Cavs Roller-Coaster Season Just Beginning

Despite the ridiculous 70 win predictions and the numerous experts penciling in the Cavs winning the championship before the season began, the Cleveland Cavaliers knew this was going to be a long process.

No roster, no matter how much talent it possess, is put together over one summer and is instantly the team to beat. While that team may become the leagues most talked about, it doesn’t earn the right to become the best team in the league right away.

This is what happened with Cleveland coming into the season, as almost everyone had the Cavs finishing the season with the best record in the league and many experts were making it out that it would be easy for the Cavs to win the championship.

Those ‘experts’ couldn’t be further from the truth and the Cavs knew it.

At the teams Media Day, where over 300 media members from across the globe packed into the Cleveland Clinic Courts, LeBron James knew this would be a process, “Everyone wants to see the end result, and they don’t quite understand what goes on from the start to finish. We can’t try to play November and get to June or May right now.”

While many fans didn’t want to believe James’ words at the Media Day, he is right and it’s starting to show now.

The Cavs currently posses a 13-9 record, something not many predicated at this stage of the season. Cleveland has suffered defeats to bottom-feeders such as the New York Knicks and the Utah Jazz but yet have two impressive victories over the East-leading Toronto Raptors, while also having knocked off the likes of the Chicago Bulls, Washington Wizards and the Atlanta Hawks. This season was always going to have road bumps and the Cavs have experienced some already, as evident by some poor stretches of play, a 5-7 start and a 4-game losing streak, which included an embarrassing 18 point home loss to the Raptors, in which James called the Cavaliers “fragile” after the game. Heck, the Cavaliers are currently in a two-game losing streak and while that may not seem like much (it isn’t), everything this team does will be magnified by a million.

Let’s forget about the win-loss record for a second though and just focus on how the Cavs have actually played so far this season, on offense and defense.

Offense

With a trio of James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, the Cavs were destined for offensive greatness and have shown glimpses of just how good this team can be offensively. When the offense is hitting on all cylinders, this team is incredibility hard to guard. The defense can chose between attempting to contain James, who can pretty much do it all, they can choose to leave Irving open, who has shot 45% on catch and shoot attempts this season or the defense can choose to ignore one of the games best forwards in Love. Add in the dimensions of Tristan Thompson crashing the offensive glass and the Cavs seemingly always having a three-point threat on the floor, whether it is Mike Miller, James Jones or Matthew Dellavedova, and the Cavs become unguardable. That is when the offense is working though.

It’s simple: the offense works when the ball is being moved. When the Cavs are playing unselfish basketball and are moving the ball and have player movement off the ball also, they are one of the best offense teams in the league. For the season, the Cavaliers have an offensive rating of 108.1, good for fourth in the league.

If the Cavs could move the ball at all times and play the way Coach David Blatt’s system is meant to be played, that number would probably rise. Unfortunately, the Cavs do revert back to old ways at times.

Despite the immense offensive talent on this team, the Cavs have gone back to their old ways too many times this season. Over the last couple seasons, Cavalier fans have come used to seeing Irving and Dion Waiters dribble the ball for way too long and then being forced to take a bad shot at the end of the shot clock. With this new roster, no one expected that to be a problem but it has been so far. Irving and Waiters aren’t the only two doing this though, as we have seen James go to isolation ball a bit too many times this season. As a leader, James cannot afford to play this type of basketball, as it will make Irving and Waiters think its okay to play like that, even though it’s when Cleveland is at it’s least effective.

The Cavs have the ability of being an elite offense and we have seen flashes of that this season but we have also seen flashes of poor, selfish offensive basketball. The Cavs have too much offensive firepower to not be in at least the top 10 in offensive efficiency, so expect Cleveland to have little problems on offense for the rest of the season.

Defense

Even though the Cavs were expected to have a world-class offense, the defense was always going to be a major issue coming into the season and that statement has been true at times and false at others.

When Cleveland hasn’t put an effort on the defensive end this season, it’s been ugly. Really ugly. When the Cavs don’t come to play on defense, the opposing team basically gets whatever it wants. Especially in the first couple weeks of the season, we saw teams easily get to the rim against Cleveland, getting open shots from seemingly everywhere and Cleveland wouldn’t guard baseline cuts at all. It lead to almost all of Cleveland’s wins being in shootouts, which is something they have the talent to do but it can’t be something they get used to.

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Another major issue this season has been rim protection. Ever since the Cavs traded for Love, everyone knew this would be an issue. On the season, the Cavs have allowed teams to shoot and get to the rim with little to no resistance. Big man have their way around the basket and guards seemingly get to the rim whenever they like. Whether they need to trade for a rim protector, such as Kosta Koufos, or just need to get better defensive effort from their big men around the rim, the Cavs must improve rim protection if they want to win it all this season.

With all that being said though, we have seen some very good stretches of defensive effort from the Cavs, mainly during their recent eight-game winning streak. During that streak, the defensive effort started with a player who’s been criticized heavily during his career for his defense and that’s Irving. Irving has put a concerned effort on stopping his opponent and it’s worked like a charm, as his stopped the likes of Tony Parker and Kyle Lowry already this season. During the aforementioned eight-game winning streak, the Cavs were playing incredible defense, as they were holding teams to low shooting percentages and were forcing turnovers, which led to easy fast-break points. Cleveland has also started switching on pick and rolls, which usually doesn’t work a lot in the NBA but the Cavs have had some success with that strategy so far.

During the last five home games, which have resulted in five wins, Cleveland is holding teams to a 44% shooting percentage from the field and only a 32% three-point field goal percentage. Cleveland was never meant to be a stout defensive unit this season and we have definitely seen how bad they can be on that end. We have also seen how good they can be on defense though and quite frankly, if they want to achieve greatness this season, they must bring energy and intensity on the defensive end every single night.

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Were you prepared for the Cavs roller-coaster season or did you expect it to go much smoother?