By Karl Kimbrough (pictured), Cleveland Urban News.Com Sportswriter (kimbrough@clevelandurbannews.com).
CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Cavaliers found the recipe for success in recent wins over Chicago and Denver. They beat the nuggets last week, and the Chicago Bulls lost to them the week before. A former Cavaliers head coach who returned this year to lead the team, Mike Brown is all too familiar with the ingredients necessary for a team to propel.
When an NBA head coach is asked what his basketball team needs to do to have success, he will often mention several areas that can be measured statistically, such as holding a team to a certain shooting percentage defensively and winning the offensive and defensive rebounding battle. Out hustling the other team to 50-50 balls and not turning the ball over a certain amount of times are important too. And shooting a certain percentage is also paramount to success of an NBA team.
What makes a team more successful than not though will rest on putting the right amount of talent on the floor and getting the most out of that talent. It is similar to finding the right recipe to make a great tasting peach cobbler. You have to find the right ingredients and also be able to understand how much of each ingredient to use.
In the first 11 games this season the Cavaliers Brown tried five different starting lineups. Why, because he was not getting the results that he wanted with each mixture of starters. It took Cleveland 17 games into this season before they found out how to get the most out of this current roster of players. On November 30, the Cavaliers beat the Chicago Bulls 97 to 93. They followed that victory with a win over the Denver Nuggets 98 to 88. It was only two victories, but in those wins the Cavaliers demonstrated that they have the ingredients or qualities needed to win games against good opponents.
Prior to the Chicago game the Cavaliers bench had been out scoring the starts, which is not good and almost unheard of in the NBA. The bench had been averaging 50 points per game. That is the best in the NBA, which is great. The flip side of that has been that the starts were averaging only 42 points per game before recently beating Chicago. So what changed in the 17th game of the season?
Three key starts began to give the starting lineup what it was missing. The main ingredient that the starting lineup needed was scoring, balanced scoring.
Andrew Bynum scored 20 points, and 10 rebounds and five blocked shots against Chicago and followed that performance with 14 points against Denver. Tristan Thompson had 14 points against Chicago and 14 rebounds and followed with 17 points against Denver. Kyrie Irving had 19 points against Chicago and 23 points against Denver.
Of course this was not the first time Irving scored 20 or more points in a game. He averages 20 points a game. But it was the first time that Irving , Bynum, and Thompson were balanced in scoring. So Cavaliers Coach Mike Brown finally got the right mixture that he needed to compete at a high level. Brown had been telling Irving to push the pace and get shots up quickly before the defense could set up in front of him. In order to push the pace the team had to get stops on defense and run off of their misses. The light finally turned on mentally and Irving saw the wisdom in attacking the defense before they could double team and trap him in the half court. This aggressive up tempo pace has payed off.
Irving and the Cavaliers were not aggressively pushing the pace in the first 16 games of the season. Teams knew Kyrie was the offensive leader as well as the first option in the offense so if they could make him uncomfortable in the half court slow down game the entire offense would become dysfunctional. Adding Bynum to the starting lineup with his size and offensive skills in the low post has taken the pressure off of Irving as the main option. Bynum has begun to get his lift back in his legs and is more effective. Bynum is often the first option in the half court sets when they don't get early offense. Now the Cavaliers can play inside out rather than outside in with Irving as the first option.
Offensive spacing began to improve in the Chicago game and carried over to Cleveland's next game against Denver. The Chicago and Denver defenses had to give help to Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer and J.J. Hickson because they could not handle Bynum on their own in the low post. The spacing and attention that Bynum brings to the starting lineup has also brought more space for Thompson to operate. Thompson has more free lanes to offensive rebounds and put backs off of Bynum misses while his man helps on Bynum. For example, Thompson had 21 rebounds against the Nuggets and nine of them were offensive rebounds. He also took the third most shots on the team behind Bynum and Irving scoring 17 points. Thompson said he worked very hard on his jump shot in the off season and now it's paying off. To create offense balance on the court and make defenses have to cover the entire court, successful NBA teams have at least three players on the court at all times who are offensive threats. They also need to be able to score 15 to 20 points a game which Bynum and Thompson has shown they can do if given the opportunity.
With this current lineup the Cavaliers now have three and possibly four players in the starting lineup that can score consistently, with C.J. Miles being moved into the starting five recently. The Cavaliers are now five and three with Miles starting and Dion Waiters coming off the bench. Miles is still recovering from a strained calf muscle. He has the ability to stretch the defense out with three point shooting.
Moving Dion Waiters to the sixth man role coming off the bench appears to have been the right amount of spice added to the mix because he has scored over 20 points four times in the last two weeks and can heat up quickly off the bench. Every good team needs a reliable sixth man they can count on to score. Waiters now is the leader of the second unit even though Jarrett Jack is the point guard of that unit. Waiters will take the lion share of the shots and be aggressive which is how he likes it. Anderson Varejao and Jack give the bench bunch balance with their will to do whatever is needed for success. They have been consistent bench producers most of their careers.
If Coach Brown gives them the opportunity consistently, Earl Clark and Anthony Bennett will be significant contributors to the team as they get acclimated and comfortable with their roles because they are very talented. One of the keys to having a successful recipe is to never forget it. Brown and the players, especially the key players that make it work, must remember their roles and not step outside of them. Irving must remind himself of the formula for success and keep his teammates in their roles. He acknowledged that when following about his role as a leader.
"It started with my leading these guys with energy in the beginning and trying to be aggressive on both ends of the floor" said Irving. On absolutely every single game, I must continue to get better, and get my pace better for my teammates to get used to.”
Brown gets his wish, which is getting his players to play hard tough defense. Irving and his teammates know they can not push the pace and be aggressive on offense if they don't cause their opponent to miss shots. So if the Cavaliers consistently mix it up on defense and continue to be aggressive in attacking on offense, they will continue to taste success. If they don't, the defeats won't be so sweet.
