Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 keys to series vs. Pacers
3. New Guys
The 2018 trade deadline was one of the craziest in NBA history thank to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Never has a contending team made such drastic changes so late in the season, but with the Cavs headed toward a “slow death march,” as GM Koby Altman put it, the team needed a change.
The four players Cleveland acquired are great role players but come with their fair share of questions.
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George Hill is a great 3-and-D player from the point guard position, and playing with the Pacers squad that went to the conference finals in 2013 and 2014 gives him great experience, but his 3-point percentage has dropped 10 points since the trade, signaling a struggle to find himself within this new system.
Both Rodney Hood and Jordan Clarkson have the potential to score 30 on any given night, but both can just as easily shoot 2-for-12, and only Hood has even a sliver of postseason experience as a member of the Utah Jazz team that got swept in the second round of last season’s playoffs.
Larry Nance Jr. is an athletic Swiss army knife, but like Clarkson, he’s never experienced playoff basketball.
Granted, there was a time when Love, Tristian Thompson, and even Kyrie Irving didn’t have postseason experience on their resume, and it didn’t seem to plague the Cavs, but the talent gap between those two sets of players might make a difference when it matters most.
Like Kyrie and Love, the Cavaliers are going to heavily rely on these new players at the end of close games. Sure, Jordan Clarkson oozes confidence, but how confident will he feel when he has the ball with two minutes to go in a crucial Game 5 at the Q?
We’ve seen LeBron put on one-man shows in the past, but at 33 years old and having just finished his 15th regular season, there has to be a limit to what James can withstand, right?
James is going to need his teammates to put pressure on the opposing defense. It gives him more options to work with and makes their offense much less predictable.