Cleveland Versus Atlanta Preview
Eastern Conference Second Round#1 Cleveland (66-16) vs. #4 Atlanta (47-35)
Season series: Cleveland, 3-1
Atlanta can win if…the Hawks play extremely well defensively and convert those stops into transition scoring opportunities.
Cleveland will win because…the Cavaliers' suffocating half court defense will completely stymie the Hawks; look for Atlanta to score fewer than 85 points in several games in this series. Cleveland defends, rebounds and executes a half court offense much better than Atlanta, plus the Cavs have LeBron James, who is easily the best player on either team.
Other things to consider: The Hawks presented a lot of problems for the Celtics in the first round last year but the Cavs match up much better with Atlanta than Boston did; James, Delonte West, Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao not only can keep up with Atlanta's players in the open court but they can also be very effective in a half court set. The Hawks may go on a few 8-0 or 10-0 scoring bursts in this series as a result of steals and blocked shots leading to transition dunks but the Hawks are more likely to go five or six minute stretches without making a field goal as Cleveland's defense shuts down Atlanta's "dribble, dribble, dribble" half court offense.
You can find a more in depth take on this series in my newest article for CavsNews.com (6/19/15 edit: the link to CavsNews.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):
Sweeping the
Detroit Pistons earned the Cleveland Cavaliers more than a week to rest their
bodies and prepare their minds for the second round. The Atlanta Hawks beat the
visiting Miami Heat 91-78 in game seven on Sunday and will face the Cavs in the
Eastern Conference semifinals, which will start Tuesday night at Quicken Loans
Arena. The Hawks have steadily improved from 13 wins in Coach Mike Woodson’s
first season (2004-05) to 26, 30, 37 and 47 wins in the past four years. Uninformed
fans (and media members) often urged the Hawks to fire Woodson early during his
tenure in Atlanta
but the Hawks stayed the course and Woodson has done an excellent job of
developing his young roster. Last year, they pushed the eventual NBA champion
Boston Celtics to seven games in the first round and this year they made it out
of the first round for the first time since 1999, when former Cavs Coach Lenny
Wilkens guided Steve Smith, Mookie Blaylock, Dikembe Mutombo and company to the
Eastern Conference semifinals in the lockout shortened season.
The Hawks’
success in the past two seasons has surely made them a more confident team and
it is also evident that they have increased their poise and defensive intensity,
though they still are prone to having lapses in both of those areas from time
to time, especially on the road. Atlanta’s
best player is three-time All-Star Joe Johnson, a versatile shooting guard who
led the Hawks with 21.4 ppg and 5.8 apg this season. Johnson is very durable,
playing in all 82 games in five of his eight seasons and leading the NBA in
total minutes played in 2003-04; he has logged more than 3000 minutes in five
seasons, including 2008-09. However, contrary to what you may have read in the Plain Dealer, Johnson neither played for
Team USA last summer nor did he lead the NBA in minutes played this season (he
ranked second in total minutes with 3124 and third in minutes played per game
with 39.5). The Heat focused a lot of their defensive effort on slowing Johnson
down and he only averaged 17.1 ppg and 3.1 apg in the first round, though he
outplayed 2009 NBA scoring champion Dwyane Wade in game seven, producing 27
points on 10-19 shooting and contributing five rebounds, four assists and five
steals while committing just one turnover (Wade scored 31 points but shot just
10-25 and only had three rebounds, four assists and one steal while committing
four turnovers).
Clearly,
containing Johnson will be a focal point for the Cavs but the Cavs are very
well equipped to do so: Delonte West is an underrated defender who will draw
the primary assignment versus Johnson, while LeBron James will likely be called
upon to match up with Johnson in certain situations. Johnson averaged just 16.5
ppg versus Cleveland as the Cavs won three of
four regular season games versus Atlanta.
Veteran point
guard Mike Bibby and athletic forward Josh Smith are the Hawks’ next two most
valuable players. Bibby is very similar to Mo Williams, though Williams is
younger and quicker; both players nominally play the point guard position and
are capable of creating plays for others but primarily serve as
shooters/scorers. Bibby was Atlanta’s most consistent performer in the first
round, averaging 14.9 ppg while shooting .473 from the field, .533 from three
point range and .947 from the free throw line, much better than Johnson performed
in all three categories (.415, .435 and .629 respectively). Smith is a 6-9 pogo
stick who blocked at least 200 shots for three straight seasons, though he only
had 111 rejections in 2008-09; he can score, rebound, defend and even pass a
little but he has no outside shot and is prone to bouts of immaturity, both in
terms of his shot selection and his overall game to game focus. Some people use
the excuse that Smith is young but Smith is only one year younger and one year
less experienced than LeBron James. As Cavs fans well know, James has improved
his defense, free throw shooting, three point shooting and overall game—but
Smith’s game has changed very little since he entered the league and in some
ways he actually has regressed in the past couple years. Smith will have a few
fast break dunks and weakside blocked shots in this series but overall he will
be very frustrated playing against a tough, defensive-minded Cavs team that
held him to 9.7 ppg in three games this season, his second lowest scoring
average against any NBA team in 2009.
The Hawks
thrive in the open court but despite the skills of Johnson and Bibby their half
court offense is erratic and rightly received heavy condemnation during the
first round from TNT analysts Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. The Hawks’
athleticism gave the Celtics problems in the first round in 2008—at least in
Atlanta—but with LeBron James, Delonte West, Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao
the Cavs not only have no reason to fear playing in the open court but they
also have the ability to execute very effectively in the half court, thus
limiting Atlanta’s opportunities to get out and run. The Hawks have a solid
eight man playoff rotation when they are healthy but Al Horford is banged up
and Marvin Williams missed four games in the first round and his status is
uncertain.
LeBron James’
greatness is so obvious at this point that even the most casual observer—other
than maybe Skip Bayless—recognizes how special he is, even if it takes an
educated eye to fully appreciate some of the subtle ways in which he has
improved, particularly in the past year. The Cavs are finally getting some
recognition for their great defense, although most commentators are about two
years behind in figuring out just how good of a job Coach Mike Brown has done
in transforming the Cavs into a defensive-minded team; I had to laugh when I
heard Mike Wilbon say to James during ESPN’s Sunday Conversation that no one
thought that the Cavs were going to make it to the 2007 Finals: at least one
writer understood the value of defense and predicted
before the 2007 playoffs that the Spurs would beat the Cavs in the Finals.
The aspect of this year’s Cleveland
team that has yet to be fully appreciated in many quarters is just how balanced
and deep the Cavs’ roster is. The Cavs legitimately have at least 10 players
who could competently play 15 minutes in a game if necessary and, just as
importantly, that depth is well distributed at most positions: the frontcourt
rotation of bigs includes Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Anderson Varejao, Ben Wallace,
Joe Smith and Darnell Jackson, while the backcourt rotation has Mo Williams,
Delonte West, Daniel Gibson and Sasha Pavlovic. Wally Szczerbiak can play
shooting guard or small forward depending on matchups. With the obvious
exception of James, the Cavs can withstand an injury to virtually any other
player; Williams’ shooting/speed and Varejao’s mobility/toughness/screen
setting would probably be the toughest commodities to replace but the Cavs
could plug in other players, adjust the game plan to fit their skill sets and
still be very, very tough. I have mentioned this in a few recent articles but
it bears repeating here: the Lakers are the number one seeded team in the West
and many people (erroneously) call them the deepest team in the NBA but their
sixth man—based on minutes played in the first round—is Shannon Brown, who was
13th in playoff minutes played on the Cavs team that made it to the
Finals in 2007. If Brown were currently a Cav he likely would not be getting
any playing time at all, which is after all why the Cavs were willing to part
ways with him in the first place.
Labels: Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James
posted by David Friedman @ 11:40 PM
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