Can Cavs Slow Down the Wizards’ Offense?
The Cleveland Cavaliers face off with the Washington Wizards tonight in their second match-up of the year, and the second in a week. The Wizards destroyed the Cavs in Washington, 97 – 78. The game was non-competitive mostly. The Wizards were able to enforce their will on the Cavs all night with good play on both ends of the floor.
Tonight is the rematch of two clubs that are expected to compete for top 4 seeds in the Eastern Conference. The Wizards currently it in the 2nd seed in the East while the Cavs are 3 games back, only 13 games into the season, and are in the 7th seed. The Wizards are excelling defensively, only allowing 96,7 points per game, 3rd in the East, while scoring a respectable 99.5 points.
Live Feed
Sir Charles In Charge
With LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving on the court the Cavs offense should not have problems, as long as they give effort. It has been effort and lack of ball and player movement that has stagnated the Cavs offense. Those are issues that can be fixed. No matter how good a team is defensively the Cavs should generally be able to perform well offensively.
The defensive end is a different discussion. In the first match-up the Wizards took their foot off the peddle and still almost scored 100 points. John Wall led the way with 28 points and 7 assists. The team got balanced scoring everywhere else. Bradley Beal, who was early in his comeback from a wrist injury, and Kevin Seraphin both put up 12 points. Nene Hilario had 10, Paul Pierce had 9 and five other players had at least 4 points.
Can the Cavs defense slow down the potent Wizards’ offense?
The Wiz are led by their backcourt of Wall and Beal but have active, solid big men in Nene and Marcin Gortat that can make the Cavs pay on the interior. Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and Mike Miller, the likely primary backcourt trio for the Cavs, all struggle keeping players in front of them. With Wall penetrating it forces other Cavs to leave their assignments to help. That leaves Beal open for a 3, Pierce open in the midrange or one of the big guys open for a dump off pass and dunk.
More from King James Gospel
- Cavaliers’ Darius Garland should continue to improve in this area
- Top five Cleveland Cavaliers role players of all-time
- 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
- The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
- 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
The Cavs also tend to hard hedge and screens. This pushes the defender of the screener out and causes the rest of the defense to cover for them. The lack of foot speed and length on the Cavs hasn’t allowed this strategy to work. Tonight the Cavs might benefit from dropping the defender under back to the basket, the way the Indiana Pacers often do with Roy Hibbert, when Wall is running the show. Wall is much better going to the hole than as a shooter at this point. Against Beal a hard show could limit the damage he does from beyond the arc.
The Cavs are not without historically skilled defenders. LeBron James, Shawn Marion, Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao have a long history of being above average defenders. Yet the defense is only as good as their weakest link. If the perimeter defender is always getting beat, the wing defender follows the ball and loses his man or the weakside defense is slow in rotating, the defense can look bad very quickly.
It is very earlier in the young season and tonight is just another game. However the Cavs need to start to figure out how to compete with upper echelon teams. The Wizards are one of those teams in the East. The skill is there on the offensive side of the ball. As long as movement and effort stay high there shouldn’t be a problem scoring. Can the Cavs defense slow down the Wizards offense? That will likely decide the game.
What do you think of how the Cavs have played defense so far this season?