00:00He's Mr. Chris Fedor. Hello, Chris.
00:03Hey, what's going on, guys?
00:04Hey, man.
00:05We're talking a little Cavs basketball today.
00:09Andy and I aren't terribly disappointed.
00:13Oh, no, I'm disappointed they lost.
00:15Well, yeah, but we both have a little optimism about even with what we saw yesterday.
00:21For me, it's because, okay, couldn't go much worse early on,
00:25and yet you're tied with five-something to go.
00:28You fought back.
00:30And I thought Detroit's offense looked susceptible.
00:33What's the feeling in your gut after game one?
00:38Well, it's hard because you talk about game one,
00:41and then you also talk about the Toronto series.
00:43So you're trying to talk about the Cavs from an entire playoff standpoint, right,
00:48and understand that every single matchup calls for something different.
00:51Every series takes on a life of its own.
00:54But these Cavs have played eight playoff games, and they haven't been good.
01:00They just haven't looked like the team from the regular season.
01:03They haven't looked like a legitimate title contender.
01:05They haven't looked like a team that is capable of winning the Eastern Conference crown.
01:10So it's hard for me to separate what I saw from Toronto and just focus solely on game one.
01:16But for game one, I do kind of understand where you're coming from.
01:21It was a tie game, five minutes to go in the game.
01:25Then they were outscored 18-8.
01:27So do you look at that and you say, well, despite all the things that they did poorly,
01:32they were right there, or do you say, if you have James Harden, if you have Donovan Mitchell,
01:38if you have Evan Mobley, you're paying those guys to come through in those situations.
01:43And then you can also look at it and say, well, despite the fact that they committed 20 turnovers
01:50that fueled Detroit getting 31 points of offense that kind of way,
01:55and Detroit's a limited offensive team,
01:57and there's no way that they're going to be able to replicate that production,
02:01despite those kinds of things, once again, the Cavs were right there.
02:05Or do you say, turnovers are a problem for this team
02:09because the styles that these teams that they're playing are bothering their offense?
02:14And I think it's hard to completely separate.
02:17And I think at the end of the day, we can sit here and we can say
02:20that the Cavs' turnovers, 20 of them in a game,
02:24maybe a little bit of an outlier, but they're one of the worst turnover teams in the playoffs so far.
02:30There's only one team with more turnovers than the Cavs, and it's the Los Angeles Lakers.
02:35So at some point, I think they're just showing too many flaws
02:40to give them the benefit of the doubt and come away from these losses
02:44feeling optimistic of all these different changes that they can make.
02:49Because we're having the same conversation here in Game 1
02:53that we had for the duration of the Toronto Series.
02:57Physicality, not coming through in clutch situations,
03:00not taking care of the basketball, not defending enough at a high enough level.
03:05And then most importantly, James and Donovan, their two most important players,
03:10just not being good enough.
03:14Can they correct the turnover problem?
03:17We sit here every day and we say,
03:19well, you know, it's fixable, they just need to pay attention to detail,
03:24they're a professional team, we say this over and over again,
03:27but seriously, do you think they can fix 20 turnovers a night?
03:33Why would I possibly say yes?
03:35That's how I would answer it, guys.
03:37Why would I say yes?
03:38Because they haven't shown signs that they can.
03:40I think what we have seen is that there is a certain style of defense
03:45that bothers this team, that takes this offense out of its rhythm,
03:49that makes these guys in particular uncomfortable.
03:53And they're playing against one of those kinds of defenses right now.
03:56And they played against one of those kinds of defenses
03:58in the first series against Toronto.
04:01I think it's absolutely perplexing that the Cavs continue to talk about bad games
04:08being outliers for them in the playoffs during this run.
04:11How many different times has Donovan gone up there,
04:14Kenny Atkinson gone up there, James Harden, Jared Allen,
04:17whoever is at the podium or in the locker room,
04:20they have said something along the lines of,
04:22we just played bad and we were right there.
04:25We just played bad and we had an opportunity.
04:28We just played bad and we threw the game away.
04:33They didn't say that specifically,
04:34but generally that has been the commentary coming out of the locker room.
04:39Look, if playing bad with an outlier, that would be one thing.
04:44But them playing bad through eight games of this playoff run
04:48has become the norm for them.
04:50They aren't the Oklahoma City Thunder.
04:52They aren't the New York Knicks.
04:54If the New York Knicks have a bad game, they can go up there and say,
04:58well, we just played bad.
04:59We just had an off night.
05:01And then you can look at it and you can say, you're right.
05:04That was an outlier for you guys because you've been great.
05:07Sam Merrill left the game in the first quarter.
05:09That made things complicated as well.
05:13But Jared finished with four fouls.
05:15So like he had another one to give.
05:17And if he picks up his fifth and then you want to be extra cautious about that,
05:22totally understand it.
05:23Totally understand it.
05:25But the lineup that he threw out there to start the fourth quarter,
05:30this is game one of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
05:32This is not February.
05:34This is not game 73.
05:36And playing Jarrett Allen, who was incredible in game seven,
05:41probably the reason why the Cavs won game seven of the Raptors,
05:45playing him for 18 minutes in that kind of tone setting game where you need his
05:51length, you need his strength, you need his bulk.
05:54The Pistons obviously want to attack the paint over and over and over again.
05:59Cade wants to get downhill.
06:01I just don't think there's enough justification for that kind of workload for
06:06Jared Allen.
06:07The other thing is there is no rule that when you get to the Eastern Conference
06:12semifinals, that you have to play these guys their regular season minutes or you
06:18have to use your regular season rotations.
06:22Rui Hachimura for the Los Angeles Lakers played 37 minutes last night.
06:27LeBron James, at 41 years old, played 36 minutes last night.
06:32Why do I bring those two guys up?
06:34Because that's more than Donovan Mitchell played last night for the Cavs.
06:37And I know the Cavs were coming off a seven-game intense war against the Raptors
06:43and they didn't have much time between game seven and game one.
06:47And every single game this series is every other day.
06:51And Kenny might be playing the long game.
06:53But he is treating this, when it comes to his rotations with his lineups and some of
06:59his minute allocation, it feels like he's treating it more like regular season
07:05games in February and March, as opposed to what it is, which is, you know, do or die
07:11situations in the playoffs.
07:14Cade Cunningham played 42 minutes.
07:17Tobias Harris played 39 minutes.
07:20It's okay to push these guys a little bit more.
07:23It's okay to give them a little bit more trust.
07:27And for Jared Allen to only play 18 minutes, look, I get the fall trouble and I understand
07:33being out of rhythm, but you just can't justify that.
07:37He's one of their most important players.
07:39So I put that one on Kenny Atkinson.
07:41That was a failure on his part.
07:44All right.
07:44Lay down the formula for the Cavs to win.
07:48Let's go positive.
07:49Give me a formula where they can win.
07:51What do they need to do?
07:53Well, the first thing that they have to do is outshoot their opponent.
07:56And you might say, no, duh, but like, it is a drastic difference for this basketball team.
08:01In the regular season, they were 42 and three, went out shooting their opponent, and they
08:06were like 10 and 27 when failing to do that.
08:09One of the problems with last night is they outshot Detroit.
08:12So that was their fourth loss all season long, where they outshot the opponent.
08:16And obviously the turnovers had to do with that and other factors had to do with that.
08:20So they have to have a more competent offense against Detroit.
08:26Like Detroit's defense is one of the best in the NBA, but the Cavs' offense is supposed
08:31to be one of the best in the NBA as well.
08:33So that gap has to like shift a little bit more toward the Cavs' favor.
08:39They have to continue to do a good job in making Cade Cunningham inefficient.
08:44They have to continue to do a good job in making him uncomfortable, wearing him down,
08:49forcing him into more turnovers, forcing him to look the way that James Harden has throughout
08:56the course of this playoff run at times.
08:58And I think the other piece is that the best players have to play like the best players.
09:04Evan Mobley has to be better than he was in game one.
09:09Donovan Mitchell and James Harden have to be better than they were in game one.
09:13They have to be better than they've been throughout the course of this particular playoff run.
09:18But I do think that there are exploitable deficiencies that the Pistons have.
09:24Do they have enough secondary creation aside from Cade?
09:27Do they have enough consistent outside shooting?
09:31Is Jalen Duren somebody that is going to be an offensive threat aside from dunks, layups,
09:40putbacks, and things along those lines?
09:43And can you find a way to get your offense to look a little bit more comfortable than it
09:50looked against Detroit for large stretches of game one?
09:53I thought in the second half, the Cavs started to find some things offensively.
09:57In the fourth quarter, they started to find some things offensively, but more consistently
10:02than what it has been throughout the course of certainly this playoff run and game one as a whole.
10:09Chris, thank you, buddy.
10:11You're the man.
10:11We'll be following in all your work on cleveland.com.
10:15Chris Fedor covering the series for The Plain Dealer and certainly listen to his Wine and Gold
10:20Talk podcast.
10:21Thanks, bud.
10:22Thanks.
10:23You got to guess.
10:24Any of that.
10:24You got to have it, but it doesn't really matter.
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