Cleveland Cavaliers: Birth Of A Juggernaut
By Joshua Howe
Yeah, it happened. It finally happened. The Cleveland Cavaliers, for an ephemeral 48-minute period, transformed themselves into a gale-force wind, knocking the Atlanta Hawks around helplessly as if they were rag dolls.
They struck from all angles, every player wanting to get involved. They rained down nine straight three-pointers in the first quarter, (an NBA record) and hit two more to make it 11 in a row. They finished the game shooting 19-for-31 (61.2 percent) from beyond the arc.
LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Shawn Marion, Dion Waiters, Joe Harris, Will Cherry and James Jones all contributed from deep. Oddly enough, the only one who shot less than 50.0 percent from three for the Cavs was Love, who went 3-for-7.
The Hawks, who enjoy using the three-pointer themselves as a weapon, couldn’t manage to do anything to stop the bleeding. The ball movement for the Cavaliers was fantastic, the best it’s been all season. No player was being selfish, each and every one of them trying to get involved and contribute to the play.
At one point, one of the Cleveland commentators even remarked gleefully, “You can’t do this in NBA 2K15!”
The weird part is, he was probably right. Basically, this sums up the attack on the Hawks’ defense that night:
This is what everyone has been waiting for. This is what everyone imagined. This has…come really dang quick!
Suddenly, the Cavaliers appear to be an offensive monster, the Dracula of NBA teams, ready to suck out the life force of any other squad by outrunning them, out-hustling them, out-shooting them and out-rebounding them.
The defense? Still bad. But there were moments when the team, on such a high from shooting well combined with the popcorn-tossing insanity of the crowd, flew around in the half court and legitimately looked like they were starting to find something useful.
They still gambled too often, and Atlanta did miss a lot of open jumpers, but at least it was something.
But whether it was there or not hardly mattered. This is how everyone saw the Cavaliers winning games, and this is indeed how they can do so. Their offense simply outclasses every other one in the NBA (save perhaps the San Antonio Spurs) when it’s on. How can you stop a power forward who shoots lights out from deep, a point guard who can break your ankles in 236 different ways and a small forward who does whatever he wants when he wants? And then account for the surrounding shooters?
Simple answer: you don’t.
There were two major factors that caused this outburst to happen, both connected.
First, LeBron seems to be back to his old self. Whether his supposedly sore back was limiting him or he was trying a different method of leadership or he just hadn’t found his rhythm yet, that’s all in the past now.
Over the past four games, all of which the Cavs have won to climb back up to a 5-3 record, James has averaged 31.7 points, 8.5 assists, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.0 blocks per game on 56.0 percent shooting from the field and 42.8 percent shooting from downtown.
The man is now leading by example. And his teammates are following.
The second factor is the pace of the game, which last night was played at about the same velocity as a Nascar race. James initiated this by hitting his first couple treys and being extremely aggressive. The rest of the team followed suit and almost immediately there was a spontaneous combustion of Cleveland players catching fire and leaving scorch marks all over the ball.
Even after the victory over Atlanta, the Cavs are still just 21st in the league in terms of pace. As I wrote about in the past, this team will be much more effective pushing the pace as they did last night. It allows for run outs for LeBron and Kyrie, open three-pointers for all and puts pressure on the other team.
As we saw with the Hawks, they were flabbergasted by Cleveland’s play. They didn’t know what to do. Mike Budenholzer was standing court side, glowering, his arms folded in frustration because he knew there was nothing his team could do to counteract such an incredible offensive spike.
There won’t be many games where the Cavaliers win with their defense. It’s going to be a season-long project to try and correct issues that have been ingrained in some of the players for years. So instead, this is the sort of thing they need to do to win lots of games.
Of course, just outscoring your opponent doesn’t work when the playoffs come into the picture. But for now, let’s just enjoy what has transpired: the birth of an offensive juggernaut.