Cavs: Three takeaways from thrilling comeback win over Heat

The Cleveland Cavaliers were able to come back from a 19-point fourth quarter deficit and stun the Miami Heat on Monday in what was the win of the year thus far in this 2019-20 season for the Wine and Gold.

Through three quarters, Monday’s game for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Miami Heat was a blowout in the latter’s favor. It looked very similar to the game in Miami on Saturday, where Cleveland was dominated 124-105.

The Heat were also running the Cavs out of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Monday this time, and the Cavs didn’t have any answers on defense, as the Heat had 99 points through three quarters.

With the Cavaliers going into the fourth quarter down by 19 points, Cleveland head coach J.B. Bickerstaff went with a strange lineup to change things up. To start the fourth, the Cavs sent out a lineup with Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr., Larry Nance Jr. actually at the 3 position, to go with Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson.

With this lineup, they were able to get stops and begin to chip away at the Heat lead (and Miami at one point in the game led by 22 points, by the way). With a team in a rebuild like the Cavs, it’s easy to just throw in the towel in that sort of situation to begin the closing period.

The Cavaliers didn’t, though, and in the fourth quarter and overtime, they outscored Miami 45-20, as noted by ESPN, and came back in thrilling fashion, ultimately winning 125-119.

With those reasons alone, this has to be the win of the year. The win against the Denver Nuggets last month was a signature win this season, but you can argue the Nuggets were coming off a long road trip as well.

In this scenario, it was against a team that just beat the breaks off Cleveland a couple days ago, and have on three other occasions. Of course, Miami did not have the likes of Jimmy Butler (personal reasons) and were without Tyler Herro (right ankle soreness), but again, this was quite a victory.

Plus, it looked very similar to the last game on Saturday through three quarters and for the Cavs to stay composed and ultimately come back and win the game makes this the win of the year to me.

A team needs wins like these in a rebuild for signs of growth. Rebuilds are typically tough and long, because youth leads to inconsistencies, but this type of win was really impressive, given the circumstances.

With that being said, here are three takeaways from the Cavs’ best win of the 2019-20 season so far over Miami, beginning with the first.

Takeaway #1: Kevin Porter Jr. should start

This isn’t a prisoner of the moment take, either. I touched on this a while ago that Porter Jr. should start for the Cavs, at least if Cleveland were then really considering starting lineup changes.

In Monday’s game, Porter Jr. was terrific, as he had a career-high 30 points, per Basketball Reference, on nine-of-18 shooting overall, which included him hitting four-of-seven from three-point range and eight-of-10 from the free throw line. He also scored 15 of his 30 in the fourth quarter/overtime, and along with that scoring outburst, Porter had eight rebounds, three assists and three steals, too.

I’ve believed for a while KPJ starting made some sense, but I think he definitely should now. I believe right now, Porter Jr. has proven, of the three key young guys at this point that are available, KPJ is the most promising of the three players.

The Cavs still have a lot of issues defensively and obviously don’t have the personnel yet to be a decent defensive team, but Porter Jr. would give them more size in the backcourt as a starter. The Cavaliers still need wings, but starting two 6-foot-1 guards in the backcourt, especially young ones, is going to cause a bunch of defensive problems.

Plus, it doesn’t make it easier that Cleveland doesn’t have wings to make up for that whatsoever.

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Garland and Sexton drew comparisons to the Portland Trail Blazers’ duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum coming into the season, well at least as a best-case scenario. Portland has always had defensive deficiencies with those two in the backcourt, but their offensive brilliance compensates for many of the decencies on defense they have.

For that to happen, Garland has to develop into a superstar point guard and Sexton has to develop into a McCollum-esque scorer. Otherwise, they just won’t make up for the defensive issues you have with two 6-foot-1 guards playing a bunch together in the backcourt.

I believe Sexton has a role with this team and will be a very good player in the NBA for a long time, but in an ideal situation, Sexton is a good sixth man on a good team.

He doesn’t have the playmaking vision Garland has, nor does he have Porter’s capability as a secondary playmaker.

Meanwhile, Porter Jr. still has a long way to go and still has a ways to go to find consistency, but he looks like the guy that has the most promise long term and should start at the 2 for the Cleveland Cavaliers at this point.

Takeaway #2: Garland had an underrated performance

It may go somewhat unnoticed, because of the performance KPJ had, but Garland was a big part of the huge comeback.

In this game he had 14 points on five-of-12 shooting, including two-of-four from deep, and dished out seven assists.

He also had five rebounds, 2 steals and a block, per ESPN. When it mattered most, Garland also did a nice job initiating the offense in the fourth quarter.

Coming in as a rookie, playmaking has probably been the most underrated part of his game. He did an outstanding job, and in the fourth quarter, in particular, when a couple times he was able to get in the lane and/or pull it back out, and find his teammates for easy baskets.

Garland didn’t have a huge scoring impact, but he did have some key points from the free throw line and had a big basket at the end of the fourth that helped at least get the game to overtime. From there, in OT, he was able to hit a clutch basket by forcing Bam Adebayo into a goaltend, which built another three-point lead and this time, the Cavs hung on for good.

While Garland can be more consistent, the Cavaliers are at their best when he’s initiating the offense.

Granted, you want him to be more aggressive and get to the free throw line more, but with a full summer to work with and an opportunity to get stronger, I believe that will be the case more next season.

Takeaway #3: J.B. Bickerstaff has this team playing hard

In a bunch of games, the Cavs will be out-manned from a talent perspective, but right now, Bickerstaff has this team playing hard. We’ve had three games since the All-Star break and in two of them they’ve fallen behind by at least 16 points and won; as I hit on after Friday’s game, Cleveland was able to will their way back and win on the road at the Washington Wizards.

In Monday’s game, though, this was a comeback effort against a very good Heat team.

Anyhow, you can certainly argue that John Beilein was a head coaching hire more so by Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, and maybe Bickerstaff was more so a head coaching hire by Cavs general manager Koby Altman. You can draw plenty of parallels from a few years ago when David Blatt was hired as head coach, and Tyronn Lue was the associate head coach.

The only difference is, any coaching issues that team may have had were overcome due to the talent level of the Cleveland Cavaliers at that time. No all the coaching changes aren’t good, but Bickerstaff has this team playing hard and so maybe this team will finally have some stability.

This doesn’t mean all the Cavs’ problems are fixed. In the NBA, it’s a players league and talent is the most important thing by far.

The San Antonio Spurs’ fall off isn’t because Gregg Popovich became a mediocre head coach. He just doesn’t have the overall talent that he had a few years ago.

I’m sure Bickerstaff will do a nice job, but again, this is a players’ league and a head coach and coaching staff in the NBA can only do so much. In the NFL comparatively, the head coach/coaching staff is way more important.

A team like last year’s Cleveland Browns can have so much talent, but not win anything with a head coach the likes of Freddie Kitchens that is way in over his head. That’s not saying coaching in the NBA isn’t important, it is; it’s just more of a players’ league.

The Cavaliers are still a work in progress and still have so much work to do when building this roster. Factoring in that, in a rebuild, we’ll probably see games like we saw in Miami on Saturday, because of the state of the roster and all the youth, but games like Monday’s are what you want to see when it comes to growth of these young guys from time to time.