DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Cavs and NBA Discussion Continued

i'd bring him off the bench tho, not put him back in at starting... shumpert is doing well as a starter.

j/c

Did anyone else see Noah - on a Cav's free throw - totally turn and "block out" by facing the Cav's guy? Probably with 6 minutes or so left?

Noah sucks. He's lost his athleticism and never really developed a low post game or shot over his career. Lebron is also making things difficult for Jimmy Butler. If Lebron outplays Butler (like he should) the Bulls offense becomes very bad. Rose tries to go iso and he's not dominating his matchup with Kyrie.

When LBJ plays like that the Bulls have no chance.

They're pretty much a jump shooting team, so nights like this happen, and that's why Milwaukee hung around like they did.

The Cavs shoot a lot from the outside but they get a ton of good looks and they still get their points in the paint because of 2 and 23.

I thought the move to put Tristan into the starting lineup worked.

Really can't wait for Friday. The Cavs can strong arm the Bulls by stealing homecourt back. If they stay aggressive they will. First 5-10 minutes is key as that has been the case the first two games.

Loved the contributions from the whole team tonight. Mozzy had a couple tough buckets early on, Shump was amazing, James Jones had some big 3's, even Delly got off a little bit.

Della played 36 minutes tonight. Kyrie and Lebron only played 34 minutes. Rose played 37 minutes and Butler played 35 minutes. Thibs is gonna run his guys into the ground.


Knew the Clips would crush Houston. Just didn't think they'd do this without CP3. Blake and Deandre have grown tremendously.

There's a stat being shared by chicago media people around here that Rose shoots 33-34% on only one day rest. This entire series is basically one day rest outside of 2 days rest between games 6 and 7. His jumper tonight was atrocious.

Gasol clearly didn't like the physical play tonight. Boy if you can get him out of his game, this team seems to just come apart at the seams.

There's an argument on sports radio in Cleveland right now about what you do on Friday and going forward at the 2 guard spot. I think you go back to JR. I think he'll be fine Friday. I don't think he will try and do to much to make up for his stupidity. Your bench gets stronger with Shump back there, and I think in the fourth quarter, maybe Shump gets the nod in key situations. His shooting right now is good, and his defense is as well. He fits in so well with how this team operates.

Pretty hilarious that LBJ went back to the headband, I wonder if this is some psychological warfare going on with him and the Bulls. He knows every little move he makes, gets put under the microscope. He said he put it on because he saw it in his locker, but I think we all know LBJ better than he thinks we do. His moves are usually pretty calculated. Hilarious.

That was a great game tonight, its as I've said before..if lebron comes out aggressive, it sets the tone and we have a much better game..he needs to continue. It forces Chicago to change their gameplan to try to stop lebron, then everyone gets good looks. I think with JR back you put Shump back on the bench for offense and another ball handler so you can bury Delly at the end again...dude is so hard to watch..i don't care if he hustles, he just isn't good. It was nice to see Jones go off tonight, we need someone to take some ownership and not let the bench falter. He had it going tonight. Perk came in and gave decent minutes...say what you will, but for a big man, he sprints the floor, sets hard screens and gets physical with his man...he roughed up Gasol and it really help keep Gasol from getting in rhythm. I know I rag on TT alot, but He had a great game, but like I say, its the offensive rebounds he gets us...everything else is meh.. At one point he had 0 points 9 rebounds and 3 fouls..lol But those offensive rebounds are huge and demoralize the opponent. Can anyone think of a Center with worse hands than Mosgov...dude misses more dunks and has more dimes bounce off his hands than anyone I can ever remember..hed probably average 18 points a game if he'd just catch the dimes around the basket he gets from lebron and kyrie. Lebron got pretty upset with him in the second half, he went to the bench and didn't return. He played tough tonight, we needed someone to.

So we need to keep it up and steal homecourt back...I think wash/atl is going to go 7. I think we can win 4 straight now with JR back.. Tonight was a big ? mark for me...after tonight I think we still have enough to get to the finals, barring any more injuries. I don' think we can beat anyone in the west without Love, but we'll make it interesting. It'll be wierd this year. Usually nothing to do until browns TC because our season is over, now we have something to do this summer.

I can't emphasize this enough. Noah is a HUGE liability in this series. They need his passing because Rose and Butler are more scorers than distributors. Bulls will only go as far as Rose takes them. If Kyrie outplays him, I don't Chicago can beat us. It doesn't have to be just scoring either. I wouldn't mind our next game lineup being-

Kyrie
Shump
JR
LBJ
Moz

JR is a LOT better than Mike Miller.

Oh and is it me or is Noah a shell of his former self..dude has nothing left..I actually felt pain when he was shooting FT..Andy is a much better player at this point. Andy's game has evolved where he can actually hit a jumper and finishes alot better around the rim. Noah is going the opposite way.. Makes me smile. I really do wish we had Andy right now, With a true center, he would have made the loss of love a little easier playing the 4 along side lebron. I was really looking forward to Andy/Lebron playoff pick and roll

It's a huge advantage for us when Noah is in the game. Lebron can easily guard him to the point where he can basically save his energy for offense. We stick Shump on Butler to try and slow him down. We can then just stick our biggest player on Gasol.

If you think our offense looked good tonight, just wait until JR gets back and we stick Lebron at PF. Butler is too skinny to guard Lebron when he posts up.

Noah is injured. Thibs ran him into the ground.

Agreed

His legs are destroyed. He had a horrible jumper before. Now he has no lift, so you can give him a 10-15 foot cushion because you know he'll brick it. Lebron can play free safety.

He played basically two straight years without letting injuries heal. Now he's paying for it.

That is why I am so glad that Blatt gave Lebron that long stretch of games off earlier on this season.

It wasn't easy for him to do so, and his job certainly wasn't safe if you asked the media .... however he and Griffin were on the same page, and it was important for him to be managed properly. Not only did ge get that stretch of games off, but he also got games off as the season progressed. (as did Kyrie and Love as well)

LeBron cheated. That headband gives him +5 in all his attributes.

I wasnt real worried after game 1. The Cavs had too many days off, plus they needed to adjust a bit to having two new starters in the line up. Also Chicago just shot out of their mind. They were hot,and the Cavs were flat from a long lay off.

The Bulls will be lucky to win another game in this series.

And how about Cardale trolling Noah? LOL

KING

I'm not right very often so I will take this opportunity to sprain my shoulder patting myself on the back. The Bulls aren't as good as they looked in game 1 and the Cavs are better.

I look for a split in Chicago, then close out the series in 6 games.

I think LeBron told him he was taking games off. Either way, the end result was the same.

Dear Lebron, wear the dumb headband from here on out!

I think he just had a hair procedure that required him to not wear a headband for a few months while the new grass was taking root. He tried it at the beginning of the season and messed it up.

+1

j/c:

Interesting game. In fact, it was beyond interesting. It was kind of a weird game. Some observations:

--LBJ, as most of you said, came out very focused. He made some mistakes, but he made a ton of plays and I loved his intensity.

--The thing I liked best about his game is that he posted up so much and drove it often. I much prefer him in the paint than dribbling on the perimeter. He is so strong, especially his shoulders. He is a nightmare match-up for anyone in the paint.

--I am going to say this again..........I love T.T. Can't believe all the negative crap he has received. This guy is a difference maker. We get so many extra shots and points because of him. Period.

--Good move by Blatt inserting him in the starting line-up. Blatt also did well by effectively using Perkins. I would have put Perkins in for a spell during the 3rd quarter, as well.....but, that is just me.

--Did Kyrie play way fewer minutes than normal? It sure seemed that way. And he wasn't as big of a factor offensively as usual. That seemed weird to me.

--Schumpert is really impressing me. I didn't know much about him in NY, except for his hair......but, the guy can definitely play.

--I ripped James Jones for never making shots and the guy goes off in this game. Gotta love it.

--We blew them out, but I didn't feel like we dominated them. I wonder what happens when all those threes don't fall? This game was fun, but it gave me an uneasy feeling. Not exactly sure why that is.

Because you are a long time Cleveland fan and for us, good things don't last?

Yeah, I get that.......but, that isn't how I meant it.

It almost seemed like we were pulling off heroic sporadic individual efforts to keep our heads above water.

I could be totally off about that. It was just a sense I got while watching the game. Like I said earlier, it was kind of a weird game. The ebb and flow was atypical.

I don't feel like they emptied their clip or anything. I think the feeling he may have is that Chicago still left Cleveland happy with the split. They have the home court now in this series. The pressure is really on the Bulls for this game though. Even more than Cleveland.

Chicago got matched up with Lebron's Heat twice while he was there, and both times they grabbed game 1 in Miami, and both times, the Heat rattled off 4 straight wins. If the Cavs can take tomorrow's game, some of that doubt is going to come back. Lebron owns the Bulls. The Bulls have never seen Lebron game in a game 6 or 7. I really want to see the Cavs agressive tomorrow night from the tip. Attack the rim, and kill them with the open looks that will create.

I thought the Cavs owned that entire game outside of that really ugly stretch where Shump hurt himself, and the team was all over the place. Chiago cut it to 11 with a 14-0 run, but the Cavs regrouped and regained themselves. The starters still got some 4th quarter rest.

If LeBron was like that in the first game it would be 2-0.

You have made many good posts on this thread.

I could be way off in my evaluation that it was a weird game.

Rose & Brooks can't guard Kyrie. Rose can (sadly) be held in check because of his injuries.

just 11 more wins to go this season

I know if we will win or lose tonight by just checking if the headband is on, lol!

Serious though, LBJ I believe has an average of 30 points at Chicago so I'm hoping he comes back in exactly where he left off last game.

We are a totally different team when he's drawing attention and etc. JR Smith, need him big time.

Not sure what's the deal with Shumpret, he set to even play? Blatt said he felt better than they were anticipating, so hopefully we can get some minutes outta him.

Need Lebron and Kyrie to bring their A games tonight. Tonight's gonna be a bloodbath.

It's all a matter of perspective... like after game 1 when people were predicting doom and gloom because the Bulls built a few good leads and it was all the Cavs could do to claw back and make it interesting..

I felt great after that game, because I could see that the Bulls played about as well as they could and the Cavs didn't play well at all and it was still a pretty close game...

So I don't know what you are feeling or why, it just doesn't seem to match what most are feeling... which is perfectly fine.

Maybe it's because the Cavs sort of play like a porn star in a "who's best equipped contest" ... they only pull out just enough to win.

I've noticed throughout the season and especially in these playoffs, that whenever the Cavs come roaring out of the gate and get up by a big margin, they'll start playing a LOT more ISO and stop with the ball movement. If the other team starts to claw into the lead, they'll put their foot on the gas again and stretch the lead back out. It happened a lot in the Celtics series and it happened in Game 2 as well.

A couple of reasons I think they do this: One, it slows the game down and keeps the players fresh for the next game. Sure, it's annoying when Lebron holds the ball for 20 seconds, and launches an off-balance 20-foot brick that occasionally goes in ... but that's 24 seconds of clock-killing and rest that all the players are getting, which might pay dividends down in the next game or even further down the road.

Two, I think it sets up some mind games with opponents. Lebron, and to some extend Kyrie, want to keep defenses honest. When they sit there and do that jab step, and finally take a jumpshot ... if it goes in, then the defender is going to want to play closer next time. That opens up the door for slashing later in the game. We have two of the best ISO players in the league in Kyrie and Lebron, and I think a lot of that "slow down and poke" type offense is just to sort of kick the tires of the defense and see what they're going to do. It's setting things up for later.

Three, it might even keep the gametape of what we CAN do on offense down to a minimum, so it's just less for other teams to study.

Our closest win in the playoffs was a margin of 8. The thing that would really worry me is if we put up a big lead and then watch a team comeback and win because our offense stopped moving. We haven't really seen that yet, except in Game 1 where our offense never really got out of the gate in the first place. I wouldn't worry too much about the Cavs not blowing out the Bulls like they could of. That's probably why you felt weird about the game. It seemed like it could of been a blowout, but it wasn't.

What makes me feel good is that the Bulls have no answer for Kyrie or Lebron. They both attack like crazy and hit open shooters. Bulls don't have a mismatch outside of Rose, but injuries slow him down badly. Gasol can be kept in check if you rough him up and frustrate him.

The biggest difference about this Cavs team from pre 2010 is Kyrie. He's really growing. Lebron KNOWS he has a teammate that can go off just like D-Wade.

any word on Shumpert? Only thing I've seen is game time decision.

Interesting perspective. I enjoyed reading that.

shumpert is set to play