Great game 1, led wire to wire and dominated the matchups we needed to
Some observations
Starting Jonathan Isaac and his affect on Defense
Isaac only started 2 out of 58 games played this year, I imagine we see Orlando play with their lineups through this series
The reason to start Isaac to attempt to limit switches on the perimeter and make life harder for Donovan/DG
Most of that benefit is lost when Paolo is playing in a drop (which he did, prob to conserve energy as he's their entire offense)
Paolo has to fight through switches rather than play drop coverage which is forcing the magic guards to fight over the screen or give up an open 3
Their offense (esp in half-court )
it's almost an '07 style offense we ran with LBJ they are trying with Paolo
Orlando barely got out in transition, when the Cavs are setup in the half court and you lack shooting, it's gonna be a tough night
Suggs lack of half-court playmaking is killing them
Orlando took 30 foul shots and barely broke 80 points, a terrible shooting night from them
Mobley tormented Paolo on defense, Paolo had 9 turnovers (out of 12 total team TOs)
When Mobley was out we completely changed our coverage on Paolo, putting Niang on him and having 3 or even 4 guys ready to help at any given time…I was as suprised as anyone to see Niang on Paulo but his energy/size and the help waiting took advantage of Paolo's want to attack when Mobley was out, great coaching by JB and team
We even ran a little matchup zone at times and completely dislodged their offensive philosophy when we did it, we didn't need to use this more today but I imagine we'll see it used throughout the series
performances from G Harris/M Fultz/J Suggs basically made it so they had no chance to compete
The Core 4 dominated
Donovan stepped up his game exactly when needed, he was THAT dude last night rose his level of play to match the moment, anyone catch the Kyrie vs the Knicks 'dark knight' game spin by Donovan, he's unreal.
Give JA his roses, he dominated the paint from end to end and put to rest his infamous quote from last year, other than Caris JA might be the least appreciated cavalier he's an all-star level C and he absolutely dominated the paint on both ends
Mobley turned in a phenomenal defensive performance, they couldn't get anything going when Paolo was asked to initiate in the half-court, his 3 point shooting was obvious but how about his post game (watch him score 3 consecutive buckets in the post, bullying Orlando for trying to run a small zone, love to see it)
DG's playmaking was the best on the court, the box score doesn't really tell the tale of how he was manipulating their defense and getting good looks for our guys, the pass to JA out of the scramble was a beautiful read for example, monitoring his back injury will be concerning going into game 2 we need his playmaking in the half court
Moving forward through the series
The NBA ruleset basically goes back in time to the early 2000s during the playoffs and you could see Franz and others were uncomfortable, just listen to Paulo discuss it in the postgame Franz mentioned it too..keeping the level of physicality through the series is primary
Orlando has to figure out a way to compete with us inside, I don't think banking on getting hot from 3 is a real strategy for a 7 game series
I wouldn't be surprised to see them go big in the next game playing Suggs, Franz at the 2, Paolo at the 3, Isaac at 4, and WCJ at the 5…their guards are going to have to gang rebound bc JA is dominating the boards and having Isaac (a PF, not really a C) on him is just giving up the paint
Orlando must run on every miss, they can't crack our half-court D (near 50 ortg in the half court yesterday)
On our end, we have to clean up the unforced TOs, our guys were hype and it showed in some excited nerves, still i'm reaching for criticism that was a master class by JB and the staff
We've built some great momentum heading into game 2, the first half will go a long way to telling if it's a real series or if we're looking at 4 or 5 games
6 comments
Paolo*
I’m a “JB hater” according to this sub, which means I think he’s a good coach for a young team with no expectations but want to see this roster under a different coach/staff to get a different approach to offense, find his play calling and rotations usually lacking, etc. I don’t have one complaint about the coaching this game, great rotations, good challenge, and even a couple nice out of timeout plays. The defensive coverages were all on point, and the team executed the game plan. Just need to hit our 3s and cut out a few of unnecessary turnovers and this is at most a 5 game series for the Cavs. It looks like the tanking for Orlando strategy is paying off and JB will finally get a playoff series win. I just have no idea what they plan to do against Boston.
It’s a great game and a great result against the Magic. Where I grow concerned is when we end up against a team that can actually hit their shots.
What the fuck happened out of the half?
I was also thinking it looked like early Cavs offensive scheme except Lebron was about 4,000% more aggressive.
It feels like there’s a very peculiar double standard going on in the talk around this series. Like, everyone is high on Orlando’s defense for good reason, but when they put up 83, that speaks to their offensive shortcomings and not the Cavs’ ability to defend. And a lot of talk of Orlando’s cold shooting being the difference in game 1 as if the Cavs weren’t cold as well.