The season of the Cleveland Cavaliers is on a knife edge after their 83:96 defeat in game 5. The Cavs must now win the next two games to reach the finals for the fourth time in a row. But now of all times LeBron James shows signs of fatigue. His teammates aren’t much help.
First of all, the Celtics were not the strongest team that won all nine games in the TD Garden that evening in this postseason. 35.2 percent from the field was a low for Brad Stevens’ team, not even in the defeats away Boston had drunk so little target water.
And yet it was quite enough to win against a Cavs team that played with little energy and no wit, even though LeBron James wanted to see positive things: “Our defense was good, we kept it at 35 percent. We just couldn’t use anything ourselves.” That was quite a good thing.
The Cavs were particularly hard hit in the final section when Boston lost more than four minutes. The Cavs used this to run 9-0 after trailing 21 points, but the deficit was no longer in the single digits. That also had to do with LeBron himself, who was already completely submerged in parts in the first half, a circumstance that one is not really used to from him.
In the fourth quarter he almost took his team out of play himself. If the Cavs run had been only 4.5 points bigger, the Celtics might have started to think again, but 5 points from Al Horford was enough to rob the guests of any hope of a comeback.
Within less than three minutes, James directly or indirectly suffered three ball losses and thus empty posessions for his team. Some of them were unnecessary mistakes: Once he dribbled himself to his foot, then Rozier James stole the ball on the drive. The somewhat inaccurate pass on Jeff Green was still to be taken.
“He seemed a little tired,” his coach Ty Lue also said at the subsequent press conference, but also to add that he was not worried. LeBron himself put this into perspective by claiming that every player was tired at this time of the season. Instead, he listed in detail how his ball losses came about. Three of the six turnovers were awarded the title’carefree’ by the King. Yet: Who can blame him for this incomprehensible workload?
To attribute the defeat to James’ performance in the fourth quarter alone would be nonsense anyway. As in Games 1 and 2 in Boston, there was a lack of support. Kevin Love scored 10 points in the first quarter, but then submerged again. No other Cavs player scored more than 8 points, so you can’t win.
The other three starters came together at just 10 points, even though Coach Lue wanted to put this into perspective by trying to highlight the good defensive work of George Hill and J.R. Smith. But they didn’t turn the speed screw either, so Cleveland showed a lot of unimaginative half-field basketball and put three by three on the ring (9/34). Many things reminded of the tough performances from the Indiana series.
One who was in a reasonably normal form was Kyle Korver – if he was allowed to. Lue mixed his rotations a little confused again and brought the sniper only at the beginning of the second quarter, altogether the at least third-best Cavs player of this playoffs could only score 18 minutes.
The reason was then a little curious. “Stevens had always substituted Ojeleye, and that was Kyle’s matchup when he was in the game, so to speak,” Lue explained. “The fact that it wasn’t used today upset us.”
Then you have to say: Hats off, Brad Stevens, for this ingenious move not to let a rookie play without a throw in an important game and thus to throw the tactics of the opponent completely over the heap.
Seriously, the Cavs would have needed any offense from anyone in the game, and were so desperate that Jordan Clarkson stayed on the field much longer than planned before he shot himself out of play again. A Korver is of a different quality and also helps with its ability to spread the game. To make him play less because of Ojeleye is a bizarre decision.
But everything wasn’t bad, in Larry Nance Jr. there was at least a ray of hope. At the beginning of the playoffs the ex-Laker was not yet fit, but in the series with the Celtics he showed several times now that he can exert influence if he is not necessarily on the field together with Tristan Thompson.
Right from the start, Nance brought what the Cavs used to lack: lots of hustle and will. Maybe it’s not the best idea to get involved with Marcus Morris at a Tete-a-Tete, but it also showed that the Big doesn’t shy away from the big stage.
In just 17 minutes on the court, Nance collected 4 of the guests’ 7 blocks and was responsible for 2 of the 3 offensive rebounds. Nance embodied almost everything the Cavs need to extend their season. “We have to defend again, as we did today,” James demanded, to add: “Of course, hitting throws would also help.”
Of course, easy points would help, as there were no points at all in game 5. Cleveland scored just 2 points in transition and had only 30 finishes in the zone, far too few for a LeBron team. The advantages of the Cavs from games 3 and 4 were also minimized on the offensive board. Thompson became a non-factor with Aron Baynes joining the Celtics, Boston came in at 15 Second Chance Points (CLE: 5), actually no Celtics strength.
But this could also be the hope for the subscription master in the East. As bad as Cleveland was that night, so is the room for improvement. The Cavs have to win the next two games, otherwise the season is over.
The Cavs have to gain self-confidence in Game 6, especially the roleplayers. In addition, LeBron ideally saves some power that he would urgently need in a possible game 7. Nobody could win a victory in Beantown in this postseason, why a tired LeBron with a stumbling supporting cast?
On the other hand: Who can exclude anything at all with this moody team? The only constant Cleveland has in this postseason is called LeBron – but he is human too. From Cavs’ point of view, that was perhaps the bitterest insight from Game 5.
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