Heading midway into the third week of the 2017-18 NBA regular season, some teams that have really surprised everyone are the Orlando Magic, Memphis Grizzlies, L.A. Clippers, and (for all the wrong reasons) the Cleveland Cavaliers.
For the Cavs, many thought they would come out of the gates roaring after losing Kyrie Irving but gaining Derrick Rose, Jeff Green, Dwyane Wade, Jae Crowder, and eventually Isaiah Thomas. On opening night, the Cavs showed that they were still the cream of the crop, albeit with some hiccups, beating the Boston Celtics in what felt like a playoff game between both squads. The following contest, they still looked shaky but solid in a win against a very talented Milwaukee Bucks team.
After that, instead of roaring out of the gates, the team instead limped after dropping games to the Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets, New Orleans Pelicans, and New York Knicks and barely squeaking by the lowly Chicago Bulls and now sit at an overall record of 3-4. The clear indicators were the lack of defensive effort, especially on the perimeter, a lack of offensive cohesion, and the players simply looking gassed from top to bottom.
After every loss, Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue would sound like a broken record preaching that the team needs to address the above-mentioned problems but instead things would look worse and worse until the team had to clear the air during their practice on Halloween and try and move forward.
Look, these are grown men that are the very best in the world at basketball so the Cavs will get past this but with October now over, below are a few key things the Cavs can do to regain footing as the best team in the Eastern Conference.
The biggest and most glaring problem the Cavs have faced throughout their start to the 2017-18 regular season is the overall lack of effort on the offensive and defensive side of the ball and small mental mistakes that start a snowball effect of errors for the squad.
If you follow me on Twitter, I am quick to blow my stack over the Cavs making mistakes like this:
And that was just the game against the New York Knicks. Even if they are winning by over 100, I still find something to nitpick. But this year’s team has made it plenty easy to find things to complain about. On offense, the team has looked just mediocre, especially the starting lineup. This is mostly due to the fact that Lue has used a bunch of different starting lineups that have seen Kevin Love, LeBron James, J.R. Smith, Tristan Thompson, Wade, Rose, and Crowder play as a part of the five protagonists and has seemed to finalize a starting unit of Rose, Smith, James, Love, and Thompson.
Unsurprisingly enough, it is the exact lineup the Cavs rolled out with last year and throws a player like Crowder, a key offensive and defensive piece acquired in the Irving trade, back to the bench with inconsistent minutes. Jae Crowder, by and far, is a much better player than most reserves in the NBA, but the biggest problem is how he has been utilized so far in his first few games with the team. In Lue’s offensive schemes, he has been relegated to a spot-up perimeter kind of role. If he is going to be a member of the bench-mob then Lue needs to find more ways to integrate Crowder as a key part of the Cavs’ offensive schemes.
The other problem with Lue’s use of Crowder so far is his overall preference to lean on Jeff Green instead of Crowder in crunch time situations. This makes no sense as Crowder is an elite-level defender and a solid offensive threat compared to Green, who normally slops up as many bad jump shots for every flashy dunk he makes.
The other huge problem is the fact that the Cavs are not the 3-point shooting team that eviscerated groups like the Atlanta Hawks in the playoffs years ago. As seen above, J.R. Smith has been putrid from beyond the arc and besides Kyle Korver, the rest of the Cavs do not look much better either. The Cavs should instead play to their strengths of being a pace-and-space lineup, by attacking the basket and creating plenty of room for players like Korver, Love, and even Smith to burn teams from deep. Speaking of pace, the Cavs need to play at a much slower and methodical pace instead of trying to keep up in a track meet with teams like the Brooklyn Nets or Orlando Magic. If they play smart basketball and play for each other, things will quickly fall in place for the Cavs on the offensive side of the ball.
Finally, the last thing plaguing the team on offense is the lack of assertiveness when they play without LeBron James. They look lost and intimidated by teams and things quickly fall to the wayside akin to the time when Mike Brown was the head coach. New players like Dwyane Wade or Derrick Rose need to really step up to help prevent the Cavs from leaning on James so much and logging so many minutes before the playoffs.
On defense, it is pretty cut and dry for what the Cavs need to do. They need to learn to be able to defend teams who will shoot the three-ball so it no longer is a part of the scouting report that you can jack up as many 3-point attempts as you want against the Cavs. This kills the team and puts them in a massive hole which causes the team to chase their mistakes before flaming out against lesser opponents. Players like Lauri Markannen and Spencer Dinwiddie roasted the Cavs’ perimeter defense and the disrespect of Dinwiddie’s 3-point shot caused this to happen:
The reason the Cavs have looked so bad on offense and defense is the fact that they are simply out of shape. Part of this has to go with the fact that they had a shortened training camp, but the fact that they have been outgunned by nearly every team on the fast break has raised a few eyebrows multiple times throughout the start of the season. They cannot keep up with teams that kill them on the fast break and the lack of physical endurance has caused them to gas out on offense and defense when they play catchup for the remainder of the game.
Finally, the Cavs have brought in a ton of new players this season, totalling out eight new faces. It will obviously take time for them all to gel but something that may help is the fact that LeBron James’ annual Halloween party looked like a blast and all the members of the team and their families were in attendance:
Hanging out and spending time on and off the court together will help build chemistry and camaraderie, so these activities help alleviate some of the Cavs’ problems.
As mentioned before, the NBA has the best of the best when it comes to basketball talent and the Cavaliers are one of the absolute best in that department. But to start the season, the Cavs have not looked like the best team. In time, things will get better but the Cavs will want to get past a really bad month and head into November looking like the best team in the Eastern Conference.
