Cleveland Cavaliers: By the numbers after 25 games
The Cleveland Cavaliers have started off the 2018-19 campaign with a mere 5-20 record, and the numbers aren’t pretty.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have struggled on the offensive end as well on the defensive end. They have missed their best player, Kevin Love, for most of the season and should reportedly get him back sometime after the new year. But looking into the Cavaliers season I found a few interesting statistics.
6.1
That is David Nwaba’s net rating on the season. He is the only qualified Cavalier this season with a positive net rating. When he is on the floor this season for the Cavaliers, they have scored 109.4 points per 100 possessions this season, which is the best on the team among qualified players, according to NBA.com. The Cavaliers’ defense is much improved with Nwaba in the lineup as well with the team giving up 11.9 less points per 100 possessons, per Cleaningtheglass.com.
In his last active game against the Houston Rockets, he did a fantastic job on James Harden. He guarded Harden on 50 possessions and surrendered just 13 of Harden’s 40 points. Harden shot 26.7 percent on fifteen field goal attempts in which Nwaba was the primary defender. Nwaba also forced six of Harden’s eight turnovers in the game.
5.0
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The number of offensive rebounds that Tristan Thompson is pulling down per game this season, second only to the Detroit Pistons’ Andre Drummond. He is rebounding 16.2 percent of the Cavaliers’ missed field goals and the Cavaliers as a team are rebounding 29.7 percent of their missed shots, which is fourth-best in all of basketball, per Cleaningtheglass.com.
The Cavaliers are fifth in basketball in put back points per 100 misses. Which is a huge boon for the Cavaliers due to their lack of half court scoring, ranking in the bottom three of the NBA.
(*Other than the 5.0 offensive boards, those stats exclude the Cavs’ last game against the Sacramento Kings).
97.28
The Cavaliers’ current pace this season. The Cavaliers are playing at the third-slowest pace in all of the NBA this season. Despite all the offseason talk about playing faster, the Cavaliers have done the opposite. The team is not getting out in transition enough this season, and that’s killing the teams’ ability to get easy scoring looks. The Cavaliers need to try and push tempo, so they can get easy shots in transition.
49.3
The Cavaliers’ effective field percentage. That’s good for third-worst in the NBA this season after ranking in the league’s top four each of the past four seasons. Effective field goal percentage values three-pointers at 1.5 times as much as two-pointers. This is not surprising only the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors are averaging more mid-range field goal attempts per game, per NBA.com.
The Cavaliers do not have their best three-point shooter in Kevin Love who has played just four games this season and they just traded Kyle Korver. It’s understandable when considering (Rodney Hood, Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton) the team’s top three guys in attempted shots per game for the Cavaliers, are taking the majority of their shots from the mid-range area. Not including the Kings game, of the current rotation, only Cedi Osman is taking more than 32.0 percent of his shots from three, per NBA.com.
dark. Next. Cleveland Cavaliers: Four things we learned vs the Sacramento Kings
We’ll see if the Cleveland Cavaliers can improve on these numbers as the season progresses.