-court advantage isn’t the only thing that belongs to Indiana.

So does the better team.
 
Cavs have LeBron but the Pacers have the better team
Gregg Doyel, gregg.doyel@indystar.com Published 11:22 p.m. ET April 18, 2018 | Updated 8:36 a.m. ET April 19, 2018

CLEVELAND – They had no chance. Not the Indiana Pacers. Not on this night. Not with Cleveland’s LeBron James starting Game 2 on a rampage, attacking everyone and shooting everything and making them all. Indiana was the deer. LeBron was the headlights.

And yet …

Somehow, someway, they almost won. They did have a chance. Yes, even on this night, even with LeBron James nominating himself for MVP and perhaps even for four more mythical letters: G.O.A.T. LeBron had a start for the ages, scoring the game’s first 16 points as the Cleveland Cavaliers took a 16-1 lead – slow down and read that again – but the Cavaliers are a one-man team, and the Pacers are so much more than that, and that’s the takeaway from Cleveland’s 100-97 victory Wednesday night in Game 2 of their 2018 NBA playoff series.

LeBron James, without question the greatest physical talent to ever play this game, revealed himself in all his glory. It happened in front of a rabid home crowd at Quicken Loans Arena. It happened on a night the referees removed the Pacers’ best player, Victor Oladipo, for all but 62 seconds of the first quarter.

And the Pacers could have won anyway.


This is not a story about the fantasy of a moral victory, but the reality of what we are watching: a series that the Indiana Pacers, not the Cleveland Cavaliers, should win. The Pacers are the better team. LeBron is the best player on the court, on any court today, perhaps on any court that has ever existed, but the Pacers are the better team. The better team tends to win a best-of-seven series.

This Eastern Conference series shifts to Indianapolis for Games 3 and 4 on Friday and Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, where the Pacers were 27-14 this season. They could and maybe even should win two at home, where they already have beaten Cleveland twice in two attempts, for a 3-1 lead that would put all the pressure in the world on the Cavaliers.

But, you know, maybe they don’t win two at home. Hell, maybe they don’t win one. You saw what happened Wednesday night. If LeBron explodes like that again, well, it’s hard for the Pacers to win when their initial instinct is to duck for cover.


“We just didn’t keep our poise out there,” Pacers coach Nate McMillan said. “I thought we really didn’t establish ourselves.”

LeBron did. After going the first 10½ minutes before taking his first shot in Game 1, James took the Cavs’ first shot of Game 2. And their second. And third. He took their first six shots, and made them all, and after Kevin Love missed, LeBron took the next one, a 3-pointer. And made it.

The score was 16-1, and the Pacers on the other end were crumbling under the sheer weight of LeBron’s greatness. With every basket he made, a loud and angry crowd – stoked into a fury by some “Cleveland against the world” nonsense played on the scoreboard before tipoff – was sounding louder, angrier. And the Pacers were playing scared, looking for somewhere to hide, not helped at all by two player-control fouls on Victor Oladipo in the first 62 seconds.

“He can help us on the floor,” McMillan said of Oladipo. “Not sitting over there next to me.”

Several players on the Cavs bench reacted to Oladipo’s second foul – he bumped into LeBron on the defensive end and might actually have fouled him, but the searing memory of the play is the 275-pound James flopping theatrically against the 210-pound Oladipo – by jumping to their feet and raising two fingers to celebrate.

Imagine that. Defending Eastern Conference champions, two years removed from the 2016 NBA championship, and employers of the world’s greatest player already off to a 3-for-3 start from the floor … and they’re thrilled that Oladipo has two fouls. Because maybe the Cavaliers know what I’m trying to tell you:

All things being equal, the Pacers are better.

All things were not equal on Wednesday night. First, LeBron. He does play for Cleveland, he is on their roster, and he did play a historically rare game: 46 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, on 70.3 percent shooting from the floor (17-for-24). Before LeBron did it Wednesday night, just one player in NBA history had reached those four metrics in a playoff game: Elvin Hayes (46 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists; 73.1 percent from the floor) in 1975. Including the regular season, just six players have done it, period, a list that includes Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.

Second, the officials. They did their best to even things up – they fouled out Cavs guard George Hill in 20 minutes, and most of those fouls were, say, interesting – but calling those two fast fouls on Oladipo created a vacuum that LeBron filled with 16 consecutive points.

That’s what it took for Cleveland, big bad Cleveland, to beat the Pacers by three whole points.

The mood in the Pacers locker room afterward was calm, relaxed, as close to upbeat as you’re going to see in an NBA locker room after a playoff loss. The Pacers weren’t happy with this loss, don’t read that into what I just wrote, but they know what had just happened: They had just proved, in Game 2, that their Game 1 victory was no fluke.

“Obviously we’re upset about the loss,” Oladipo said, looking not upset at all. “We felt as though we had a chance to tie it, had a chance to win, and we feel confident going home.”

They should feel confident. LeBron himself was equal parts praising – “They’re a really, really good team,” he said of the Pacers – and petulant. Asked what the Pacers’ near-comeback from a 16-1 deficit said about their resiliency, LeBron answered:

“Um, they’re resilient?”


Thanks, King. He probably knows what his bench knew, and what I know, and what I’m thinking Pacers fans are starting to believe: LeBron is the Cavaliers’ only chance. He’s always been their best player – he’s been the best player on every team he’s ever played on – but he hasn’t had a supporting cast this bad since his first go-around in Cleveland, which is why he left for Miami in 2010:

He was tired of carrying so much dead weight.

LeBron lugged that dead weight to the finish line Wednesday night, but just barely. After scoring the Cavs’ first 16 points, he scored 11 of their final 18. In between he tried to let his teammates pull their own weight, but Kevin Love is a whining baby who wants a foul every time he misses a shot, which is often, and J.R. Smith is a hot-or-cold head case, and almost everyone else on the team is just another guy. If Kyle Korver is hot, he’s wonderful. But he’d better be, because he can’t defend anybody.

Yes indeed, LeBron was the difference on this night, and only LeBron. Cleveland wasn’t better than Indiana. LeBron was better. He scored 46 of Cleveland’s 100 points, grabbed 12 of their 30 rebounds, shot 13 of their 22 free throws. He was 17-for-24 from the floor, as I was saying, but the rest of the Cavaliers – even with so much defensive attention on LeBron – were a combined 20-for-49 (40.8 percent).

The Pacers shot 52.6 percent from the floor. They had more rebounds than Cleveland (36 to 30). More assists (22 to 15). But Cleveland had LeBron, and Cleveland attempted 10 more free throws (22 to 12), and Cleveland won this game by three.

But after two games in Cleveland, the home-court advantage isn’t the only thing that belongs to Indiana.

So does the better team.

I honestly think the Cavs have the better team, but unfortunately, we do not have the better coach.

Cedi and Zizic deserve all of Green's minutes and some of Nance's minutes.
 
I honestly think the Cavs have the better team, but unfortunately, we do not have the better coach.

Cedi and Zizic deserve all of Green's minutes and some of Nance's minutes.

I think Lue makes decent adjustments, and i have said already. He goes to Cedi at some point and then he won't be able to keep him off the floor. Could really use his size, defense, and rebounding. Also, with the way Calderon has looked, you need him bringing the ball up. The 2nd unit is bleeding points again. Makes sense to put Cedi in there as a another ball handler and defender.

Hood can't seem to do anything without being featured or having really consistent minutes. Cedi has shown repeatedly he can come in when he has sat all game and contribute.

I think he should potentially start in the second half to just give some energy. We have seen that be effective to get out to good starts in the beginning of the 3rd.
 
That was/is my opinion.

I was just commenting on the news that came out when it came out.

My preference would be to pick a lineup and stick to it, as popular belief is that players, especially role players, are better when they in comfortable and familiar roles. But clearly the coaches lookecat game one and saw the same things a lot of posters were upset about during and after game one.
This is the playoffs, we can't afford to stick with a lineup that doesn't work just for the sake of comfort-ability. If we stuck with the same lineup from Game 1 we'd be down 0-2 on the way to getting swept.

Even after winning last night, we still need to make adjustments to the rotation if we want to continue winning.
 
Cavs have LeBron but the Pacers have the better team
Gregg Doyel, gregg.doyel@indystar.com Published 11:22 p.m. ET April 18, 2018 | Updated 8:36 a.m. ET April 19, 2018

Second, the officials. They did their best to even things up – they fouled out Cavs guard George Hill in 20 minutes, and most of those fouls were, say, interesting – but calling those two fast fouls on Oladipo created a vacuum that LeBron filled with 16 consecutive points.

even the fucking pacers own reporter realized how 1 sided the refs were yesterday. If that game was at all called fairly the cavs would have won by 15.
 

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