Cleveland Cavaliers: Kyle Korver May Be A Starter Down The Line

The Cleveland Cavaliers may soon insert Kyle Korver into the starting lineup.

When J.R. Smith went out with a broken right thumb, the Cleveland Cavaliers responded by inserting NBA journeyman DeAndre Liggins in the starting lineup. This move had seemed to work well for the Cleveland Cavaliers, as they’d went 8-2 since Smith’s injury with Liggins as the starter.

They just lost two straight, back-to-back, against the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers. That wasn’t due to Liggins either. Well, not the Portland game as he held Damian Lillard to 1-of-7 shooting in the first half (including 1-of-2 from three-point range). He also had a steal and a block against Lillard in the first half as well. Lillard was 0-for-2 from the field in the second half when Liggins was on the court (0-for-1 from three-point range).

Add all that up. In a game in which Lillard, who averages 26.1 points per game on 44.8 percent shooting from the field, finished 5-of-15 from the field (1-of-4 from three-point range), he only made 1-of-9 field goal attempts against Lillard and 1-of-3 from three-point range. Against any other player, Lillard was 4-of-6 from the field, and missing his only other three-point attempt, Lillard was 4-of-5 from two-point range.

For his part, Liggins played well defensively and was 0-for-4 from three-point range.

Iman Shumpert, who was the other player matched up against Lillard and was letting him score efficiently, went 0-for-1 from three-point range. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, right? Well, Shumpert is now a 36.7 percent shooter for the season, a figure that’s taken a significant hit as he was making 41.0 percent of his three-point attempts before Smith’s injury.

He’s now 8-of-31 (25.8 percent) from three-point range since Smith’s injury (December 23rd) and 2-of-18 (11.1 percent) since December 31st.

Essentially, that’s the problem for the Cavs. They either have a player who can defend well but won’t shoot it consistently, or a player that won’t shoot it consistently.

Liggins, whose three-point percent has suffered since the Cavs haven’t had time to practice, is the easiest scapegoat for the Cavs to find because he has the least solidified reputation and despite his stellar defense, it’s easy to tell that a player like LeBron James doesn’t trust him to shoot and when Liggins does shoot the three and misses, it’s untimely and either prevents the Cavs from stretching a lead or closing the gap between themselves and another team. Perhaps that’s why, when asked if Kyle Korver would stay in bench role, Tyronn Lue just responded “we’ll see” according to Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.

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We’ll see likely means that Liggins will have the chance to get his shooting rhythm back, a rhythm a lot of Cavs seem to have lost including Shumpert and even Channing Frye, a player whose numbers from three-point range have dropped every month since November. Frye started out sizzling from three-point range in November, shooting 49.2 percent from three-point range. That number dropped down to 42.0 percent in December. It’s down to 40.7 percent a third of the way through January.

Korver, who isn’t a great individual defender because of a lack of athletic ability, is a great team defender because he’s a 14-year veteran who has seen all of the defensive coverages, knows all of the nuances of team defense and is, in general, an intelligent player who also has a fair bit of size at 6-foot-7. Last night against the Portland Trail Blazers, Korver did decently sticking to his assignment but Lue, whose team’s defense is on par with the top defense in the league with Liggins in the starting lineup, has a decision to make.

Does he want to make Kyrie Irving‘s job harder by having him matched up against high-scoring point guards all game while simultaneously trying to attack on offense? Or, does Lue want to hope for the best with Liggins’ shot-making and risk the Cavs not performing at the offensive level they had been when Smith was a starter.

One important note on the team’s three-point performances as of late, pointed out by Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal, is this:

"“They set an NBA record by making at least 10 3-pointers in each of their first 16 games, yet they haven’t gotten to double figures in five of their last six. Since Jan. 1, a span of six games, only the Philadelphia 76ers are shooting a worse percentage from 3 (27 percent) than the Cavs (30.4).”"

In the same piece, Lloyd went on to say, “some of that is simply missed shots, but some of it is a lack of ball movement.”

As far as ball-movement is concerned, James and Irving are noticeably less interested in passing as of late. James is only averaging 5.6 assists per game this month after starting the season averaging 10.0 assists per game in October and 9.3 assists per game in November. James was even averaging 7.9 assists per game in December. Part of that is James own missed opportunities to pass to open shooters such as Liggins (and possibly affecting their confidence since James literal passes to everybody) and part of that is the Cavs hitting a shooting funk.

Like Lue asked after their loss to the Trail Blazers, how many assists can you realistically have if you’re not shooting well? That’s why Irving, who is averaging 4.0 assists per game in January after averaging 7.8 assists per game in December, isn’t as much of a culprit in all of this. While he feels he should have been more decisive after the game, Irving has consistently tried to hit open shooters and cutters, no matter what their name is.

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Yet, players do have names and those names give players their reputations for better or for worse. James, the team’s best playmaker, sees Liggins’ name and sees a defensive ace but not a knockdown shooter. He sees Korver’s name and sees a knockdown shooter and a veteran that knows how to play team defense.

That shouldn’t be cause for Korver to start and for the team to make a crazy decision. Once Korver is in the starting lineup, opposing backcourts will target the teams perimeter and not only attack the duo of Irving and Korver without relent but will make Thompson’s job as a rim-protector harder in the process.

At one point in time, the Cavs were baiting defenses to attack the rim because Irving’s defense was substandard and Smith’s knee injury was preventing him from closing the gap between him and opposing shooting guards. By allowing the players to attack the rim, Irving could jump out to shooters and contest threes while Thompson tried to protect the paint.

The only problem is that Thompson, though improved, isn’t an elite shot-blocker and even if he was he couldn’t have stopped guards from attacking the mid-range. Irving can’t stop a player in the midrange area if he’s supposed to let them go past them. His back will be turned. If the point guard chose to take it all the way to the rim, he could draw the foul. If Irving backed off of the point guard, they could shoot the open three.

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Needless to say, opposing point guards were able having a field day against the Cavs before Liggins was inserted into the starting lineup.

With Korver in the starting lineup, the Cavs are once again putting their offense over their defense. Yet, for a team with three big-time offensive talents in the starting lineup, points shouldn’t be hard to come by, even with the seeming lack of offensive balance in the starting unit.

Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson are a unique pair in the frontcourt as an outside-inside duo that can get the team second chance points and easy baskets in transition. Irving, James and Liggins have to work together as a frontcourt unit. Ideally, Irving would take an increased amount of spot-up threes while James, and Liggins in particular, attacked the basket more in an effort to collapse the paint and open up space for shooters but also to get himself going as well.

Simply put, the Cavs could just stand to be more creative in their offensive action by using Liggins more on cuts and drives out of pick-and-roll sets and Irving more as a spot-up shooter. When a player like Korver checks in, the Cavs can simply switch those players roles. It’s not going to be perfect but there’s no perfect team in the NBA, not even the Kevin Durant-led Golden State Warriors.

Should the Cleveland Cavaliers make Kyle Korver a starter? Let us know in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.

Cleveland Cavaliers: Kyle Korver Could Eventually Start According To Ty Lue, Should He?

By Quenton S. Albertie | Jan 12, 2017

The Cleveland Cavaliers may soon insert Kyle Korver into the starting lineup.

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