Cavs Vs Hawks: 4 Things We Learned

The Cleveland Cavaliers continued their dominance over the Atlanta Hawks with a 109-97. The Cavs controlled every aspect of the game while playing without Timofey Mozgov and Mo Williams, while still missing Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert.

The shorthanded Cavs benefited from a complete team effort on Saturday night. Cleveland started off fast in the first quarter and sustained it throughout the rest of the half. The Hawks fought back, but they weren’t able to cut the deficit to single digits in the second half.

The Cavaliers defense looked good for much of the game and held Atlanta to only 37% shooting. Cleveland also dominated the paint on both ends and outrebounded Atlanta 51 to 39.

Here’s what we learned from Cavs Vs Hawks:

Tristan Thompson continues to dominate Atlanta.

Thompson made a name for himself in the Cavs’ playoff run last season by transforming from a role player to an $82 million power forward. Thompson’s relentless work on the glass in the Eastern Conference Finals was a big reason why the Cavs swept the Hawks last year.

Thompson picked up right where he left off last summer against Atlanta. He pulled down 16 rebounds including 6 on the offensive end. Thompson was forced into the starting lineup with Mozgov out with a shoulder injury. He also did an excellent job of helping the Cavs control the paint on both ends of the floor.

Thompson’s 9 points and 16 rebounds in over 40 minutes of play doesn’t exactly jump off the stat sheet, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a dominate game. Thompson’s greatest contributions to the team don’t necessarily show up on stat sheet, they show up in the final score.

He dealt with a lot of criticism over the summer for his contract holdout, and rightly so, but it’s evident why Cleveland gave in to his wishes after watching his performance on Saturday night.

You can’t play with only 4 guys.

LeBron James tried to quickly sub himself out of the game after a turnover halfway through the third quarter. The only problem is he didn’t get the substitution off until after the Hawks had inbounded the ball. Cleveland was left playing four on five with LeBron sitting on the bench and was quickly assessed a technical foul for it.

While we know you aren’t allowed to play with more than five guys on the floor, we may not of all known you weren’t allowed to play with just four players if you wanted to. But then again how many times have we seen teams try to play with only four players?

Matthew Dellavedova can be a plus 27.

Dellavedova has done an excellent job starting for the injured Mo Williams for the second straight game. On Thursday Delly put on a passing clinic while racking up a career high 13 assists. While he didn’t have 13 assists on Saturday night, he did lead the team in plus/minus by being a plus 27.

While many basketball experts will argue whether plus/minus really matters, there’s no denying that being a plus 27 is impressive. To put that in perspective, the next closes Cav was James with a plus 17. Let’s just put it this way, good things happened for the Cavs when Delly was on the floor Saturday night. That’s essentially all you need to know.

Kevin Love continues to be the focal point of the offense.

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Watching Kevin Love adapt to this offense has been a breath of fresh air. The Cavs increased ball movement and emphasis on feeding Love the ball has worked wonders for the team. Once again Love led the team in scoring with 25 points. He even showed that he could do more than throw long outlet passes, he can be recipients of them as well. Love threw down a fast break dunk off of an impressive outlet pass from LeBron in the second half.

It will be interesting to see if the Cavs can keep love the focal point of the offense when Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert come back to the lineup. Cleveland has benefited from running the offense through Love thus far this season. We’ll see if that’s the formula the Cavs stick with for the remainder of the year.

Cleveland will look to continue their dominance at home when they host the Orlando Magic on Monday night.

What did you learn from Cavs Vs Hawks?