I was able to catch quite a bit of only one game yesterday, as there was quite a bit of stuff going on/I went to bed early. So.....
CLEVELAND V TORONTO (in which we wonder....what the fuck's going on?)
Let's start with...well, let's start with the game, and then we'll get into all the crazy tangentials and quasi-analysis, possibly with some inane references and cursing thrown in. Sound good? Aight.
like an Ornette track, this was sort of all over the place, but in a pretty awesome way.
The game was...well, it was very interesting, but also weird, and just very structurally surprising. Toronto got off to a pretty nice start, and midway through the first quarter they were already up 17-6, with Bargnani scoring and Calderon's dishing doing most of the heavy lifting. Now, this isn't something that's too fucking shocking...if you watch enough NBA games, you're probably used to strong teams getting off to shaky starts. Also taking into account the fact that it was Toronto's first home game, it was a very nice but not...particularly special start for the Raptors, and certainly not a lead that felt insurmountable. After all, it was six minutes into the fucking game.
And so the somewhat-expected resurgence from Cleveland followed, eventually shaving the Raps' lead down to a single point with a minute left in the quarter. And that was where, as an NBA fan, I was sort of thinking "alright...here we go". I mean, it's sort of programmed into us at this point...you recognize this pattern, where once a (potentially) great team gets back into a game, they usually take over. But Toronto wasn't going out like no suckas, man. And they stretched the lead out to five by the end of the quarter...and kept stretching. And by halftime, it was an eighteen point lead. Yea, what?
Cleveland couldn't handle Bargnani's ability to stretch the floor.
Toronto's offense was borderline obscene, and so we'll be led to believe that Cleveland's defense was a big problem. But it really wasn't. Could they have done better? Yea, sure. But this is a damn fine Toronto team, in terms of offensive firepower. And that's where they're going to beat a lot of teams, just by...to use an obviously silly phrase...scoring more than the other team. The one area of Cleveland's defense that is really worrying is their apparent inability to get out on mobile big guys. And...that's not surprising. They have Shaq and Z, after all. So Sheed and Bargnani have been able to take advantage of that, to some extent. Will that be something that persists? Who knows.
But the thing that really stood out during that second quarter was Cleveland's inability to get shit on offense. It was truly atrocious. Just no movement, or ideas, or...anything, really. It was LeBron plus four, again and again and again. The Z+Shaq lineup failed miserably, making the spacing even worse than it was otherwise, and the inability of anyone outside Bron (in the absence of Delonte) to really attack the rim...well, it fucked them over, basically. Lack of spacing + lack of driving=fucked. Even with LeBron.
SOMEONE DO SOMETHING
The third quarter saw Cleveland nearly come all the way back, and again I fell into the trap of thinking they'd finally turned it around and were going to go ahead and win the game. It's interesting to note that this period of non-suckage came mostly with Mo Williams, Daniel Gibson, Anthony Parker, LeBron James, and Andy Varejao on the floor. Now, I'm not saying that going small is a cure all or anything like that, because it's not. But it definitely helped with the spacing issues, and that was definitely...something. It made a real difference, and it gave the impression that for once the Cavs actually had an idea of what the fuck they were doing.
With James out at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth, the Cavs pretty much completely fell apart, and that was just about it. So, in summation, they had two pretty decent passages of play throughout the game, and they just happened to come with Shaq out of the game. I'm not saying; I'm just sayin'.
THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
Now, granted, it's really fucking early, and I expect some of the issues to get resolved. But is that enough? Probably not. Not for what the Cavs want. And I don't really see Mike Brown truly working this shit out, sadly. I hope I'm wrong, as this team could potentially play very good basketball. Which is a pretty nice thing, when it happens.
I feel like I've completely neglected the Raptors, so I'll restate the fact that they did pretty nicely themselves, and that they do deserve credit for winning that game. SO THERE.
Anyway. Only two games tonight, both on TNT. Spurs @ Chicago, and Denver @ Portland, with three teams coming off wins and one opening their season. Should be fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment