Cavaliers End Two Game Losing Streak by Routing 76ers, 119-95
After losing two games in a row to the Oklahoma City Thunder to fall to 4-4, the Cleveland Cavaliers thumped the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night, 119-95. The Cavaliers are now 1-0 in the NBA Cup, while the 76ers slipped to 1-1 in the NBA Cup and 8-2 overall. The Cavaliers led most of the way, and this time they avoided the disastrous collapse that they suffered in their previous game versus the 76ers, when Philadelphia rallied from a 29 point deficit to beat Cleveland 114-106 on October 22 to spoil the Cavaliers' home opener.
Donovan Mitchell scored a game-high 23 points and posted a game-high +28 plus/minus number while dishing a game-high eight assists and snaring seven rebounds. He shot just 7-18 from the field, but his aggressive drives enabled him to draw fouls and he shot 8-10 from the free throw line. Evan Mobley added 22 points and six rebounds as Cleveland's primary big because Jarrett Allen sat out due to injury. James Harden contributed 17 points on 4-11 field goal shooting. Mario Hezonja had 15 points and a game-high 10 rebounds in 27 minutes off of the bench.
Jaylen Brown led the 76ers with 20 points on 9-19 field goal shooting. V.J. Edgecombe had 19 points and a game-high four steals. Tyrese Maxey, who has been the team's best player so far this season, never found his rhythm, finishing with 17 points on 5-15 field goal shooting. LeBron James--who played 11 seasons for the Cavaliers in two different stints in Cleveland--posted a Draymond Green-style triple single: eight points on 3-12 field goal shooting, seven rebounds, and three assists. He also had a game-high six turnovers. Joel Embiid played very passively, producing six points on 0-9 field goal shooting plus seven rebounds in 25 desultory minutes. The 76ers shot 31-85 (.365) from the field.
One should not make conclusions based on one regular season game out of 82, but it is worth looking at what the 76ers had been doing well so far that they failed to do, and what the Cavaliers had not been doing well that they accomplished in this game.
The recipe for Philadelphia's early season success is the same recipe that has produced success throughout basketball history: prior to this game, the 76ers ranked third in the NBA in points allowed and seventh in defensive field goal percentage. After holding teams to 105.2 ppg on .435 field goal shooting in their first eight games, the 76ers allowed the Cavaliers to score 119 points on .455 field goal shooting. Teams that play hard defensively can win a lot of games even if they are not efficient offensively: the 76ers sit at the top of the Eastern Conference standings despite entering Friday's action ranked 20th in scoring and 20th in field goal percentage.
The Cavaliers started the season as a .500 team because of their leaky defense as they gave up 117.1 ppg (20th in the league) prior to Friday night. In this game, the Cavaliers limited the 76ers to 95 points after giving up at least 111 points in each of their first eight games. Note that the Cavaliers' high scoring offense (119.3 ppg in the first eight games to rank fifth in the league) was not enough to lift the team above the middle of the pack.
With 10% of the regular season in the books, what should we make of the playoff prospects for these teams? The Cavaliers seemingly have all of the necessary parts to win a championship: size, depth, three point shooting, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate (Mobley), and two All-Star guards (Mitchell and Harden). However, the whole is too often less than the sum of the parts with this team; the Cavaliers have a habit of blowing big leads and they are too often not strong enough in the paint at both ends of the court, traits that hint at a lack of mental and physical toughness--and traits that are often displayed by Harden's teams, because Harden has a proven track record of disappearing in the playoffs, a trend that continued during his first postseason run with the Cavaliers. The Cavaliers cannot be taken seriously as a championship contender unless they significantly improve their defense and unless they consistently display a lot more mental and physical toughness.
To win a championship, the 76ers need to maintain the defensive intensity that they displayed during their first nine games while also improving from below average offensively to at least slightly above average. A long-term concern for this team is that their age/lack of size is reflected in low rankings in rebounding (20th) and blocked shots (20th); there is not a path for this team to get younger or bigger, so because rebounding and shot blocking figure to be lingering weaknesses they will have to compensate by performing well in other areas. A clear hierarchy has emerged among the team's four stars: Maxey is the best player and leading scorer, James is the primary playmaker/second leading rebounder/fourth scoring option, Brown is the second leading scorer/primary perimeter defensive stopper, and Embiid is the only reliable big man/leading rebounder/third scoring option. Edgecombe is not part of the star quartet, but he ranks third on the team in minutes and he is a young, energetic player who is expected to hustle, defend, and rebound; he is a capable scorer when the star players relinquish control of the ball.
No matter how well Maxey plays, the 76ers will not go far in the playoffs unless James and Embiid stay healthy and play at a high level. James has not played more than 71 games in a season since 2017-18, and he has played 60 games or less in five of the previous eight seasons. Embiid has never played more than 68 games in a season, he has played in 39 games or less in each of the past three seasons, and he has never advanced past the second round of the playoffs.
In short, there is a long road to travel from an 8-2 regular season record to winning the requisite 16 playoff games to capture the NBA title.
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid, LeBron James, Philadelphia 76ers, Tyrese Maxey
posted by David Friedman @ 12:20 AM
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