2023-24 Playoff Series #1 | Game #4 | Cavs @ Magic | April 27, 2024

[The Oi]

End this.

 

[Pierre Pan]

Sure the series is up for grabs with the Cavs holding the home court advantage, but it sure is difficult to feel good about the team right now after back to back historically dismal performances

 

[Pierre Pan]

It drives me crazy when he does this. If he wants to see a big reason we don't push the pace he should look in the mirror. It's no coincidence that our big run of 35-40 3s per game in mid-season came while he was injured.

Same here. Even when we’re down late in games, he’s rolling the ball up the court and we can’t get into any type of offense because there are 12 seconds left in the shot clock. It’s so obvious that we play better when we’re pushing the ball, but he can’t get it through his head for an entire game

 

[Jscc]

Fuck Gobert, he's getting carried dude. Ant man made the superstar leap. Unlike Mitchell. And Towns is emerging as a very good #2. Then you have all the defenders and mix and match players pulling their weight.

JFC. Cavs fans don't deserve Mitchell.

 

[Real Deal]

JFC. Cavs fans don't deserve Mitchell.

Don't even bother sharing Mitchell's playoffs stats as a Cav right now. Nothing super about them. Great 1B player though.

 

[Pierre Pan]

3 Concerns From the Cleveland Cavaliersâ Two-Game Nightmare in Orlando

The Cavaliers moving onto the second round looked like a foregone conclusion when the buzzer sounded after Game 2 on Monday night. Now, there’s serious cause for concern. By Danny Cunningham

clevelandmagazine.com

3 Concerns From the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Two-Game Nightmare in Orlando​

The Cavaliers moving onto the second round looked like a foregone conclusion when the buzzer sounded after Game 2 on Monday night. Now, there’s serious cause for concern. By Danny Cunningham
The Cleveland Cavaliers looked like a team that was ready for the moment in the first two games of this series against the Orlando Magic. Each of the first two games were dominating wins in which defense was the lead story.


That’s what makes the two losses in Orlando all the more surprising and embarrassing. The old saying goes a playoff series doesn’t begin until a road team wins


The loss in Game 3, which set the record for the largest margin of defeat in Cavs postseason history, wasn’t as much of a cause for concern as what happened on Saturday afternoon in a 112-89 loss.

When a team is fighting for its playoff life the way the Magic were in Thursday night’s Game 3, it creates a recipe for a blowout. Desperation cannot be faked in the NBA. The Magic were desperate and the Cavs weren’t. When that’s paired with a hot shooting night for the Magic and a cold one for the Cavs, a blowout is the result. That type of thing happens, and while it is now the largest postseason loss in team history, it replaced a game (April 24, 2008 against Washington) in a similar scenario. The Cavs went on to win that series. In fact, entering this series, each of the three worst postseason losses the Cavs have had came in a series the team ultimately won.

Saturday afternoon was a much different story. it was a game the Cavs led by nine points at halftime, before being outscored 37-10 in the third quarter, and 51-17 in the first 17 minutes of the second half. That’s the type of thing that shouldn’t be happening. If one game needs to be picked as the one to be more concerned over, Game 4 is the obvious answer considering the utter meltdown of the Cavs in the second half.

Embarrassing might not do justice for what happened. Here are three things that went wrong and how they can be fixed for Game 5 in Cleveland.


Bench Minutes

In Games 3 and 4 the reserves for the Cavs scored 18 points while the game’s outcome was still in the balance. Not 18 points per game, 18 points total.

That’s an unacceptable outcome. Swingman Caris LeVert has been good at times, but mostly hasn’t been good enough. Forward Georges Niang has shot the ball poorly across the entire series and isn’t providing the offensive spacing that’s needed. Isaac Okoro has also been a nonfactor offensively in the past two games.

Despite all of this, nothing has changed. The team has opted to stick to the status quo. The rotations haven’t been altered, despite things very clearly not working.

There are times, certainly, where teams can overreact and hastily make adjustments that are ultimately panic moves. In this case, the Cavs may have waited a little too long to make certain adjustments.

Niang, in particular, hasn’t been good on either end in the series. He’s made just five of his 22 attempts from the field and has only knocked down one of his 11 attempts from 3-point range. Replacing his minutes with Marcus Morris Sr. is how the Cavs may adapt in Game 5.

Outside Shooting


In this series, the Cavaliers as a team have struggled mightily from deep. In the four games they’re shooting 26.6% as a team. Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are the only two players to have more than five makes from distance. Mitchell has only made a quarter of his attempts, though.

Orlando, like the New York Knicks last year, is going to pack the paint against Cleveland and force the team to hit shots. The above suggestion of adding Morris Sr. to the rotation in replace of Niang could aid in this area, given that he has been a 40% 3-point shooter in the playoffs over the course of his career.

The other avenue that could be used is deploying 3-point specialist Sam Merrill into the rotation. As the rotation shrunk for the playoffs, Merrill was excluded from it. He’s played just one stint in this series while the outcome of the game still in question and didn’t produce during it. At the time, it was hard to disagree with the quick hook from head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, but now might be the time to go back to it. While the team is going through a cold stretch, keeping a guy on the bench that shot a shade over 40% from 3-point range during this season at a high volume (nearly 12 attempts per 36 minutes) seems silly.

Time to Adjust

After the first two games of this series, it was fair to say that Bickerstaff was pulling all of the right levers for this team. Keeping the rotation tight and ensuring that it was a defense-oriented game made sense against an Orlando team that looked as if it hadn’t been to the playoffs before.

The opposite can be said after the two games in Orlando.

Again, Game 3 felt like one to flush and forget, but coming out of the locker room at halftime in the fashion the Cavs did was rather troubling. The adjustment Orlando made, which was to essentially change point guards, was rather simple, and the Cavs not being able to find a quick counter to that is concerning.

There are times when it certainly makes sense to stay the course. During a long regular season, overreactions are often wrong. In a sample size that will be no longer than seven games, there needs to be a little bit more room to be rash – although finding the line between being rash and panicking is important and difficult. The Cavs haven’t properly done that to this point, and that falls on the coaching staff.

Prediction: The Cavs will win Game 5 at home on Tuesday night, but won’t win Game 6 in Orlando, setting up a winner-take-all Game 7 next weekend at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

 

[Rich]

JFC. Cavs fans don't deserve Mitchell.

Man I don't think Mitchell is the primary issue here but stop with this stuff. Fans "deserving" players is silly. He gets paid like 40 million dollars a year to play a sport. I don't have to do a single thing to "deserve" him. He gets paid a shitload of money to do what he does. And that money is, in some small part, funded by me.

 

[Jscc]

Man I don't think Mitchell is the primary issue here but stop with this stuff. Fans "deserving" players is silly. He gets paid like 40 million dollars a year to play a sport. I don't have to do a single thing to "deserve" him. He gets paid a shitload of money to do what he does. And that money is, in some small part, funded by me.

That's fine, but maybe use some of that same energy on the irrational hate he's getting too. It's getting silly.

 

[inliner311]

Don't even bother sharing Mitchell's playoffs stats as a Cav right now. Nothing super about them. Great 1B player though.

I think Mitchell would thrive in a Jamal Murray role but I think a lot of combo or scoring guards would also. I think in the modern NBA to be put the best situation as a scoring guard, you need to be paired with a big or big wing that can pass at a high level and help run the offense. There just isn't enough of those type players to pair with scoring guards in the league.

 

[Thelastcavsfan]

Koby needs to go with the coach. How can people defend him?

 

[DocSaric]

Y’all arguing which player is underachieving more is rich.

JB is the worst professional coach on any team in any sport in any country on any planet. In a press conference the other day, he actually said adjustments aren’t a thing. He doesn’t know other coaches do it. Imagine being that outmanned from the sideline.

JB is atrocious.

I’m not sure that word is strong enough.

I say good day.

 

[inliner311]

Koby needs to go with the coach. How can people defend him?

I believe at this point he does. I just worried he could be too attach to the guys he drafted and unwilling to make moves with them. Like I still don't understand why they wanted Levert to begin with and even though he has played well at times, he just doesn't seem like someone we need at this point.

 

[LeQuit]

In a press conference the other day, he actually said adjustments aren’t a thing

If you take a look at the bigger picture, Bickerstaff is always acting like he is at least 3-4 times NBA champion and at least 5-6 times COY winner. He is ignorant, self-overconfident person on and off the bench, the way he was kept as coach in Ohio with no improvements in 5 years should tell you he has someone protecting his ass from higher office. Even Lue was fired on his third year being much better coach. Any other team would kick him off after just 2-3 years of such as results.

 

[Futuredome]

Amazing collapse in the second half. It almost smells like a players rebellion

 

[macbdog]

That from the man who more than once was crossing the half court line
one second from a violation .

It really begs the question, then, why he would say 'we need to push it' yet he went so slowly. Maybe it's not his preference to slow it down.