In their past three games, with the first two concluding their six-game homestand, the Cleveland Cavaliers did not have the performances they were looking for.
Cleveland was thrashed by the Toronto Raptors last Friday night, leading to the starters being benched eventually, and despite a comeback effort, the Cavaliers were done in by a slow start against Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night. In that outing, Darius Garland had a 46-point explosion, and the Cavs did make things somewhat interesting down the stretch, but Kyrie Irving and Brooklyn were just too much, and the Cavs’ typically stingy defense in these two games was anything but for most of them.
So, on Thursday night, one had to be hoping to see the Cavaliers start better at the Indiana Pacers, who are a young club that have played with tons of energy this season, and have probably fared better than plenty could’ve anticipated heading into the year thus far.
Unfortunately, Cleveland couldn’t contain the scorching hot Pacers, who canned 21 threes, and Cleveland couldn’t keep up down the stretch in a run-n-gun style of game.
On Saturday night, the Cavaliers were attempting to rebound in the last game of the 2022 portion of the schedule on the road at the Chicago Bulls.
In a game that was picking up a bit in the second quarter, the contest was very choppy in the second half, and in the game, neither the Cavs nor Bulls were particularly on from beyond the arc. The Cavaliers did end up hitting 13 threes, but shot 34.2 percent, and Chicago was just seven-of-21 from three, a 33.3 percent hit rate.
Credit should go to the Cavs, though, as they did enough defensively throughout the game to help generate easy buckets in spurts. Also, contributions and hustle plays from Cedi Osman (12 points and was a plus-nine), Isaac Okoro (11 points) and some productive Raul Neto minutes shouldn’t be discounted.
And while offensively has been hit-or-miss in a lower usage role as a starter for Lamar Stevens, who had just two points on one-of-six shooting, he made things difficult for DeMar DeRozan consistently, and conceded only two points to DeRozan in primary coverage.
So getting further into it, let’s get into our Cavs stud and dud from this NYE matchup with the Bulls.
First up, we’ll take a closer look at the Cavs’ standout from Saturday night.
Cavs stud: Kevin Love
The Cavaliers needed Kevin Love to step up on Saturday night, and he answered the bell. In a game where they were without Garland or Mobley, Love’s shooting and rebounding efforts were crucial in the grand scheme.
Love tallied 20 big points, shot seven-of-15 overall and connected on five of his 11 three-point attempts, cashing in on a number of key catch-and-shoot looks after drive-and-kicks. With the likes of Garland and again, Mobley, out on Saturday, Love’s contributions were much-needed in a game where the Cavaliers had some limitations obviously in set offense.
When Love has been in-rhythm and has the looks where he’s been able to square himself, it’s often led to him canning shots from deep. Whether it was from drive-and-kicks, or from ball-swings, while there were still some shots off the mark that were short from way out outside, Love did enough to help give the Cavaliers a cushion for hanging on down the stretch.
Granted, there’s limitations with Love at this juncture, and defensively, it’s been an adventure on-ball. But, to his credit, Love made some meaningful hustle plays on Saturday, had quality position on the glass, which helped the likes of Jarrett Allen and others, and drew yet another charge.
Now, in fairness, Love did have three bad giveaways in the fourth quarter on passes from Chicago pressure in contesting those, two of which were down the stretch, too. Those were blemishes on an otherwise nice night from the veteran forward.
However, it’s apparent that Cleveland doesn’t pull this one out without Love’s services for much of the contest.
Cavs dud: Ball security
Of course, sans Garland, one had to expect that there could be some clunkiness here, and especially against players such as Ayo Dosumu and Alex Caruso. For further context, Dosunmu registered a whopping five steals, DeMar DeRozan had two and Caruso in bench minutes had two.
That said, Cleveland having 20 turnovers (to 20 assists) here, and struggling to close late, was still less than ideal, to say the least. That played some into Chicago registering 21 fastbreak points, as opposed to Cleveland’s 10.
Donovan Mitchell had a rough night overall, as he was five-of-16 from the field, zero-of-six from three and had seven turnovers in a de facto lead playmaker role for much of the contest on Saturday. Caris LeVert, despite coming up with a solid game generally, had four giveaways himself, and both likely had some turnovers simply from trying to initiate and make plays in gaps that weren’t necessarily there.
Nonetheless, the giveaways down the stretch have been an issue in a number of instances this season, particularly on the road, and they reared their ugly head in the fourth. As noted, Love was responsible for three of those as well, and some stagnation from Cleveland late, and lack of effectiveness when Mitchell was doubled, led to some rough possessions.
Again, one has to know the importance of Garland for the Cavaliers, and that factored into these issues, objectively. And hopefully Ricky Rubio being back soon can help stabilize operations in some stretches, too, for what it’s worth.