How good was this team?

[2 For The Brew]

I would love to know outside of Chicago (Ball) after the all star break how many times did the projected startling lineup started of the top 10 teams, and I don’t count Ben Simmons he having play all year…..

Someone said at 1 time our projected starters played about 6 games together , that should counts for something, while all the other top teams we’re getting healthy at the right time….

Garland -LeVert - Markk- Mobley - Allen first played together last Friday.

The other problem was our injuries came in bunches at different positions, so we were either short of players in the backcourt or short at 4-5. The 3 was a problem all year unless we played the Big Three.

 

[Derek]

They were 44-38. Point differential says they were a little better than that. Regardless, that’s approximately how good they were.

Unless you’re going to discount the losses when we were short-handed, there’s no sense in discounting the wins we had while others team were.

We were in the hunt for the 6-spot. If we want to stay there, or improve, we’ll need to replace what Rubio gave us in a meaningful way (not Goodwin or Rondo), and add a wing.

 

[cavsfever]

Responding to @Wham with the Right Hand on the initial write up. The Cavs approached the fall games early in the schedule like the playoffs already started. No other team felt the urgency the Cavs put on those early season games.

I totally understand why. Let's go through the list:

1. Bickerstaff had never really won as a coach. He had to feel some heat, especially as assistants like Gottlieb left the group for other roles elsewhere.

2. The Cavs had bad injuries stymie the previous season. Getting the whole young group back together and healthy lit a fire under the players internally. It's gotta be hard to convince players to tone down their competitive edge.

3. Ricky stepped in as a locker room leader, coming off the best stretch of play in his career in the Olympics. He approached each minute on the floor like an elimination game, and the young players fed off of him.

So why did that bite them in the ass? Players can't maintain that intensity for a whole season and stay healthy. Coaches can't ignore wear and tear, because other head coaches are pacing themselves for the long haul.

I'm hopeful the Cavs shift to a more thoughtful pace to the season and learn some tough lessons.

Also known as: Lebron understood something about the regular season

But I think the deeper issue is that we really were good with Rubio but kind of struggled without him. There’s a deep lesson there about how the right kind of additional backcourt player could unlock this team.

 

[inliner311]

I think the triple towers gave us an advantage but I always thought once the league adjusted, we would have a much harder time. JBB just isn't the coach to rebuild a scheme on the fly. Losing Rubio compounded the situation because he might have been the only player on the roster to help bridge the gap to find other functional lineups.

 

[buzzdog]

This team surpassed all expectations and made a huge leap forward. The injuries decimated the Cavs. We are not a deep team. We played the vast majority of the season with truly ONE viable point guard, and even he wasn't available for stretches because of back issues. Nothing against Rondo and Goodwin but they are not NBA starting caliber guards who can facilitate winning basketball on a remotely sustainable basis. They were stopgaps at best, they were 4th and 5th and 6th options. So the burden on Garland was immense and while he rose to the challenge it took a big toll on him especially as we got into the final weeks of the season.

Bickerstaff is inspirational and all that, but he is deficient in many aspects of being a head coach who has all the tools and vision that it would take to overcome the injury issues. Bickerstaff flat out does not know how to run a deep rotation that will keep the top 7 guys fresh and keep the back 3-4 guys ready and integrated. JBB has one trick when things get tough, and that is to shorten the rotation to the bare minimum. That took a toll over the course of the season. I won't even go into the in-game tactical issues with him. But he did do an admirable job of taking this team from the league dregs towards becoming a legit contender so he deserves lots of credit for areas he succeeded in.

Some people think the twin or tri towers concept is a fluke but IMO it's a viable strategy going forward. Even in the final game, when we had all 3 big men you could see Hawks players pulling the ball back out of the paint, they were clearly not going to challenge the paint until we changed out to a smaller lineup. I could see moving forward with this but hopefully with a more athletic SF who still has length, and Lauri being a Finnish Army Knife and the first big coming off the bench.

If we were fully healthy we had the talent to definitely be seeded in the playoffs, and to potentially win a first round series and compete well in a second round. We would do very well to get back to that and achieve it next year. I expect to see some pretty significant changes and I trust the front office, I don't trust the head coach, but if he has enough talent they can win in spite of him.

 

[Kizzle]

How good were the Cavs this year, really?

They won 44 games, but it seemed like some of their wins against the strongest opponents were “tainted” due to those teams’ top players being out with injuries or COVID. So I decided to take a look. Here are 13 wins against quality opponents that I consider to be “suspect”.

Nov. 5 Toronto 102-101. No Pascal Siakam, who averaged 22.8 point and 8.5 rebounds

Nov. 13 Boston 91-89. No Jaylen Brown, 26.9 ppg

Dec. 1 Miami 111-85. No Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo, their two best players

Dec. 8 Chicago 115-92. No DeMar DeRozan or Coby White

Dec. 13 Miami 105-94. Still no Butler or Adebayo

Dec. 18 Milwaukee 119-90. No Giannis, Middleton, Holiday, or Portis

Dec. 26 Toronto 144-99. The entire starting lineup was out with COVID

Jan. 12 Utah 111-91. No Rudy Gobert, Rudy Gay, or Hassan Whiteside (both centers were out)

Jan. 17 Brooklyn 114-107. No Kevin Durant

Jan. 31 New Orleans 93-90. No Brandon Ingraham (22.7 ppg)

Feb. 26 Washington 92-86. No Bradley Beal (23.2 ppg)

Mar. 14 L.A. Clippers 120-111. No Paul George, Reggie Jackson or Marcus Morris

Apr. 10 Milwaukee 133-115. Last game of the season and the Bucks rested all their starters.

So about 30% of the Cavs’ wins were influenced by the opponents’ best player or several top players being out. You can argue the Cavs might have won some of those games anyway. For example, they beat the Bulls by 23 points and may have still won if DeRozan played. But the Cavs seemed unusually lucky this year in catching teams without their top players.

It’s very likely the reverse is true; the Cavs lost some games they would have won if they weren’t missing some combination of Garland, Allen, Mobley, or Markkanen. Not to mention they lost Sexton for 71 games and Ricky Rubio, who was second behind Garland in net on/off, was lost for the last 3.5 months.

I might have to do this again only looking at "tainted" losses this time. There are probably more than 13. But there were some wins against quality opponents that were not “tainted” which show what the Cavs are capable of when fully or mostly healthy:

Oct. 25 @ Denver 99-87. Sexton and Garland started, Love had 22 points in 25 minutes off the bench. Tremendous defensive game against a very good team.

Nov. 1 @ Charlotte 113-110. Sexton started, Rubio was a +23 in 21 minutes.

Nov. 29 @ Dallas 114-96. Post-Sexton injury. Rubio was a +30 off the bench.

Dec. 10 @ Minnesota 123-106. No D’Angelo Russell but I don’t think he’s a great player and the Cavs won by 17 so I didn't put it in the "tainted" category.

Jan. 26 Milwaukee 115-99. Markkanen was out but the Cavs won convincingly against the Bucks’ full roster from their Championship team.

Mar. 18 Denver 119-111 OT. No Jarrett Allen but the Cavs prevailed in OT. Markkanen had 31, Mobley 27, and Garland 25.

Those six games are a good indication of what this team was able to do when everybody was healthy. The Jan. 26 win over the Bucks might have been the most impressive win of the season considering the opponent and the margin of victory.

So the Cavs had 13 wins against good teams missing top players, but there were also six wins where the opponent had all their key guys but the Cavs won anyway.

This talking point is void to me because of how insanely injured we were all season.

Look at Garland play he was NEVER 100%. His back was a constant issue all year. One week he’d be gimpy the next he’d be playing 40 mins. Sexton went down and we never found a replacement for that production. Seems like when Allen went down we lost damn near every game. Rubio went down and we never got that production back.


Whole year was a clusterf***. Full disclosure i called the season when Rubio went down. Not because Rubio was a god or something. Only because at that point i knew the offense would totally crumble during the minutes Garland couldn’t play. Rondo was immensely disappointing as i was ready to keep us in it once we got him but i quickly saw Rondo had lost “it”.

 

[Kouki]

Not as good as our record indicated earlier in the season, not as bad as our record indicated later in the season.

 

[weepinwillow]

How good were the Cavs this year, really?

They won 44 games, but it seemed like some of their wins against the strongest opponents were “tainted” due to those teams’ top players being out with injuries or COVID. So I decided to take a look. Here are 13 wins against quality opponents that I consider to be “suspect”.

Nov. 5 Toronto 102-101. No Pascal Siakam, who averaged 22.8 point and 8.5 rebounds

Nov. 13 Boston 91-89. No Jaylen Brown, 26.9 ppg

Dec. 1 Miami 111-85. No Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo, their two best players

Dec. 8 Chicago 115-92. No DeMar DeRozan or Coby White

Dec. 13 Miami 105-94. Still no Butler or Adebayo

Dec. 18 Milwaukee 119-90. No Giannis, Middleton, Holiday, or Portis

Dec. 26 Toronto 144-99. The entire starting lineup was out with COVID

Jan. 12 Utah 111-91. No Rudy Gobert, Rudy Gay, or Hassan Whiteside (both centers were out)

Jan. 17 Brooklyn 114-107. No Kevin Durant

Jan. 31 New Orleans 93-90. No Brandon Ingraham (22.7 ppg)

Feb. 26 Washington 92-86. No Bradley Beal (23.2 ppg)

Mar. 14 L.A. Clippers 120-111. No Paul George, Reggie Jackson or Marcus Morris

Apr. 10 Milwaukee 133-115. Last game of the season and the Bucks rested all their starters.

So about 30% of the Cavs’ wins were influenced by the opponents’ best player or several top players being out. You can argue the Cavs might have won some of those games anyway. For example, they beat the Bulls by 23 points and may have still won if DeRozan played. But the Cavs seemed unusually lucky this year in catching teams without their top players.

It’s very likely the reverse is true; the Cavs lost some games they would have won if they weren’t missing some combination of Garland, Allen, Mobley, or Markkanen. Not to mention they lost Sexton for 71 games and Ricky Rubio, who was second behind Garland in net on/off, was lost for the last 3.5 months.

I might have to do this again only looking at "tainted" losses this time. There are probably more than 13. But there were some wins against quality opponents that were not “tainted” which show what the Cavs are capable of when fully or mostly healthy:

Oct. 25 @ Denver 99-87. Sexton and Garland started, Love had 22 points in 25 minutes off the bench. Tremendous defensive game against a very good team.

Nov. 1 @ Charlotte 113-110. Sexton started, Rubio was a +23 in 21 minutes.

Nov. 29 @ Dallas 114-96. Post-Sexton injury. Rubio was a +30 off the bench.

Dec. 10 @ Minnesota 123-106. No D’Angelo Russell but I don’t think he’s a great player and the Cavs won by 17 so I didn't put it in the "tainted" category.

Jan. 26 Milwaukee 115-99. Markkanen was out but the Cavs won convincingly against the Bucks’ full roster from their Championship team.

Mar. 18 Denver 119-111 OT. No Jarrett Allen but the Cavs prevailed in OT. Markkanen had 31, Mobley 27, and Garland 25.

Those six games are a good indication of what this team was able to do when everybody was healthy. The Jan. 26 win over the Bucks might have been the most impressive win of the season considering the opponent and the margin of victory.

So the Cavs had 13 wins against good teams missing top players, but there were also six wins where the opponent had all their key guys but the Cavs won anyway.

I knew this team was a good team after the Suns loss at home. Even though it was their 5th loss in a row, the Cavs looked like a team who could make the playoffs with a winning record. Not having DG and Caris heading into the games after the ASB and then losing Mobley and Allen late took what air was left out of the sails of making the playoffs. I will grant you that it was a funky season all along, though. #1 seeded Miami had only 53 W's, but you can look at stretches where they had nobody on the roster with an NBA pedigree. That was true for everybody.

I don't expect big changes. Draft pick, a MLE offer out there, maybe they trade Osman and Windler.. it's all going to be a matter of shoring up the depth. Improvement is going to have to happen from guys already on the roster growing and improving and JBB learning how to better manage games.

 

[Cavatt]

I think Rubio was super important, but he wasn't the reason the team was good, he was just able to tease it out. I think he showed what the ceiling could be with this group and it is pretty high.

I really want to see playmaking improvements from Sexton and Mobley most of all, and then Caris, Allen ( who really impressed me with his brand new passing game this year).

They had to abandon offense repeatedly this year because of lack of ball handlers. Running offense through the bigs got sidetracked while Garland was out, and then the pick and roll heavy offense at the end sucked because Allen was out and was our best screener.

To me it felt like a Jenga tower that was doing fine until finally enough of the support pieces like Wade were gone to provide the defensive versatility they needed.

I need JB to stop complaining about the refs tho. He's hurting himself because the refs screw him on a WTF call every game.

 

[-Akronite-]

Regardless of how things shake out in future years, and the disappointment of falling out of the playoffs, this was the most fun I've had during the regular season since 2009 or 2010. This team exceeded expectations in a big way and it was a marvelous feeling to watch them climb for so long, and what a lovable cast of characters!

Garland seems like a sweet kid. Allen is a delightful, well dressed nerd. Mobley the freak of nature rookie with the poise of Tim Duncan. KLove redemption season as the veteran spark off the bench. Lauri bringing Tower City to the NBA. Goodwin's entire arc. And Ricky "Dreamboat" Rubio (RIP)? This team was special, and I do believe the best is yet to come for this group.

Some of my favorite moments:

• 19-0 Cavalanche against the Pacers, culminating in that behind the back dime from Love to Osman
• Okoro dunking on the entire Houston roster
• End of the 1st half against Sacramento where we went Globetrotter on their asses
• The entire Bucks blowout was a joy
• All-Star weekend success
• That clutch, early win against Toronto

 

[Benway]

Some of my favorite moments:

• 19-0 Cavalanche against the Pacers, culminating in that behind the back dime from Love to Osman
• Okoro dunking on the entire Houston roster
• End of the 1st half against Sacramento where we went Globetrotter on their asses
• The entire Bucks blowout was a joy
• All-Star weekend success
• That clutch, early win against Toronto

Tasty, tasty stuff.
As I read each bullet point a shudder runs through me.
Yes, like sex.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

People wonder how the Cavs would have done without the injuries. I went through the season game-by-game and compiled the W-L record based on what key players were available.

Garland/Mobley/Allen: 7-4 (projects to 52.2 wins over 82 games)
Garland/Mobley/Allen/Markkanen 19-10 (projects to 53.7 wins)
Mobley/Mark/Allen: 3-4
Garland/Mobley: 1-2
Garland only: 0-2
Garland/Allen/Mark: 2-2
Garland/Mark: 2-5
Mark/Mobley: 0-2
Mobley/Allen: 4-1
Garland/Mark/Mobley: 6-6

The Cavs' record when missing these players:

Garland 7-7
Allen 9-17
Mobley 4-9
Markkanen 12-9

Bottom line:

When all three of the Cavs' "core" players (Garland, Allen, Mobley) played the Cavs were 26-14, which projects to 53.3 wins. The Heat won the Eastern Conference with 53 wins.

The Cavs were 12-9 without Markkanen in the lineup, a winning percentage of 57%. With him they were 32-29 (52.5%), so it doesn't look like Markkanen contributed much to winning. He did have some impressive games, but they had a better winning percentage with him out of the lineup.

Allen and Mobley were the keys to winning. Without Allen the Cavs were 9-17, which means they were 35-21 with him in the lineup, which projects to 51 wins. With Mobley in the lineup they were 40-29 which projects to 47.5 wins. When they both played the Cavs were 33-19, which projects to 53 wins.

In games where Garland and Markkanen played without Mobley and Allen the team was 2-5.

Obviously this analysis isn't perfect because there were some throwaway games like the two huge wins over Milwaukee, one by 45 points when their whole team was down with COVID and the last game where they sat all their starters. But it does give us a pretty good idea of which players were the keys to winning and that appears to be Allen and Mobley.

I was surprised the Cavs were 7-7 when Garland did not play. I thought it would be worse.

When Rubio played the Cavs were 20-14 which projects to 47 wins, just three more than they actually won.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Just to add, in games where Rubio came off the bench the Cavs were 18-8, which projects to just under 57 wins for a full season.

 

[Cavatt]

People wonder how the Cavs would have done without the injuries. I went through the season game-by-game and compiled the W-L record based on what key players were available.

Garland/Mobley/Allen: 7-4 (projects to 52.2 wins over 82 games)
Garland/Mobley/Allen/Markkanen 19-10 (projects to 53.7 wins)
Mobley/Mark/Allen: 3-4
Garland/Mobley: 1-2
Garland only: 0-2
Garland/Allen/Mark: 2-2
Garland/Mark: 2-5
Mark/Mobley: 0-2
Mobley/Allen: 4-1
Garland/Mark/Mobley: 6-6

The Cavs' record when missing these players:

Garland 7-7
Allen 9-17
Mobley 4-9
Markkanen 12-9

Bottom line:

When all three of the Cavs' "core" players (Garland, Allen, Mobley) played the Cavs were 26-14, which projects to 53.3 wins. The Heat won the Eastern Conference with 53 wins.

The Cavs were 12-9 without Markkanen in the lineup, a winning percentage of 57%. With him they were 32-29 (52.5%), so it doesn't look like Markkanen contributed much to winning. He did have some impressive games, but they had a better winning percentage with him out of the lineup.

Allen and Mobley were the keys to winning. Without Allen the Cavs were 9-17, which means they were 35-21 with him in the lineup, which projects to 51 wins. With Mobley in the lineup they were 40-29 which projects to 47.5 wins. When they both played the Cavs were 33-19, which projects to 53 wins.

In games where Garland and Markkanen played without Mobley and Allen the team was 2-5.

Obviously this analysis isn't perfect because there were some throwaway games like the two huge wins over Milwaukee, one by 45 points when their whole team was down with COVID and the last game where they sat all their starters. But it does give us a pretty good idea of which players were the keys to winning and that appears to be Allen and Mobley.

I was surprised the Cavs were 7-7 when Garland did not play. I thought it would be worse.

When Rubio played the Cavs were 20-14 which projects to 47 wins, just three more than they actually won.

That Markannen stat when they were better without hi had a lot to do with Wade. His defense is underrated by this board. He was our best wing defender

 

[CavsKermit]

With a healthy Rubio, they were a legitimate shooter and a year of experience away from being true contenders IMO. The problem is that I'm not sure the version of Rubio we saw is ever coming back off of an injury like that at his age, we appear no closer to getting a legitimate shooter, there's a pretty good chance we're going to use all our future cap space on two non-shooters, and the best three point shooter on the roster last season was Kevin Love.