Kasler: LeBron closes, and Cavs needed it
The Cavaliers hung on for a 104-93 win over the Hawks in Game 1 of their playoff series Monday night. It was a game of runs that saw the Cavs relinquish an 18-point lead in the second half. Some thoughts below:
1. I write these postgame thoughts immediately after the game has ended. Not many quite moments pass for any kind of perspective, so I apologize if at times I sound more like a cantankerous fan than rational observer.
2. My first thought is this: The Cavs are 5-0 in the playoffs and, if pressed, I still don’t really know what to make of them. There are periods of dominance -- beautiful, precision offense, hot shooting and lock-down defense. But in the blink of an eye, those high notes can vanish, and the sound that remains is the repetitive thud of bad, eye-piercing basketball.
3. I know that sounds harsh and perhaps unjust. But, I guess, see thought No. 1.
4. Kevin Love finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds, but I thought he was generally the reason the Cavs didn’t blow this game wide open and turn the entire fourth quarter into garbage time. Love was just 4-of-17 from the field and missed quite a few open looks.
5. Two years into the Big Three, I fully realize Love is not the focal point of the offense. He isn’t engineering anything at that end of the floor. He is largely a floor spacer who gets occasional post touches. That said, he remains the beneficiary of playing opposite two of the most creative players in the game in LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.
6. Third banana or not, Love is a max player and an Olympian, yet the bar for his success has seemingly been lowered to: “I hope he can knock down more than 25 percent of his wide open looks tonight." No one is even expecting greatness anymore, but certainly something better than 4-of-17 from the floor seems fair.
7. Dennis Schroder was fantastic all night, totaling 27 points and six assists. A 19 percent 3-point shooter on the season, Schroder knocked down 5-of-10 from deep on Monday night. But the Cavs were rightly content to tip their cap to him, knowing he probably wasn’t going to be good enough to beat them alone.
8. J.R. Smith was called for a flagrant foul that, I guess, was a good call by the letter of the law. But as far as it truly being “flagrant,” I don’t think J.R. intentionally threw an elbow at Paul Millsap’s head. Smith was hustling to recover on a cutting Millsap and, in the process, caught him with an elbow. But J.R. being who he is, the officials couldn’t wait to scurry over to the replay monitor and waste five minutes of our lives reviewing the play.
9. Tristan Thompson’s effort on the glass cannot be overstated. He snared 14 rebounds. Seven of them were at the offensive end and a handful kept possessions alive in the third quarter when the Cavs built an 18-point lead. Monday night was almost a coming out party for Thompson, who was literally engulfed by Andre Drummond for four games in the first series.
10. Kyrie Irving played pretty well, not extraordinary, but certainly good enough to help churn out a win. The story for me, though, was LeBron James. For much of the fourth quarter, it seemed the King fell asleep on his throne. He had some unforced turnovers and didn’t give the rim so much as a glance. And in a vine that is surely floating around the internet as I type, LeBron was caught standing still while Kent Bazemore sped past him for a couple of offensive rebounds.
11. I tweeted that it was an odd time for James to go into chill mode. In fact, if you were foolish enough to gallivant around Cavs twitter during that fourth quarter, you may have been privy to all sorts of wild concerns about LeBron (my favorite was something about James having another “elbow game”).
12. I admit, even I was wondering if James was collapsing inward a bit, perhaps distraught with his team coughing up a big lead and unable to summon the will to pull ahead. The final three minutes of the game, however, lay that thinking to rest.
13. Over the final three minutes and change, LeBron plucked a few steals, converted a three-point play (on his only free-throw attempt of the night, which seems impossible until you recall that NBA officials are akin to a traveling nightly clown show), disrupted a Schroder three-point attempt and then all but iced the game with a sweet spin move and kiss off the glass with about one minute to play.
14. I opened this column with the concession that I don’t quite know what to make of this team, even in victory. There is some solace, though, in LeBron’s close out of Monday’s win. Losing this game certainly wouldn’t have cued pushing the panic button, but it would have raised a whole host of questions, many of which would have had nothing to do with what happened between the lines but rather what goes on between the ears of some Cavs’ players.
15. LeBron ensured that Game 1 would be no more than a postseason footnote. He finished with 25 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. He was actually 2-of-4 from deep, too, which threatens the assertion that his long-range shot is broken. Long story short, this was another game that reminds observers of how easy it is to take James’ ability for granted.
16. The Cavs and Hawks are back at it on Wednesday night. If I’m Tyronn Lue, I’m doing a few things between now and then, one of which is subtly questioning the officials through the media. Lue also may need to get with Love and remind him that his scoring is needed and more shots are coming his way (so, you know, knock a few more down, please).
