Cavs Vs. Nuggets: 5 Things We Learned

The Cleveland Cavaliers won their second game in as many nights with a 93-87 win over the Denver Nuggets.

LeBron James put on a show on his birthday for the Cavs. His dominating 34 point performance led the way to the Caves’ victory. Cleveland was also benefited by solid offensive games from Iman Stumper (16 points) and J.R. Smith (11 points). Here’s what we learned from the road win.

1. Hack-a-Tristan may be a strategy opponents use moving forward.

The Nuggets resorted to intentionally fouling Tristan Thompson and sending him to the line during crunch time. Thompson only made one of the four free throws he took as a result of the intentional fouls.

While the strategy didn’t pay off for Denver because they were down by 11 when they started fouling Thompson, they showed opponents that this is a weakness that can be exploited. I wouldn’t be surprised if opponents do this more often.

2. LeBron can have a monster game while wearing a sleeved jersey.

Not even the sleeves could stop LeBron. This really shouldn’t be a story, but hey, what else do Cavs’ bloggers have to talk about?

3. When Kevin Love‘s offense struggles, so does the Cavs’ half-court offense.

Love has had a rough stretch on the offensive end of the floor, and it continued on Tuesday night. He was only 4 for 16 from the floor and finished with 8 points.

The Cavaliers have emphasized running their half-court offense through Love this whole season, and they have a hard time doing that when he’s shooting as poorly as he is right now. Cleveland shot 44% from the floor which is an acceptable percentage, but most of that had to do with LeBron bailing out the rest of the team on offense. There were many times this game where the offense looked out of rhythm because of Love’s poor shooting.

While Love has struggled on offense, he isn’t letting that effect his defense which isn’t something he could say in the past. Last year he seemed to carry a poor offensive night onto the defensive end of the floor, but he hasn’t done that as much this year. Love still pulled more than his fair share in this win even though he did bad on offense. He had a Tristan Thompson like performance on the boards and came down with 14 rebounds. He also led the team in plus/minus by being a plus 16 on the night. You don’t become a plus 16 by taking possessions off on defense.

Kevin Love is one of the best scoring power forwards in the league, and there is no reason to panic about his poor shooting. However, this is something that should be pointed out. We’ll see if Cleveland continues to try to run the half-court offense through him if his struggles continue.

4. Defense is becoming the Cavaliers’ calling card.

The Cavs’ defense has been improving all year and it looked great again in Denver. The Cavaliers are getting solid defensive play from everyone in their lineup, including Kevin Love and J.R. Smith. Defense has a lot to do with effort and the will to win. It was impressive to see that kind of effort by the team in the fourth game in five nights.

Cleveland held a good offensive team to under 90 points and forced 18 turnovers. The Cavaliers are winning games on the defensive end of the floor and are becoming a dominating defense.

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5. LeBron James wants us to know he has a lot left in the tank.

The talk of LeBron getting older and not being in his prime anymore isn’t going away anytime soon. But James wanted to remind us on his birthday just how dominant of a player he still is.

LeBron finished with a seemingly effortless 34 points on 13 of 24 shooting. Just imagine what kind of night he would’ve had if he wasn’t wearing a sleeved jersey.

The Cavaliers will look to build on their modest two game winning streak when they head home to take on the Orlando Magic on Saturday night.