Cavs Vs Nets: 3 Things We Learned

The Cleveland Cavaliers were able to successfully bounce back from their 34-point loss to the Golden State Warriors with a dominant 91-78 win over the helpless Brooklyn Nets.

The Cavs promised they would get back on track and they did, manhandling the Nets on Wednesday Night in Brooklyn.

The final score of this one doesn’t scream commanding victory, as a 13-point win against Brooklyn could be considered quite pedestrian this season. Although, Cleveland needed a win, any kind of win, to wash out the bad taste they had in their mouths from the drubbing they received from the Warriors the other night.

The Cavaliers defeated the Nets by using a fairly simple, yet effective, formula. Move the ball, play solid defense and lean on a balanced offensive attack.

Kevin Love was the highlight on the night, as he doubled-up for the 19^th time this season with 17 points and 18 rebounds, an encouraging sign after Love’s disastrous night against Golden State. LeBron James put on his own personal dunk contest and finished with 17 points and five rebounds.

Two other Cavaliers scored in double-digits on the night, as Timofey Mozgov put up 11 points in 20 minutes and Tristan Thompson led the bench crew with 14 points in 27 minutes.

Brooklyn struggled to get into any kind of rhythm on the offensive end all night long. Brook Lopez, a great talent stuck on a horrible team, led the Nets with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Former Cavaliers Donald Sloan finished with 12 points and Wayne Ellington put up three points. Sergey Karasev didn’t score in six minutes off the bench.

Here are three things we learned from the Cavs win.

This Is Real Love

After his stinker against Golden State (I’m sorry, I’ll try and stop mentioning that game), Love said some Cavs had to look in the mirror.

Love’s hotel room in Brooklyn must have had some pretty good mirrors.

As aforementioned, Love was back to being a monster on Wednesday Night, as he was hitting shots, cleaning up the boards and looked a lot more involved in the ballgame. The 17 points and 18 rebounds are extremely impressive but the most important and encouraging numbers from Love was his 5-of-10 shooting from the floor. Love had not shot 50 percent or better in his last 10 games, so finally seeing the ball go through the hoop on a consistent basis was a welcome sign.

“Guys put me in good spots to have success, shot the ball with confidence tonight.” Love told Fox Sports Ohio’s Allie Clifton after the game, via cavs.com. “Got a little bit more arc on the shot, got to the free throw line. It was a few things but we’re just happy to get the win tonight.”

Love was locked in from the opening tip, as he was aggressive early and often, instead of just waiting around the perimeter. Love was getting to the spots where he wanted the ball and once he got the ball, he wasn’t hesitant and attacked the basket or took the shot with confidence.

Unknown for his high-flying exploits, Love was even able to get up for an impressive alley-opp connection with James.

Love is crucial to the Cavs championship aspirations. If he is playing like he did against the Warriors, where he was literally a non-factor, Cleveland will not win the championship. The former UCLA standout needs to be involved, aggressive and engaged in the ballgame and he was all of those things against Brooklyn and the results showed.

Getting Defensive

After allowing Golden State to put up 132 points against them, while shooting 54.1% from the field, the Cavs needed to get back to their defensive principles against the Nets.

The NBA’s fifth best defense was back at their very best at the Barclays Center, holding the Nets to just 78 points and 41.7% from the field. At the end of the third quarter, before both teams cleared out the benches, the Cavs main rotations guys held Brooklyn to an ugly 37.9%, as the Nets just had 55 points heading into the fourth quarter.

The poor shooting numbers are great to see, especially for a Cavalier team who use opponent field goal percentage as a barometer for their defense, but for a Cleveland team which possess the amount of offensive weapons as this one does, when they can turn defense into offense, it makes them simply unstoppable.

This is exactly what happened against the Nets, as the Cavs were active, communicating and quick on getting into the passing lanes and tipping balls but more importantly, they got out and ran after they forced those turnovers. Brooklyn turned it over 12 times, which is actually a fairly solid number, but Cleveland had 16 fast break points, as they were able to get out and run after forcing turnovers.

When asked about his early game dunks, James said, via cavs.com, “It was a by-product of our defense and us just being aggressive defensively. Getting into the passing lanes and then pushing the tempo offensively. It allowed me to get out in transition and get some easy baskets.”

Cleveland are one of the slowest paced teams in the NBA but if they can run more consistently after forcing turnovers, it will make them even harder to defeat.

Ball Is Moving

The stat sheet will read that Cleveland had just 15 assists on 36 made baskets but don’t be fooled. The isolation play (which I wrote about here) that has plagued the Cavaliers was nowhere to be found in Brooklyn and it led to a much more balanced offensive attack.

Fox Sports Ohio analyst Austin Carr was making the point during the game that the key to being a successful isolation team is for the other players to move off the ball. We saw that plenty of times against the Nets, as just one simple Matthew Dellavedova cut into the paint can cause the defense to collapse and open up an easy driving lane for James.

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Of course, this player movement yields ball movement, which makes the Cavs a much harder team to defend. It is easy to defend a team who gives the ball to one player and the other four players just stand around and watch. But when the offensive weapons that the Cavs possess are moving, cutting, passing, it creates energy on offense and gives the defense headaches.

“I think what’s conscious about us is we want to move the ball from side to side.” James explained via cavs.com. “Whoever is the recipient of the shot, we want them to take it. We had the ball moving from side to side unlike the other day and it helped us spread the wealth offensively.”

Cleveland have had some games where they share the ball excellently and some others were they fall back into their isolation ways. If they wish to be taken as legitimate title contenders, they much move the ball in every signal game, no matter what the circumstances.