Cavs Vs Sixers: 3 Things We Learned
By Luke Sicari
For the fourth time this season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were able to overcome a scrappy Philadelphia 76ers squad to win their seventh consecutive game.
On a weekend where the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks both stole victories, the Cavaliers did the same thing, overcoming a horrible shooting night to defeat the four-win Sixers by a score of 95-85.
This one was ugly no matter how you look at it. The Cavs, who were coming into the game rolling on offense, scoring 120+ points in their previous three outings, struggled to throw a rock into the Schuylkill River on Sunday. Cleveland shot the ball at a 38.9% clip and if it wasn’t for LeBron James, that percentage would have been 29%.
That stat validates how sensational James’ performance was against Philly, as he finished up with 37 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and two steals, all while shooting 15-of-22 from the field. Kevin Love had a monster game also, finishing with 15 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists.
Tristan Thompson also doubled-up with 10 points and 10 rebounds but the rest of the Cavs were fairly ineffective. J.R. Smith, who had hit 18-of-30 threes over the last three contests shot only 4-of-12 from downtown, while his backcourt mate Kyrie Irving was 3-of-15 from the field in what was his worst game since returning from injury.
For the Sixers, rookie Jahlil Okafor led their scoring with 21 points while also pulling down seven rebounds. Ish Smith, who has sparked Philadelphia over the last few weeks, finished the contest with 18 points and 10 assists.
Here are three things we learned from the Cavaliers win.
Raising The Roof- and a jumpshot
The aforementioned James has scraped the ‘dab’ celebration and his more familiar ‘silencer’ celebration for something old-school, the ‘raise the roof’ celebration and it couldn’t have been more appropriate against the Sixers, as LeBron looked and played like a younger version of himself.
James was all over the court in Philadelphia, as he was draining jumpers, hitting tough lay-ups and flying through the air for some powerful jams.
While the jams and dominance near the rim is expected and Philly had no answer to that, something that has been a pleasant occurrence from James is that his finally found his rhythm in his jumpshot.
Against the Sixers, LeBron was 3-of-5 from downtown and 6-of-9 on mid-range jumpers, much better numbers since John Schuhmann of NBA.com pointed out that James was the leagues worst outside shooter. James has stated his adjusted some elements of his jumper and the most noticeable change seems to be his base.
Earlier in the season, James would fade or be off-balance while taking jump shots. Your footwork and base is one of the most vital elements of shooting the basketball and no matter whom you are if that aspect isn’t down pat, the ball probably isn’t falling through the net. Lately though, James has been focusing more on his base, getting himself set and then taking the shot, which has yielded much better results. In fact, since Schuhmann made that stat public, LeBron has a field goal percentage of 58%, 43% from three-point range and is converting at a 74% rate from the foul line.
James admitted after the win against the Sixers that he did take notice of his poor shooting numbers. “I actually saw on my Instagram feed that I was the worst shooting player in the NBA,” James explained via Cavs.com. “I actually saw that when I woke up from a nap before the Denver game. So I answered the call.” When asked if that stat bothered him, James responded, “Na. it puts me back in the gym.”
The Cavs probably didn’t plan for LeBron to play 37 minutes against the 76ers, especially with a tough Texas Triangle coming up this week, where Cleveland will play three games in four nights. He had it going in Philly though and the Cavaliers needed all of his 37 points to escape with the win.
Rock Bottom for Timo
Timofey Mozgov’s struggles have been well documented this season. The Russian, who turned the Cavs defense around last season, has been a shell of himself this season, as he isn’t having the same defensive impact (the Cavs are giving up 4.4 more points per possession with Mozgov on the court this season) and he hasn’t been able to find any offensive rhythm.
Mozgov has had plenty of disappointing moments during the season but he may have hit rock bottom at the end of the first half against the Sixers. With the game and shot clock just seconds separated, Cleveland was holding the ball for the last good shot of the half. Philadelphia smartly doubled James, who was forced to pass the ball to Matthew Dellavedova. Dellavedova then swung the ball to Mozgov who found himself open in the corner with seven-seconds left on the shot clock. Mozgov, for reasons only known to him, launched up the three-point attempt, which airballed. Philly then got out in transition to Okafor, who converted a lay-up over Mozgov.
This was a bonehead play from Mozgov who simply cannot get out of his own way this season. Mozgov would not play another minute of the game, as his struggles have dragged on more then anyone on the Cavaliers expected this season. He had knee surgery during the off-season but according to Mozgov, that is no longer having an affect.
“I’m going in the right direction,” Mozgov said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “I feel perfect. Like best I think since surgery. My knee gets better and I think I’m going in the right direction.”
LeBron, who has tried multiple approaches to help improve Mozgov’s moral throughout the season, admitted sometimes the big-man needs to take matters into his own hand, also per McMenamin. “I’m not sure,” James said. “I’m not sure where he’s mentally. Only he knows that. As a leader of the team, you just give him as much positive energy, give him as much positive notion about what he needs to do for our team. But at the end of the day, like I told you guys last year about Kev [Love], you can give a guy so much but at the end of the day, you got to figure it out yourself too sometimes. I think he’s at that point.”
Rumours were made public this week that the Cavaliers have received calls for Mozgov, per Yahoo Sports. While Cleveland isn’t, and shouldn’t be keen on trading Mozgov, its time for him to seriously step up his game or else he will be spending more time on the bench then he wants to.
Undervalued Stat
While LeBron was sensational, the 25 combined rebounds that Love and Thompson pulled down against the Sixers was the most underrated stat for the Cavs in the win.
Love and Thompson are two of the leagues most furious rebounders and when they combine for double-digit rebounding efforts, the Cavaliers become even more of a handful for opponents to deal with.
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On the night, the Cavs pulled down 51 rebounds, 13 of them coming on the offensive end. Of those 13 offensive rebounds, seven of them were courtesy of Thompson and four from Love.
Cleveland is such an offensive weapon, that when a team forces a stop but then the Cavs grab the offensive rebound and reset the possession, it is simply a killer for the opposition. It eventually beats them mentally and puts a sense of doubt into their mind and this seemed to be the case for the young Sixers. It isn’t just the offensive rebounding though, as defensive rebounding is one of the most underrated stats in basketball. A team could play great defense but if they don’t grab the rebound, they don’t get the stop.
On the season, Cleveland has been one of the best rebounding teams in the NBA. They average 45.1 rebounds per game, seventh in the league but Cleveland is third in the league in rebounding percentage, 52.4%. If the Cavs want to win the championship this season, rebounding will be a major piece to the puzzle.