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The Cleveland Cavaliers face off against the San Antonio Spurs tonight, which will definitely be a game to watch. The Cavs have taken the Eastern Conference by storm, moving up to second and trailing only the Atlanta Hawks, despite starting the season in a forgettable fashion. The Spurs, on the other hand, have been somewhat consistent all season, but are currently only sixth seed in the West. Although the Spurs have made two NBA Finals appearances in as many years, the LeBron-led Cavs have built a chemistry that has everyone talking about them in the basketball world. Here are five reasons why the Cavs are better than the Spurs this season, starting with number five:
5. Cavs Offense Better Than Spurs
Mainly due to the Cavs recent success since trading for JR Smith, Iman Shumpert, and Timofey Mozgov, they are second in the league in offensive rating at 111.1 points per game, versus 106.7 points per game for the Spurs (good for 11th in the league), according to ESPN. This shows that not only are the Cavs moving the ball around on the court at a faster pace, they are scoring more than 28 teams in the league!
Alot of this can be credited to David Blatt, who has worked tirelessly to implement three new players into their rotation. He even put two of those players (J.R. Smith, Timofey Mozgov) into the starting lineup. Despite the lack of experience playing together, the Cavs have developed a chemistry that produces crazy exciting plays night in and night out.
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4. A Younger Big 3
The offensive rating can also be explained by the personnel. The Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili are 38, 32, and 37 years old, respectively, and are not getting any younger. On the other hand, the Cavs Big Three of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love are 30, 22, and 26 years old, respectively. Since the Big Three for the Spurs are older than the Cavs Big Three, they sit out more often, sometimes labeled as a DNP-Rest on the box chart.
This season, the Spurs Big Three has spent only 4442 minutes on the court compared to 6416 minutes for the Cavs Big Three, according to Basketball-Reference.com. That is a huge difference of almost 2000 minutes! Not only does the constant resting of the Spurs Big Three hurt their team chemistry, but it also forces Coach Gregg Popovich to constantly change starting lineups and rotations. This lacks consistency compared to the Cavs, where players know their roles for the team and chemistry is quickly developed.
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3. Player Efficiency Rating
The Cavaliers have four players (LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and Timofey Mozgov) with at least a 19.0 Player Efficiency Rating (PER), while the Spurs only have two players (Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan) with such an efficiency rating (ESPN). PER takes into consideration a players accomplishments- positive ones such as field goals, free throws, three-pointers, assists, rebounds, blocks, and steals, and negative ones such as missed shots, turnovers, personal fouls. It is also adjusted per-minute and paced so that PER enables the comparison of two players, even if they do not play the same amount of time.
The PER’s of the rest of both rosters match up pretty evenly, so this shows quite the disparity between the Cavs and the Spurs. The Cavs are obviously playing well such that they are minimizing missed shots and turnovers, which bumps up their personal PERs.
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2. Basketball Fundamentals
Two large parts of todays NBA are offensive rebounding and three point shooting. Offensive rebounding is a valuable skill for a player to have, as it allows for second chance opportunities on the offensive end. Three pointers are equally valuable because who wouldn’t want an extra point per field goal made? The Cavs are rebounding at a crazy 27.2% on the offensive end, compared to the Spurs at 23.1%.
This can be partially credited to the Cavs front court, a three headed monster of Kevin Love, Timofey Mozgov, and Tristan Thompson, the latter whom is one of the best offensive rebounders in the league. The Spurs are really no match on the boards, as their leading rebounders are Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard. The Cavs also lead the Spurs in three pointers attempted per field goal attempted (3PAr), which pretty much represents shooting the three ball. The Cavs have a 3PAr of .325 to the Spurs’ .274. This can simply be explained by the Cavs arsenal of three-point shooters (Kyrie, J.R., LeBron, Love, Shumpert, Jones, Delly, and Miller). The Spurs, on the other hand, rely more heavily on the two-point field goal, as their only consistent 3-point shooters are Leonard, Ginobili, Parker, Marco Bellinelli, and Danny Green.
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1. Record Tells All
In the end, the Cavs are simply better in terms of season performance. Since January 13th, the Cavs have gone 22-5, while the Spurs went 17-8. A few of the Cavs 22 victories during that span included wins against top western conference opponents such as the Golden State Warriors, LA Clippers, and Portland Trailblazers. The Spurs, on the other hand, suffered difficult losses to their western conference opponents, losing to the Warriors, Trailblazers, and Clippers (twice!!) during that same span of time. The same can be said for opponents in the eastern conference, as the Cavs beat the Chicago Bulls just days before the Spurs lost to them. Although the Spurs beat the Cavs during their first regular season matchup back in November, the Cavs seem like the much stronger team. The Cavs would definitely win in a seven-game series, and hopefully they will win tonight.