- 2 days ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00The Cavs are losers.
00:04Probably stopped the statement there, but by a final score of 109-93,
00:09they fall behind two games to zip.
00:12Knicks take both of the home games and now head into Cleveland,
00:15needing just two wins to close out the series.
00:20Obviously, a lot of series left to play, but this is the time.
00:25Jake Volnick alongside now Darryl Ryder,
00:26who's brought to you courtesy of Scheiben Jewelers,
00:28Cleveland's premier jewelry store.
00:31And Darryl, I mean, we could probably wrap up this postgame show
00:35in the next 30 seconds because I think we could just end it by saying
00:38they couldn't shoot tonight.
00:39No, they could not shoot the basketball.
00:4238.8% from the field.
00:45They were just god-awful from downtown.
00:479 of 35.
00:49Keep in mind, that's after they started 5 of 10 from deep.
00:524 of 7.
00:53They went 5 for 28 following the first seven threes they took
00:57from beyond the arc.
00:57Yeah, and you got absolutely no production from your bench.
01:00Max Drew, Sam Merrill, Dennis Schroeder, Jalen Tyson gave you absolutely nothing.
01:05A combined 17 points from those four players.
01:10Donovan Mitchell, even though he scored 26 points,
01:148 of 18 from the field, 2 of 7 from 3,
01:17did not appear to have the burst and the lift in him tonight.
01:21It calls into question whether or not he's dealing with something.
01:24From an injury standpoint, he's the type of guy, he's not going to say it.
01:28We'll find out after the fact type of deal.
01:31But he did not look like the same guy.
01:34James Harden is meh.
01:35I just, I'm kind of over James Harden at this point.
01:40I have no interest in him coming back the next two years, even though he's going to.
01:45Because he's not doing a lot to help this basketball team right now.
01:49Evan Mobley was really disappointing in the second half.
01:51He really vanished.
01:53And then, you know, Jared Allen, who started out strong,
01:56for whatever reason, they just, they went away from him.
02:00I think that's a big story.
02:01Yeah, I mean, it was working early, and I don't know why they didn't stick with it.
02:05But they didn't.
02:06And so, the end result is a 109-93 loss, which we could say was a schedule loss.
02:13I think everyone assumed that the Cavaliers were going to lose tonight,
02:16except for maybe the Cavs.
02:17And this is why you couldn't afford to give away Game 1.
02:20This is why I was so angry after Game 1, because I saw this coming.
02:25Okay?
02:26Look, you fought through a seven-game series.
02:30Hard to do.
02:31The Knicks were well-rested.
02:32They were not going to come out and shoot the ball as poorly as they did.
02:35In Game 1 against you, you blew a 22-point lead with under eight minutes to play.
02:40So now you come back to Cleveland down 0-2, and the pressure is on.
02:44You have to win both Saturday and Monday night on your home four
02:47to push this back to New York.
02:49Tied it two games apiece.
02:51You lose either one of those games, and I think you're pretty much curtains.
02:54Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much the—I think you're right there.
02:57I don't see this team coming back from 3-1,
02:58especially with the tread off their tires right now.
03:01I mean, they're just going to be absolutely—
03:03But you highlight the bigs, which I think is probably—
03:05Like, again, this game can be summed up by the fact that they didn't shoot the ball well.
03:08That is obviously the biggest issue here.
03:10You cannot afford to shoot sub-40% in a playoff game,
03:13especially while the Knicks shot the way they did.
03:15But offensively, I thought you hit on the big thing,
03:17which was the idea that the entire game just went away from the bigs.
03:21Like, there were 10 total shots by Jared Allen and Evan Mobley
03:25following the first quarter.
03:27Both guys were shooting above 50%.
03:29Evan was 2 of 2 in the second half.
03:32That was all that he took.
03:34Two shots inside the paint, knocked down both of them.
03:37You go to Jared Allen, he was 2 for 4.
03:39Inside the paint, all of his shots shot 50%.
03:42Like, they just stopped moving the basketball inside.
03:44They stopped giving the bigs opportunities,
03:48which—this team goes through infuriating moments of losing their identity.
03:52Well, do they even have an identity, though?
03:55That's—I think that's the issue.
03:56I mean, I understand what you're saying about losing their identity,
03:59but I'd argue they don't have an identity to begin with to lose.
04:02But I see it in both Game 7s.
04:04The identity where they play their best basketball is they play through the bigs.
04:07Jared Allen plays well.
04:08Evan Mobley plays well.
04:09There is an identity.
04:10I just don't know that they know there is one.
04:12Well, okay, that's fair.
04:13Their best games are played when everything goes through the bigs.
04:16It opens up Donovan Mitchell.
04:17It opens up James Harden.
04:18They have to start committing more resources inside.
04:20But you have to continue to feed those guys.
04:22Like, they did everything to feed them early.
04:25Evan Mobley was on a tear through the first quarter of that game.
04:28And then he was gone.
04:29Yeah, vanished.
04:31And look, this was a game in which turnovers were not an issue.
04:34They only turned it over eight times,
04:36which is like 50% below their playoff average.
04:39They averaged 16, 17 turnovers per game.
04:43Tonight, they gave up just eight of those turnovers,
04:45and the Knicks only able to score 13 points.
04:47So this was not an issue where the Knicks were taking advantage of Cavalier miscues.
04:52They were taking advantage of the fact that the Cavs couldn't throw it into the ocean
04:55standing on the beach at times.
04:57I mean, it's just an absolute god-awful shooting performance by the Cavaliers.
05:02You look at some of the numbers.
05:04We mentioned Donovan, 8-18.
05:06James Harden, 6-15.
05:07Max Druse, 1-7.
05:09Sam Merrill, 1-8.
05:11Jalen Tyson, 1-4.
05:14You're not going anywhere when you're shooting the basketball that poorly,
05:17and especially from deep.
05:19You know, really glaring your backcourt.
05:22Donovan Mitchell and James Harden combined 5-14 from behind the arc.
05:27Okay?
05:28And that is an abnormal shooting night for those guys.
05:32Unfortunately, you're in a spot where you can't afford abnormal shooting nights.
05:38It almost feels like the abnormal has become normal in that backcourt when it comes to the
05:41three-point shooting.
05:42Like, Donovan hasn't really shot it well.
05:44It felt like the entirety of the playoffs, and I don't have a stat to back that up.
05:47It's been a while where it feels like he's been on from beyond the arc.
05:51Now, he's hit a couple of big shots from beyond the arc, but he's not been consistent in it
05:57beyond the arc, which is obviously frustrating, but again, what you have committed to those
06:03two players, I need more production from those guys.
06:07Sorry.
06:08And again, I know Donovan had 26 tonight, but it was a pretty quiet 26.
06:14It was.
06:14I mean, it's as quiet a 26 as you're going to get from him.
06:17The explosiveness wasn't there.
06:19The burst wasn't there.
06:20The lift wasn't there.
06:22Even watching him shoot a couple free throws, he just looked tired.
06:25And again, I don't know if he's nursing an injury.
06:28I certainly hope not.
06:29But then there's part of me that's like, hopefully he is, because that explains his
06:32crappy play.
06:34But yeah, and he is supposed to be the engine for this basketball team.
06:41And I think when you talk about identity crisis, I think that's the identity crisis.
06:46That Donovan Mitchell probably should not be the leader of this basketball team.
06:50That he should not be the alpha, if you will.
06:54That needs to be Evan Mobley.
06:56It really does.
06:57And we said this going into the season, right?
07:00That the Cavaliers needed Evan Mobley to be their best player.
07:03And there have been stretches where Evan hasn't come close to being their best player.
07:07Unfortunately, there's also been some stretches where Donovan hasn't been the best player,
07:10right?
07:11So once again, the best players on the team did not step up.
07:15They shot poorly.
07:15Unfortunately, the Knicks did not shoot poorly.
07:18And they really didn't have much of an answer for Josh Hart or pretty much anyone in that
07:23Knick starting lineup tonight.
07:25So that was the other big thing for me.
07:27I think so much this game, you can kind of pin on the offensive side of the ball, obviously,
07:31when we look at the numbers.
07:32But defensively, I thought the strategy was very clear today.
07:35It was.
07:35Yeah, don't let Brunson kill you.
07:37Exactly.
07:37That was the entire strategy.
07:39They went into a zone immediately to start the game, stuck with it for a very long time
07:42despite, I mean, maybe a stint of success to begin the game, sort of.
07:46I mean, he shot 7-16, so I can live with 7-16 and 19 points from the field.
07:53I can live with that.
07:55The problem for the Cavaliers is Josh Hart had 26, Ananobi had 14, Kat had 18, and Bridges
08:03had 19.
08:05Like, the rest, like, okay, it's fine if you shut that faucet off, but you got to make
08:11sure there aren't leaks elsewhere on the line, right?
08:14It's almost like, I feel like when you are in the league, it's so much harder to kind
08:19of dissect, but when you watch it from an outside point of view, you look at it and you
08:23go, well, of course you can't just try to shut down Brunson.
08:25Like, all of those guys on that team are very capable in that starting lineup of being effective
08:29shot makers.
08:30Like, I mean, you look to their bench, they didn't get any help out of their bench.
08:33They had a total of 13 points off their bench.
08:35The Cavs bench outscored them for crying out.
08:37Also, outshot them by a significant margin.
08:39But here's the difference.
08:40The Knicks shot better from three, barely, not by much.
08:44They were 13 of 36, but nearly 52% shooting from the field overall.
08:50They got, the thing is, is the Knicks got to the rim at will, and they were finishing
08:55at the rim at will.
08:59That was a major problem tonight.
09:01And you turn to, again, the defensive strategy of take away Brunson, let everybody else do
09:05it.
09:06It was through his own defense that the Knicks never really showed to have that much of a
09:10problem with.
09:11Like, it was set a screen, go quick, and probably blow by one of the defenders.
09:16Set something up.
09:17You know, get the entire zone to rotate to one side.
09:19Throw a skip pass.
09:20Once again, coaching.
09:21Stuck with that zone too long.
09:23And you ended up digging yourself a hole.
09:26To me, the big difference in the game where really the tide turned in New York's favor
09:32was that third quarter when they ripped off that 18-0 run.
09:35Yep.
09:35That is the second consecutive game in which you give up a massive run like that, and you
09:42don't recover.
09:44I mean, you just, you can't allow that to happen.
09:47And that's not even like Kenny timeouts, third quarter, sure, he could have, I think he did
09:51call a timeout during it.
09:52I think he learned his lesson a little bit, but at the same time, like, you got to figure
09:56it out on the floor offensively.
09:57Like, you can't get outscored for what, I mean, it felt like it was six minutes probably
10:01on the floor where the Cavs were going without a bucket.
10:03It's like, you got to figure something out.
10:05You have to put points on the board.
10:06I mean, outside of just shooting poorly tonight, you can just tally the numbers up by the quarter.
10:11It was bad across the board.
10:12Their highest mark was 27, behind that was 23, and it was 23, 22, 21 across the final
10:18three quarters of play.
10:19It almost feels like Kenny just didn't have any answers in the first two games.
10:24That, you want to talk about, like, ultimate frustration for Cavs fan right now?
10:29It's just, it felt like in the first two games, Kenny, just no answers.
10:34No answers in game one to stop the Knicks avalanche there in the second half, especially that fourth
10:41quarter in overtime, and he had no answers again tonight in New York.
10:47And that's frustrating because, again, not to remind folks, not to beat the dead horse,
10:52but I'm going to beat the dead horse.
10:54That's why J.B. Bickerstaff wasn't here, right?
10:56That's why he's up in Detroit, and they hired Kenny Atkinson.
11:01Kenny was brought in to fill in the blanks, right?
11:05The blind spots that were there with J.B. as the coach, right?
11:12Now, they've gone to the next level.
11:14They've gotten through the second round.
11:15They're into the conference final, but my goodness gracious, I mean, this is not a resume
11:21builder for Kenny Atkinson with what we've seen in these first two games, not by any stretch.
11:25This has been bad coaching, bad coaching all around.
11:28Him and his coaching staff have really dropped the ball in these first two games.
11:32This is where I'm going to remind everybody to pump the brakes on Kenny, though, because
11:37this is the exact conversation we had in the Pistons series after two games.
11:41I didn't say fire him.
11:42No, no, I'm just saying, like, people are going to, they take this as-
11:45Don't you be putting words in my mouth.
11:46I did not say you said fire him, but I'm saying even the judgment passed on Kenny is,
11:50oh, well, they don't have the answers.
11:51They're not figuring it out.
11:52Kenny showed in the Pistons series, and they were much, you didn't blow a 22-point lead.
11:56You didn't get blown out by 16.
11:58It was like two 10-point losses that ballooned late, and they were really close down the stretch.
12:03The Cavs tied the game in the fourth quarter, both of those, but you walked away, and the
12:08conversations we were having were basically, is JB out-coaching Kenny Atkinson right now?
12:13Same conversation we're going to have right now.
12:14Is Mike Brown out-coaching Kenny Atkinson right now?
12:17And then we saw games three and four.
12:19The Cavs looked much cleaner.
12:21They had adjusted their approach.
12:22They had changed things.
12:23Same thing with Darko Ryakovich and the Raptors.
12:26From games one and two, they made clear adjustments when they got back on their home floor in games
12:30three and four, there are those kind of adjustments you get to make, especially as you head home.
12:37You get a second.
12:38You get the crowd behind you.
12:39Some things are going to start falling, and you're going to figure something out, but
12:42it is now a lot of weight on Kenny's shoulders to kind of figure that out.
12:45Yeah, and you're in a position that you've got to win four or five.
12:48If you're going to move on to the NBA finals, you've got to win four or the next five.
12:51Now, good news is, they've already done that.
12:54They've been in this spot before, coming home down 0-2 in a playoff series without home
13:02court advantage, right?
13:03They're going to have to win two games on the road.
13:05The bad news is, the New York Knicks play pretty well on the road, okay?
13:11But just watching these first two games, I don't have a helpless feeling.
13:18I think that's why I'm so frustrated.
13:21Because the Cavs can play with these guys.
13:23The Cavs can beat these guys.
13:26That's why I'm so frustrated.
13:28Because I see what could be there.
13:34And Kenny's dropping the ball.
13:36And your star players are dropping the ball right now.
13:40They're like, the core guys on this team.
13:44You know, we mentioned first quarter, you got Evans going good.
13:48Jarrett going good.
13:49And then, poof!
13:51You just, oh, what?
13:54Was it going too good for you?
13:55Was that the problem?
13:56You're not going too slow?
13:57What?
13:57What?
Comments