Monday, December 17, 2012

The Buck’s Fuck Truck Was Us Loving to Turn The Ball Over


Somehow, he out Varejaoed Varejao.
This four point lose to the Bucks was not as close as it appears to be.  The Cavs had a little luck in the end of the second quarter and the start of the third.

First Quarter:
The first quarter was the quarter of Larry Sanders.  Sanders just seemed to avoid getting boxed out and managed to score six points, while Varejao only had two points.  Sanders just kept sneaking around Varejao and causing issues.  The Cavs had a lot of turnovers and bad passes that the Bucks didn’t convert, which kept the score a lot closer than it should have been.

Second Quarter:
The first four minutes of the quarter were really closely played.  Both teams were missing and fouling.  The second four minutes the Bucks were able to get the lead up to 16 by just capitalizing off of our bad shooting.  The last 4:54 of the quarter was all about the Cavs; we made seven straight shots, including 3 threes.  Then we followed up our next miss with an offensive rebound and finish.  During this stretch, the Cavs were really playing fast ball and exploiting the Buck's defense before it could set up.  We managed to get within six, but gave up a three right before half.

Third Quarter:
We picked up the defense to get some stops early, so we got ahead by 1 for a few seconds before it fell apart.  Then the Cavs did what they usually do at the end of the quarter in the middle of it.  They turned the ball over a ton, and they committed bad fouls to help the Bucks go up by 11.  The Bucks did the same thing because they were copying us,  but we are better at giving up leads so we only moved up six points to not even tie with the Bucks.

Fourth Quarter:
We couldn’t score for close to three minutes to open this quarter because the Bucks locked us down on defense.  This is where having a pure scorer could really help the Cavs.  These droughts just kill any hopes we have of coming back.  The Bucks didn’t score for three minutes this period just because of misses, but we couldn’t capitzlize too much because we turned the ball over a lot.  At the end of the game, we turned the ball over on two charges and a bad pass while allowing too many offensive rebounds.  Monta Ellis got a two to put the Bucks up by six off of a second possession with 2:41 left.  With 28 seconds left, we let them get another offensive rebound that forced us to foul and put them back up to six off of one free throw made.  That was the dagger to the two poesssion game.

The Issues:
The issue this game was the turnovers.  We had the most terrible passes I’ve seen from us all year.  It seemed like our bigs were making terrible choices when passing the ball back out, and our guards were often forcing passes through too many people down low.  The game was lost by only four points, but we had 27 turnovers and they only scored 23 points from them. That’s very lucky. 

We also had a little trouble rebounding.  It seemed like they got some crucial second possessions at the end of the game that made a difference.  Maybe, Varejao is a little bit tired because it seemed like he was missing some rotations this game and not getting back when helping others as quickly as usual on defense.

CJ Miles is a black hole at times when he gets the ball.  The man loves to shoot, but I can’t complain because was scoring.  He’s looking like a solid bench sixth man for when Dion Waiters returns.  Or, maybe as I would like to see Dion Waiters will come of the bench in a James Harden style role and Miles will keep starting. 

The Cavs should not be playing a slowed down game.  If we play faster, it seems like the guys who can’t really score don’t have as hard of a time with scoring.  Even when we run pick and rolls, they seem more effective if we do it while the offense is still setting up and just seeing what happens with the wing guys if we have to pass out.  The Cavs looked their best during the scoring runs because they ran the floor and took all the advantages they could with mismatches. 

The Fuck Truck driver of the game is Kyrie.  He gets it because he definitely sparked the run we had at the end of the second half when Tyler Zeller entered the game.  Kyrie found Zeller and then continued to power up the team.  It helped that Kyrie hit a three and then followed it up with a two, since it gave a general confidence to the team during this run.  It helps the team want to play harder knowing  that they have a chance to win, since one of their players can score at will. 

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