Cavs having to play out of position has been massive problem all year

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ massive list of injuries this season has caused them to line up players out of position constantly, and that issue showed up again yesterday.

We’ve discussed this so many times this season when it comes to the Cleveland Cavaliers. With injuries to Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson forcing those players to 56 and 36 out of 77 possible games (per NBA.com), along with reported ailments to David Nwaba and others, the Cavs have been forced to line up players out of position far too often.

That’s a key reason why their defense has been the worst in league history, based on defensive rating, according to Basketball Reference.

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Nwaba, who is only 6-foot-4, has lined up at the 3 position 69 percent of his minutes on the floor this season (per Basketball Reference), and to his credit, has done a solid job, especially on the defensive end, as he has the best net rating of Cleveland’s regular rotation players this year.

He’s been his most effective when he’s defended primary ball-handlers on the perimeter, however, and with Kevin Love not playing yesterday against the Los Angeles Clippers reportedly due to left shoulder soreness, Nwaba was forced to start the game at the 4 position, likely due to Cedi Osman being at his most effective at the 3 position.

That didn’t work well, as the Clippers killed the Cavs inside all game, and although it wasn’t as much about Nwaba’s wrongdoing on the interior, Cleveland really could have used more size earlier in the contest and overall, the “undersized frontcourt got pushed around” yesterday as Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor highlighted.

Nwaba recording zero rebounds in 24 minutes wasn’t great, either, and he was a minus-32 in 24 minutes played, per ESPN.

What really hurt Cleveland, though, was JaMychal Green abusing Osman on the low block and with offensive rebounds.

Green had 18 points on eight-of-nine shooting, and when Osman was guarding him, which was 45.8 percent of Green’s offensive possessions, he had 11 points while shooting five-of-five, according to Second Spectrum’s Box Score Matchup Data.

Green had five offensive rebounds and was a plus-13 in his 23 minutes, too, per ESPN.

This sort of thing has happened throughout the season with the injury situation in the frontcourt, and defensive rebounding has been a problem, along with Cleveland over-helping with their lack of size, which has often resulted in opponents knocking down perimeter shots at a high clip.

Montrezl Harrell, who is one of the better rolling bigs in the league as a small-ball 5, was a nightmare inside as well, as he had 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting. Granted, with Harrell’s combination of size, explosiveness and sheer will to get to the rim, Cleveland had no answer for him, anyway.

L.A. shot 45.5. percent from three-point land and made 15 threes, too, while also having 64 points in the paint.

The fact of the matter is this sort of matchup issue has often been a huge culprit in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ blowout losses this season (the Clippers beat the Cavs 132-108 yesterday, for reference).

In an ideal scenario with Collin Sexton and/or Jordan Clarkson matched up at the 1, with the Cavs having Love on the floor playing considerable minutes, they’d be able to space the floor better and play guys like Nwaba, Brandon Knight or Nik Stauskas at the 2, with Osman at his natural wing spot more, while having a big who can provide some perimeter shooting lined up at the 5, such as Larry Nance Jr.

With Love not in the lineup, and especially with Thompson sidelined, too, though, Cleveland cannot afford to match up Osman so much with natural 4’s. A part of why Osman has had such awful individual defensive metrics this year has been the fact that he’s lined up at the 4 position 57 percent of the time this year, according to Basketball Reference.

That’s entirely too much, as he lined up at the 4 just 10 percent of the time last year, for comparison’s sake.

Inside of six feet, Osman’s opponents have shot 67.6 percent.

The Cavs would eventually go bigger yesterday to help slow the interior bleeding, but this kind of lack of matchup-sound issue has happened far too frequently throughout the season, and it seems as if Cleveland has been too slow to adjust at times.

Injuries are tricky, obviously, and given that Sexton has been a disaster in pick-and-roll coverage, it’s put Cleveland head coach Larry Drew in a tough spot, though.

For the Cleveland Cavaliers to have more success in coming years, they need Love to be healthier, and put players such as Osman in better matchups.