Despite the loss I'm incredibly encouraged. Despite not having Garland and Mobley and going a stupefying 6-for-43 on 3's the Cavs were in it right until the end and forced the Bucks to play their starters all the way.
Had the Cavs simply gone 10-for-43 on their 3-point attempts, which would have been awful, they win this game. Or if they simply stopped shooting 3's, as I was begging them to do, they would have won. The Bucks were helpless when the Cavs weren't shooting 3's.
On 2-point shots the Cavs were 43-for-60, or 71.7%.
On 3-point shots they made 14%. So why the EFF did they jack up 43 shots from the 3-point line?
Some games everybody has a bad outside shooting night at the same time. Tonight was one of them, but the Cavs foolishly kept shooting from deep.
On top of that, the refs were determined not to let Giannis fail. He got away with blatant traveling and offensive fouls and the refs looked the other way.
On the bright side, Jarrett Allen keeps getting better. His confidence in his offensive game is growing by the day. 30 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assist in 40 minutes with no turnovers! They're running the offense through him much of the time. He had an All-Star performance tonight. All we needed was to make 25% of the 3-point attempts and we beat a 23-8 team with two starters out and the refs against us.
We really needed Mobley because with Allen on Lopez we had either Strus or Okoro on Bobby Portis, and that's a huge height disadvantage. The Bucks were smart to put Lopez and Portis on the floor together, knowing we only had one big man.
I continue to plead for Niang to be benched or traded. He's absolutely useless IMO. Tonight he had six 3-point attempts, all but one of which was uncontested, and he bricked every one. And that's his JOB! That's his only strength - the ability to make open 3's. And he's horrible at it, night after night!
CPJ kept us in it along with Allen and Mitchell. 14 points in 15 minutes plus a rebound, assist, and steal. He was awesome. I found myself thinking that he's better than Garland, although I'm sure that's not the case. But he can be.
The injuries to Garland and Mobley will help the Cavs in the long run because it forced Porter onto the floor where JBB can see what he can do and it freed up Allen to start taking shots. It also allowed Okoro to be more aggressive and that's helping his game.
The Bucks were lucky the Cavs missed so many uncontested 3's. They really should have lost by double digits.
