Cleveland Cavaliers first-year head coach David Blatt continues to shuffle his rotations around. If you watched the Cavs 98-89 victory over the Orlando Magic on Friday night, you might have noticed. In fact, if you watched just the fourth quarter, you definitely should have noticed.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about or haven’t heard yet, let me fill you in.
Kevin Love, the former UCLA star and All-Star power forward, sat the entire fourth quarter. He wasn’t injured, wasn’t sick, and didn’t go missing from the Cavs bench.
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It was his head coach who held out the former Minnesota Timberwolves star for the fourth quarter of a close game with the Magic. The Princeton graduate decided it was best for sweet-shooting big man to ride this one out on the pine.
But why?
Well, he’s a rookie. It’s that simple. Just like everyone in the NBA was at one point in whatever position they hold. However, Blatt is still different from other rookie coaches throughout the league.
He went from coaching 20 seasons in Europe, most recently for Maccabi Tel Aviv, to being tasked with coaching a preseason title favorite in the span of just two months.
Now more than a third into his first season in the NBA, Blatt continues to show differences in his coaching style among his peers.
Here are some quotes taken from Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick’s article when he assessed Blatt’s adjustment to the league in early December:
"It wasn’t hard to find common ground among the three coaches in identifying Blatt’s most pressing assignment. They all believe that he needs to resolve this question:“Who is going to be in my rotation?” Van Gundy said.Blatt has kept his “starters” reasonably consistent, even if he prefers not to use that term, bristling at any notion that Anderson Varejao and Tristan Thompson are anything but interchangeable at center. But you’d have better luck with the Pick-Six than picking the identities, order and usage of the Cavaliers’ seventh through ninth men. Certainly, circumstances have played some part, such as Matthew Dellavedova‘s month-long absence and Dion Waiters‘ extreme inconsistency. Still, there’s been little rhyme, reason or rhythm—such as when rookie Joe Harris played the final 19:28 in a loss to San Antonio or when Mike Miller and then James Jones were suddenly pulled out of mothballs to play crucial minutes in wins over Milwaukee, Toronto and Brooklyn."
His quote from Jeff Van Gundy, currently an ESPN/ABC commentator, is what really stands out about the Cavs head coach.
Of course, with injuries to Miller and Dellavedova, it was difficult to really find rotations that he could settle on early in the season. And now, with the devastating loss of one of LeBron James‘ favorite teammates in Anderson Varejao, thanks to a torn Achilles, and a knee contusion that held Kyrie Irving out of Cleveland’s win in Orlando, Blatt’s rotations will really continue to be fluid.
It’s important for players to know when they’re going to play, what style they’ll be expected to play, and who they’ll be playing with.
This is a critical factor in getting the most out of your players, including the lackluster bench for the Cavaliers, that will have to be adjusted for Cleveland to even come close to their preseason expectations thrust upon them.
Rather than using a set rotation with minutes and players set in stone, he’s using an approach based on his ‘feeling’ instead of actual strategy or game plan at times.
Last week when I wrote about Dion Waiters being the forgotten man in the rotation, I looked rather silly after Waiters came out the same day against the Memphis Grizzlies and scored 21 points in 28 minutes off the bench.
The article was based on Waiters playing only seven minutes in their previous game against the Brooklyn Nets, sitting the entire second half.
Waiters has been playing much better since seemingly being benched against the Nets prior to his resurgence against Memphis. In his last four games, he’s averaging 16.3 points while playing nearly 30 minutes per night.
Going back to Friday night’s win over the Magic, this gives us a good idea of what Blatt was thinking when he kept Love out for the fourth quarter. He wants to ride the hot hand essentially, going off who he feels is the best fit for his team at that exact moment in time.
That’s not to say Kevin Love wasn’t playing well enough to finish out the game though. He still finished the night with 22 points and seven boards in 33 minutes.
Cleveland was actually trailing for the majority of the game despite their victory. At the end of the third, Orlando held a 75-71 lead, holding LeBron to just 14 points in the first three quarters.
In the final quarter, the Magic stuck with a small-ball lineup that had been working for most of the game. This is what caused Blatt to sit Love for the most important part of the contest.
Rolling with Matthew Dellavedova, Dion Waiters, Mike Miller, LeBron James and Tristan Thompson, David Blatt made a tough decision look easy when he matched the smaller lineup of Jacque Vaughn down the stretch. He stuck with his guys that he felt gave him the best chance to win, and he proved himself right.
The Cavs defense without Love was exceptional, as they held Orlando to just 14 points in the fourth on 5-of-21 shooting from the field.
The defensive effort with Love off the floor was something he himself recognized, as well as his coach, via Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com:
"“The way that Orlando was playing, they didn’t make a particular substitution and we were just matched up so well defensively, we decided to not to go with it,” Blatt said about not putting Love in the game. “Certainly to Kevin’s credit, he actually kind of recognized it and supported that.”[…]“It’s all about the matchup,” Love said. “Had it been different, it might have been a tough pill to swallow. Tristan was doing a phenomenal job on [Nikola] Vucevic, forcing him into tough shots and blocking shots. It was really how they matched up. They went small. It wasn’t hard for me at all. I was up pretty much every play I could be.”"
It’s a good sign when your All-Star understands the moves and sacrifices that have to be made in order to win certain games.
Hopefully for Cleveland, Love will find himself on the court next time when his team plays a solid defensive game, rather than sitting the bench.
Perhaps more importantly, David Blatt will have figured out what he wants to do with his guys, and find rotations that not only benefit the players as individuals, but the team as a whole.
All stats via Basketball-Reference and NBA.com.