Justin and Carter react to the Cavs winning streak coming to an end at twelve. They discuss what lessons can be learned from the loss, how they may approach nights like this in the future. As well as how the loss may help focus them as they head into one of the most challenging stretches of their schedule.
This crowd rises to its being what Carl slam it? Oh Carl left wing, free ball, perfect dart pop the hell block, the shot at the rim? How with the left hand and of foul.
Welcome to the Chase Down Podcast, part of the Caves Media family. I'm your host Justin Browen. The Chase Down is presented by Fubo, the official streaming partner of the Calves. Watch over three hundred and fifty channels of live sports and TV, including fan Duel Sports Network without cable. There's no cost and no commitment. Try for free at FuboTV dot com Slash Calves. While the winning streak came to an end at twelve, the Calves second double digit winning streak of the season came to an end against the Indiana Pacers. The Calves failed to score one hundred points for the first time all season. But you know what, no who knew who never fails to score one hundred points in my heart, Cairo Rodriguez, my co host, Carter, How you doing, buddy.
I'm doing good. Obviously sucks to lose, way, way more fun to win every single game like they've done pretty much which all year. So you know, got to clear that one out of the way. Also got a little a little family business out of the way. Uh. Proud, proud cousin of Jack Sawyer, who who made a you know, an unbelievable strip sack and and uh and run back for a touchdown. You know, super proud of my family in that in that moment and uh, you know, like one of the most iconic players in the history of college football and certainly of Ohio State football.
Uh.
And it's it's my cousin Michelle's kids. So pretty cool man.
You know, Carter's been messaging me since that play has occurred, saying that he taught him everything he knew.
You know that.
Oh yeah, this is the famous genetics running through the well.
I mean, look at me and look at Jack Sawyer. You know, two peas in a pod.
Hey, I I saw the chase down with the Cavs intro video, which, by the way, coming up of it in four years, I think of that, which is absolutely absurd. But I've seen your athleticism at works. I don't sell yourself short. As I mentioned at the top, this is the first time they failed to score one hundred points this season.
You know, that was a streak that.
We were keeping an eye on our buddy mac Perry has been catalog in that all year.
But it's you know, it's.
A disappointing offensive performance. Offensively, the Calves have had nights where they haven't shot the ball well before, and they've found ways to generate offense in other areas. And I really feel like this is a game, especially coming off the OKAC game and some of the other ones that we've seen recently against physical teams. We credited the Calves for really maintaining their composure in a lot of those matchups, and I felt like tonight was a night where they let that get to them. They let the physicality of this game impact their decision making. And I really want to focus on that more than the shooting variants because we've had these games. We have, you know, nine games where they shot below the league average this year coming into tonight, and they were six and three in those games. They found ways to still be a winning team in a lot of the spots, and I think a lot of that has been because of how much composed sure they've they've shown all season.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, first off, crazy, they've only had nine games where they've shot below league average. And that is the one thing I'll say on the shooting is that I feel like so much of the season has been the Cavs having quarters, abs, etc. Where I go, Man, they can't buy one today. This might be one of those days. And then you look at the box score at the end of the game and they've scored one hundred and seventeen points and are at thirty eight percent from three. You know, this certainly wasn't that they go eleven of forty one from three as they're trying to make a comeback in the mid to late fourth, set up two or three wide open corner threes for Merrill and Wade, and you know, a bunch of guys and it's just nothing doing. But you're right that, you know, it did feel like they weren't able to you know, and even Donovan talked about a post game, you know, kind of maintaining their composure and not letting things kind of brassle them. Yeah.
Absolutely, And you know, even though the role guys missed law threes, Lavert didn't hit any icicle. Coral continues to be over since returning from that shoulder injury. Obviously that was to his shooting shoulder, but he is now oh for eight on those shots. I gotta say it still looks like it's leaving his hand cleanly, and it's not like they are wildly bad misses, but definitely something to keep an eye on it as we see him kind of work his way back into the lineup. But it's funny, I know, I privately messaged you, I think it's either today or yesterday we're saying I got a bad feeling about one of these Pacers games. I feel like every season comes with some stinker against the India Anna Pacers. I just thought it was going to be the road one. But I thought it was interesting in Donovan's postgame comments where he said, you know, maybe this is a bit of a good thing heading into this three game road trip, where you know it gets us to refocus, because I do think that the focus has lacked at times. And that's one of the tricky things when you are in the midst of a winning streak is you can kind of you're playing the streak as much as you were playing the team against you, and you know every team's going to be giving you.
Their best shot.
But I felt like tonight was one of the first nights where the shots weren't falling, and it was almost like their approach was these are going to drop at some point. We don't have to change up a whole lot. We're not going to to you know, adapt our approach to account for that. It just kind of felt like, you know, especially with Helliburn out in the second half, like they're sitting there with a fifteen point lead in the third, and I think that might have been a contributing factor to them taking their foot off the gas a little bit.
And I think there's also like, I mean, their offense wasn't exactly humming. They only had fifty three points in the first half and boy, forty points second half. Like this feels unheard of for this team at this point in the year, but that's what they posted. But with that said, like the one thing that happens for Indy when Haliburton goes out at the half is all the minutes now go to Andrew Nemhard do TJ McConnell to these you know, these bulldogs at the point of attack that are you know, not there's you know, there's no real safe quarter. But that said, I mean, you still should have put up better than forty points same. Of course, I think they would probably tell you as much. But like I do, think there's like it's twofold. Not only do you put you take your foot off the gas, you also stop having an easy spot to attack on the defensive end.
Yeah, exactly, And you know that I think one of the byproducts of having both McConnell and Emharden there it was Indy felt very comfortable doing that full court press. You to do with that with Tyrese Halliburn because you know, I think his issues on the defensive.
End are well chronicled.
But I thought that with Indy kind of doing the full core press, you want to do the full court press to rush guys, and I didn't even really feel like they were being rushed. I thought that they just didn't look sharp, like even inbounding on possessions where they didn't get a turnover, it was a near turnover on several occasions. And you know, it was very clear that the physicality of this game was getting to them, and I just you can't let that impact how you're going to play. I thought they were rushed at times, they were too slow at others, and you know, for as frustrated as they were. It was even right it was eighteen eighteen at the free throw line. For as bad as the cash shot eleven of forty one from three, Indy was eleven of thirty five. So it's not like, hey, we couldn't hit anything, they were hitting everything. What it really came down to twenty to thirteen edge in points off with turnovers, so you know you're losing the position battle and you're giving them easy opportunities. There's gonna be some overlap with this next step, but a fifteen to three edge in fast break points. Cavs are above average fast break defense. This shouldn't have occurred to the extent that it did. But I think those two stats in particular are really kind of what ended up dooming them in this matchup.
Yeah, and I think it like that just goes back to the focus and in the composure point, you know, how did Indy run on this team in this game? It was, you know, they deflect the ball and they're getting handsy on the way to do it, and the guys kind of just like stop and turn instead of sprinting back, or or they just weren't paying attention to their floor balance on offense. You know, and like you mentioned that the press maybe didn't cause them to rush or like speed through their process. I think it just chunked everything up, you know, and they weren't really you know, no one was in the right spots at the time to the point where they wanted to catch it. And yeah, there just wasn't a sharpness. And like that sharpness extends to things like floor balance. Like I always say, transition defense really isn't that much about running back, Like, yeah, that matters, but most guys run back yep, Like I mean, it's very very rare. Do you see guys literally opt out of running back on defense? For the most part, it's you had four underneath your own free throw line when the shot went up. I do feel like that happened quite a bit in this one. Yeah, and when you're bricking, it gets really rough, and I feel like they allowed themselves to kind of get gunked up on the offensive end. I think that is one of my takeaways from a lot of kind of their their you know, worst shooting nights of the season. It's funny looking at it. Their four worst shooting nights of the season came against bottom ten defenses. Atlanta bottom ten defense, Indy bottom ten defense. The other one was Washington bottom ten defense. And you know, the Washington in particular, I think was a lack of sharpness and a lack of focus, and I think that could be said about you know, at least one of those Atlanta losses.
I think the home one was just kind of a true shooting variance game, but these other matchups, I really do think that it is, you know, a lack of maintaining focus. And that's why it's so hard. That's why you don't see many teams get out to the start that the Cavs have had, because these are the type of losses that happen in a regular season, Like you can lose your focus. But I think it's still even though you know, we could very easily have a five minute podcast here and be like, you know that this is one of eighty two. This stuff happens to every single team, But I think it's really important to explore that that why and continue to say, Okay, how do they handle these situations in the future. You know, you're you're playing against a poor defense, You're you're you know, you're you're up fifteen points in the third quarter, they're missing their you know, second best player in Tyrese Halibern.
Like you're.
If you get into a funk and you're not scoring of offensively, and they're kind of throwing the kitchen sink at you defensively, Like, all right, we can't trust our base defense. Let's just blitz. Like can the Cavs find ways to adjust to that? Can they find ways to beat the blitz? Because they've done that, They've done that against better defenses. But it's just making sure that you don't let these bad habits creep in. Because if you let these habits creep in and they hang around for a while, you know, you're going to start dropping some of these road games. You're going to start dropping some of these games in January where you're playing a much better competition. So I think it's you know, hopefully this is something that they can learn from and turn around quickly, because I do think that they're they're going to get tested over these next couple of weeks.
Yeah, and they're just playing really, really high quality competition. This is probably the toughest stretch of their schedule all season. You know, I want to say, I think Vedor had this stat is like thirteen of the tea like next seventeen against teams with winning records or something like that, and yeah, like you can't. There has been some slippage in these last two games. You know, on Toronto they have one of their worst defensive games of the year, and you know, Toronto puts up one hundred and twenty six on him and Darius has to kind of be a hero down the stretch, and you know, they follow it up with one of their worst offensive games the year, and you know, it's it's a tough balance, I think, and I'd be interested to, you know, be in Kenny Atkins and shoes figuring out how to talk to the team because like it's hard to ride them too hard, you know, you have thirty three and five. But you know he does. He did have some like pretty harsh words for the team after the game. Evan Damerl tweeted from the presser quote, our standard has to be higher. We tend to relax when we have these leads. We tend to have complacency when we have these leads. And like, do you think that's do you think that's a coach frustrated that his team had a bad game, or do you think that's a wider thing for this team to actually focus on.
I think that is Kenny trying to reel them in. If I had to guess, like, hey, we're about to go on this road trip, we can't we can't let this become a habit. I don't think that's been true of them overall on the season. Like, I think that's one of those things that's naturally true, right, Like, when you get up by twenty thirty points, you're going to take your foot off the gas a little bit, right, Like you're not going to execute with the same sharpness as a game against Okay, see where there's thirty lead changes. So I think that's natural. But I think that is Kenny, you know, basically giving them a message, giving them a takeaway that, hey, you know, let's hold ourselves to a higher standard. And I think he probably had some harsh words for them in the locker room as well. But I agree with you with how well they've played. I don't think necessarily even have to go overboard, because I do think you don't get out to this good of a start if the players aren't holding themselves accountable on a nightly basis as well, Right, and I think you heard that with Donovan's comments post game. He was the only player that I had the opportunity to hear speak at getting ready for this postgame podcast. But it's exactly what you'd expect, right like, Hey, we can't give up sixty eight points in a half in the second half shooting variant games that are going to happen, but we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. And I really do think it this kind of performance. It starts with the guards. Darius twenty and seven, you know, seven to sixteen from the field, three of nine from three, but he had four turnovers seven assists of four turnovers. I think he had like four or five turnovers all road trip when they went out west. He has to be better than that, Donnie sign. He had a rough one, but even at that, like, he had a terrible start. I think he started one of seven or one of eight. He only missed one shot more than Darius, right Like, he managed to hit some shots as the game progress but one assist of three turnovers. Those guys have done played such a big role in maintaining the Cavs having such an elite turnover rate that they take such great care of the basketball that was okay, se wasn't able to generate an advantage in that category against them. So I do think it has to start at the head of snake when you talk about maintaining that sharpness and making sure that this doesn't become a recurring pattern.
But for what it's worth, the one thing I will say, it's not like they had twenty two turnovers. You know, thirteen is a pretty reasonable number. I would say the more troubling number is the twenty four assists. Yeah, and frankly, the thirty three made field goals has got to be their lowest of the season. Those stats can correlate for sure when you're missing shots. And like, I do think there was a This is where it's always so hard man, because on one hand, we can say you gotta you can't get gunked up, you gotta be better, but it's really but you know, I do feel like every time I watched donnom and attack the paint, I saw two or three pacers in there, and it's really hard to you know. So like I don't think the answer I'm not saying you're saying this. In fact, I don't think you're saying this I think the answer is, Okay, this jumpers aren't going in, so just the guard's got to try to score at the rim, because like, I don't really think that was gonna bear fruit. This is a long athletic Indiana team, and that I felt like they were really trying to pack the paint, and you know, the Cavs got, you know, a lot of open threes. The only thing I almost wonder if maybe the pivot just needed to be, Hey, if we're not shooting well, Evan, we need to funnel you the ball. Jarrett, we need to funnel you the ball. Because to your point, like all they did just kind of hold the line. They just kind of kept playing the same way, you know, guards trying to get into the paint, kickout, see if you can swing swing for a three, and you know that strat is borne fruit for them during the season, but on a game where you just don't have it going at all, and you know, playing this style isn't working. The fact that Evan and Jarrett combined for as many field goal attempts as Darius and one less than Donovan, maybe that's where you kind of point your attention a little bit offensively.
Yeah, and I thought Evan kind of had his way with Siakam in the first half, like he was giving him a lot of trouble, and you look at the second half, only two shots like that can't happen. I feel that has kind of been the bread and butter of when things aren't working offensively, let's go to our bigs. And to your point, I thought it was a really interesting strategy for Indiana right to press full court and then if it does get to the half court, if we're not able to generate to turn over. One, we've taken more time off the shot clock so they're able to initiate less stuff offensively, and then two packing the paint, as you said. And I'm very curious to see. Not not that I don't think everyone's going to be taking, you know, game tape from the Atlanta Hawks and Indiana Pacers to figure out how to defend the.
Calves, but I you might have to because there hasn't been a lot of good tape otherwise.
I do wonder if when we go to that okayc game on Thursday, not not we go, but you know, watch that game on Thursday, Royal. That would be a lot of fun. That's a straight drive down for me. But I'm curious if Indiana or if OKAC is going to end up packing the paint a little bit more and less of the switching and the blitzing. I mean, the switching in the blitzing has been such, you know, the cornerstone of their defense. They really challenge you at the point of attack. I wonder if they're going to pack the paint and say, this time, we're not really going to let the beat us in the same way. We're not going to allow them to beat our blitz and generate open shots off of this. Let's see if we can kind of trust our point of attack defenders to do a good enough job and try to take the bigs out of it.
Usually teams try to do it the other way.
But I'm curious to see if that's an adjustment, because I do feel like when you blitz us in the half court, the Calves have had counters for that all season.
Yeah. Well, I mean there it always comes down to the fact that, especially against a team with an offense like this, there isn't It's not an ideological way to win, It's an executional way to win. Yeah, because this Calves team is killed drop coverage and packed the paint coverage all year. You know, it's really about do you have the horses to really bother at the point of attack, really make them work their butts off to get the get into their sets in the first place. And then you know, again you're just gonna you you do have to if you're gonna try to stop this Cabs offense in the day, you do have to hope they'll miss. Yeah, like uh, and they did miss tonight, but like, yeah, I mean you're gonna be giving up something. I've been interested to see if they'll try a little bit more drop or you know, or how how okay see changes what they did. But uh, but yeah, man, it's I don't know if there's a schematic answer as much as it is be really really good and and junk it up, make it hard.
Yeah, And you know, across the board, and none of the lineups were really working tonight. The starters only outscored indeed by one point. The rotations got a little bit weird because Alan took that elbow to the chick lits and I don't know, I didn't see any reporting on it, but I assume that's why he didn't check it in the second quarter until much much later, and we had some wait at the five minutes. But you know, it was just kind of one of those funky, weird nights. But yeah, I'm curious to see if there are those type of adjustments from Oka.
See. I think this is going.
To be a really really interesting test, and I think they're going to get tested again on Tuesday against Indiana that's usually a spot where they've had some troubles in the past. Well, it'll be interesting to see if Halliburton plays in that one in particular. But I just want to see how the Cavs respond to this, because I feel like they've done such a great job responding all season. It's just usually those responses come within the game, right. We love the adjustments that they've made between quarter and a quarter, half to half, and it really felt like they had gain control of this game going into halftime, and the third quarter started out pretty well and then you know, it was a reverse canval anche. It was a cantle anch, like they just could not get anything to go. And I think it was like six or seven minutes where they hadn't scored a bucket.
Yeah, I mean, and a half. It's just crazy for this team. I mean the fact that they only top twenty two points in a quarter in the second quarter, you know, I mean nineteen thirty four, eighteen twenty two, and you know, maybe there is a bit of This was probably the first game, I believe this is the first game all year where they played what I will expect to be their top ten in the rotation. Obviously ties your ome out with an illness, but you know, and by the way that this is so a ties your own game, Yeah, you know, I think I think if he had been.
We need some ball handling, We need a little bit of juice offensively.
Yeah, we need we need someone to change the rhythm of what's going on because I don't like the way my team's playing. I don't like what you know that the other teams get one on over us physically like this is would have been a probably a break glass in case of tied Jerome game, and obviously they didn't have them. But you know, there is probably a bit of adjustment going on with guys kind of figuring out how they're going to fit in within the larger rotation. You know, he played Niang twenty Ocoro eighteen, Lavert twenty two, and Shrews twenty three and then Merrill twelve off the bench. What do you think of the minutes distribution the subs. Do you think that there's maybe a little bit of a learning curve there?
I think it was solid, Like that's what I expect, right, I expect the bench guys to largely be in that twenty to twenty four minutes and even you know, the fifth starter, like Dean Wade is the starter currently, but he played twenty minutes. I expect if they do make a change in the starting lineup and we do see struce there, which we can get into kind of the argument for that again. But I feel like we've discussed it a bunch of times, but I feel like Dean Wade's minutes are going to remain the same, whether he's coming in off the bench or whether he's starting. What will be interesting is if they do make that change, as he said, there's going to be another adjustment period to that. There is going to be a learning curve to that. I think, as it's currently constructed with Wade starting at the three, your natural rotation because you need to get another frontcore player in there is to sub Niang. Once you go to you know, Max Strus or Isaacle Corros starting, I think we still are assuming that it's Streuce, but that a core lineup was great when when he was playing well. Once you go to that, you all of a sudden have a decision flexible. You have a decision of okay, am I going to go to Niang? Am I going to go to Wade? Am I going to go to both of them? And kind of playing Niang is a three on offense and change up how we're doing things. So it almost becomes all right, do I go to Isaacle Corral or George Niang first? If Struce was the starter, so it's going to be really really interesting.
I agree with you.
I think there's going to be learning curves for that.
But I think that's still why we're on team start Max right, because, among other reasons, it gives.
You more options, right, it allows you to be a little more of a so it allows you to do your best work, because only you can do your best work harder. Zoom Ai companion can help you do the rest, like automatically taking notes, answer meeting questions, and helping you respond to your coworker bailable at no additional cost with eligible paid plans. We're happy with zoom Ai companion.
You're damn right. Justin h little thing of note, by the way, was just doing a little box score digging.
Uh.
We're going through a little bit of a karoslovert gully, not not a slump, but like I do think there's maybe a little bit of normalization happening with him, and like, you know, I think this was to be expected and like certainly fair. But against Golden State nine points on three of nine shooting, Lakers, three points on one of four shooting Dallas, he has a bounce back seventeen on seven and fifteen shooting, Charlotte two points on one of six. Okay, see eight points three of nine, Toronto another bounce back eighteen on six of twelve, and then to Night two on oh of three. So I feel like Carris is kind of I think that's probably also leading to you know, some some up and down play against the Charlottes of the world, the Indies of the world, and really having to kind of gut through a couple of those games, because like Carris is kind of going through you know, just a little a little dip and play, which happens over the course of the season. I just thought it was it when I pulled up his game. While I'm like, oh, yeah, that does track, it does feel like he's been a little less impactful as of late.
Yeah, And I think all season all they've really needed is for one of the four kind of initiators to get hot. And that's probably why you saw such an even minute distribution. When you look at guys five through nine in the rotation tonight, none of them really got it going, right. I think if one of them got it going, you go from that twenty minute range to twenty four or twenty six. But Kenny was just kind of playing of regular rotation, right and okay, like this have it going. No, let's try to get Sam more minutes. Maybe he sparks us from three. And to your point, ty Jerome normally is one of those candidates as well. Right, it's usually one of Darius, Donovan, Tye or Caris that have given them that spark. And on a night where Darius and Donovan didn't shoot the ball particularly well, the fact that Carris was in really getting and going offensively either, he just they were lacking that Cavies.
Right, They just didn't really find it anywhere on the perimeter.
Yeah, and you know, all it's taken is one right, Like you think back, you think back to what Ti Jerome did against Okay see, or you don't even have to think back that far. What Darius did against Toronto, Like he really on one of their worst defensive performances of the season. It was basically, all right, Darius, we're winning the Darius minutes. He's going to be assertive here, he's hitting these shots. Another terrific clutch time performance for him this season. But when the stars don't have it normally they have someone else.
To go to.
And if Kris doesn't have it, your star guards don't have it, and you're not getting the bigs touches on the inside, where's the offense going to come from?
And that's where the biggest criticism I think probably comes that they weren't able to. You know, Evan did have a nice game. You know, Evan and Jarrett combined for one turnover. You know, they got to the line better than anyone else on the team. The touches were flown pretty well, they were able to you know, Evan really took at his way with Siakam on both ends of the floor for much of this game. And and but you know something I found noteworthy. We've talked so much about how this team doesn't play any bad lineups, justin how they constantly are you know, they've got like five plus minus leaders for the whole league and like the top like twenty. Yeah, there's they've just been that kind of team. Well, I guess you ride together, you die together. Not a single rotation player had a positive plus minus in this game.
Yeah, and you know, maybe this is one of those spots where if we get into a game like this in the future, we say, hey, Evan, I don't care if you turn the ball over three times. I don't care what your field goal percentage is. We're going to try to get us going by getting you touches. And that doesn't mean hey, go post up Siakam. We'll toss you the ball, throw an entry pass, and you go to work. But just finding ways to get him those little touches like that. Okay, c game started off poorly, went to the bench. First play. They basically ran a pin down for him where he came in and hit that free throw line jumper basically the same action was used at the end of the game where they run the pin down for him. He gets the ball out a little further than expected, but he goes on one at Isaiah Hartenstein. They weren't trying stuff like that to get Evan those touches in the second half, even with Indiana packing the point paint, and I feel like getting him the ball with advantage and saying get them to change what they're doing defensively, like go out there, try to be the catalyst for us offensively, and then we're going to build off of you. We kind of have those go to possessions with Darius, we have those with Donovan. But maybe especially on a night where you are missing one of your kind of initiators of the offense, force feeding Evan just a little bit more and sinking or swimming with them, maybe that's something that you can work on in those spots because you're probably going to have a game like this at some point in the playoffs. If we're going to go as far as we hope, you're going to be playing over multiple weeks, you're going to have games where things aren't working for your top guys, and you need to have that in your back pocket of all right, let's go to some of these bread and butter. Evan Mobley plays to free us up.
Yeah, and that's I think that's where you can be the most critical. And that's where I think the malaise of a long regular season it's really tough, because it's just it's hard to be creative when things aren't going well, when your you know, your engagement and your focus isn't exactly where it needs to be. You know. Like I just think it's easier to solve problems against okay, see in a weird way because like, well we're all really locked into solving problems yep. Like you know, like the game's.
Close up fifteen versus Indiana and how burns out of the game, Like I that's almost the perfect storm to go, okay, digging our foot just yeah, we'll probably.
I just think there's probably like you know, if I'm in that huddle in that game, I'm probably like, guys, we'll probably all right, We've just got to you know, say the course, survive a little bit and we'll get we'll be fine. And you know, your your tolerance for for bad process or bad outcomes even just as higher in a game like this. Maybe not for the coaching staff, but I think just for a human being and like it. And that's where you get burned and it stinks. I was really hoping they'd be taking a fourteen game win streak to Okay. See.
That would have been sweet to try to match you know, your your fifty game wins streak from earlier in the season against Okay. See that that would have been such a great moment.
Yeah. What's nice, by the way, is we got two T and T games in a row. I had forgotten that Tuesday's game is also a national TV game. How about that? So I think there will be you know, if you're worried about focus, like these guys always want to put a show on when they're on national TV, especially around All Star time. Yeah.
Yeah, and you know, to we got to give Indiana credit to like they have been playing well recently. They're now on a six game winning streak. I believe I will win over Boston was part of that mix as well. So this is a team that is capable of catching you on and off night, and there's not a lot of teams that aren't. Right like I think with the parody of today's NBA, especially when you look forward to kind of the stretch they're on where they are playing winning teams. Yeah, like the Cavs probably should win the majority of these games.
I would expect them to win.
The majority of these games, but these are the majority of these games are also ones that if you're not putting your best foot forward, if you have a B minus night, these teams are all capable of outplaying you on any given game, and they're all going to be giving you their best punch, right That's that's the other part of why winning at this high of a clip is so difficult is because the Cavs have had every team's best punch for the entirety.
Of the season. Yeah, And like I think it's important to distinguish it was maybe a B minus C plus focus and effort night on a D minus like shooting luck night. Yep. For the offense, at least, you know, they just weren't hitting. And when you're not hitting and you're not sharp, it's just like something's got to give or you're going to score ninety three points in regulation, which is exactly what happened.
Only agree, one thing that I'm keeping an eye on, shifting from I think we've dissected this corpse is you'd like to say pretty thoroughly here. One thing I'm keeping an eye on, though recently, is Jared Allen on the offensive glass. He's been a strong rebounder since he's came to Cleveland, always among the highest percentile rebounders, but this is now eight straight games where he's generated at least three offensive rebounds. Obviously that was at least that was a big big story in that Okay see game. But he's doing this at a pretty consistent clip. And that's been one of those areas that the Cavs haven't been the strongest, right They just haven't been a great team of generating second chance opportunities. And if Jared Allen is starting to do this at a more consistent clip where he's making the most of these misshots and pulling them in, I feel like that is an element to keep an eye on, because I really that's part of why I get excited about someone like Jalen Tyson is we just don't kind of have the these guys that are geared towards getting those offensive rebounds. I'd really love to see that if that continues to progress, because He's had a fifteen percent offensive rebound rate over these eight last eight games. His previous career high was twelve point three. Now it's still pretty low for the year, but it's one of his lowest for his career, right, And so it wasn't something that he was doing earlier in the season. And I just thought that that was a noteworthy shift, especially when you have a run of this many games where it has been a thing. Yeah, And you know, we know there's some Kenny wants. He wants them to be better on the offensive, last he wants them to leverage their size in that way. So I don't know, maybe this is a tweak he's kind of made, you know, And I'd be really interested to hear one of the journals in town ask about it if this is just, you know, because eight games is small enough that Egoma, it might just be bounced as going his way or particular sets of matchups. But I do feel like he's been fighting really well on that end. Yeah, And you know, it hasn't moved the needle a ton for the Cavs. There's still twenty second in offensive rebound rate or offensive rebound percentage over those last eight games. But that's still it's a bump up for where they've been all season.
What I'll say on that is, if you are, I don't think the you know, those Curry Clay Warriors teams were elite offensive rebounding teams either. I think the thing is you're the impact of every successive offensive rebound is exponentially increased by how good your offense was in the first place. Yeah, if your offense isn't that good, it doesn't really hurt that much bad to give up a lot of offensive rebounds. If you can't get stops on shot one and a team gets a shot on gets a second chance at it, it's death, you know. And I think that's probably where it comes down to where I just don't think the cab need to be an e leite offensive rebounding team or their offensive rebounding to be devastating, if that makes sense, absolutely.
And I think the clear parallel here is those four Finals teams twenty sixteen tenth in offensive rebound percentage, Like, you know, not a lead at it, but we all know how those Tristan Thompson possessions felt. Right in the playoffs, Cavs missed a shot he finds a way to get those boards, and particularly in those bigger matchups, right like, on those stages of the playoffs, they just are so damn demoralizing. Twenty seventeen, which I know you and I both believe to be the best version of this Cavs. They're twenty second in offensive rebound percentage, but they still.
Just checked the sixteen Warriors, they were twenty second.
There you go, right, Like, I think it's more about the timeliness of it, and I also just want to recognize the effort, because I don't feel like it's Hey, these balls are just kind of getting to Jarrett feels like he's really covering a lot of ground. He's making hustle plays. Had a great one tonight where he was diving out of bounce through the ball back off of an Indiana player. He's just doing all the little things to generate these extra possessions, and I still feel like that is one of those kind of sacrifice things that helps make them work. Right, when you have someone as good as Jared Allen doing all the little things, that is going to have an effect on the entire roster.
Yeah, absolutely, And you know it allows Evan. The reality is you know, you want the Cabs need to get back on defense, especially given the shape of their team. I don't. I just don't. We've talked about this a little bit. I don't think this team is built to be a good offensive rebounding team or to be a great one. Yeah. Thing One, I just don't think they're players are that good at it. You know, you watch a guy like Tristan Thompson, or a guy like Josh Hart or you know, whoever it is, you know, whatever archetype of player it is, wing, big, whatever, that's good at it. You don't really see a lot of that on this Cavs roster. Even when we see guys like Jalen Tyson come and we go, oh, he's got a knack. That's a thing, you know. So I don't.
I think it's very very apparent for Jalen Tyson, which shout out to him career best sixteen rebounds in his latest G League.
Game, Oh yeah, Jalen. So one, I don't think they've got the knack. Two. I do think there is a degree to witch justin the roster construction makes it so they need to get back, because if you're gonna be kind of small if you're only playing you know, the only as I've always mentioned, the only two centers on the roster or Evan and Jarrett had actually get rotation minutes. So if you've got if you've got only one of the bigs on the floor in Jared or Evan and you're playing Darius and Sam Merrill or Donovan and Carris or you know whoever it is, those guys can't be recklessly going for offensive boards. Yeah, because you need them getting back to protect the back line. That is the core identity of the defenses. Keep them from scoring early. Get into your shell, don't break your shell. So I don't know if it's ever going to be their thing, so I think they have to be selected with it to that end, but I don't think that means they should punt on it, you know, when they're playing double bigs. I love the idea of Jarrett being kind of the designated Now, see what you can do, see what you can muck up, and we'll make sure Evan gets back. So I do think it's an interesting kind of balance to try to figure out for this coaching staff.
Totally, and you can't be elite at everything right. As great as the Cavs have been across the board this season. There is going to be some give and take. It's just impossible to be a top five team in every single category because some of them contradict one another. And to your point about only really having the two bigs, I think that's once again one of those arguments for Dean Wade coming in off the bench, because if you do have a situation where Jared Allen gets elbowed in the face and you know whether he's going to the bathroom or getting attention for that wasn't available and Wade has to play the five, it's a whole lot easier to do that if he's coming in off the bench. I think it just makes more sense from a rotational standpoint and also just from a you know, a statistical standpoint looking at the cleaning the glass ats. I think all of these are going to come down a little bit. But the Dean weight at small Ford minutes, plus six net rating at power forward, plus sixteen point four at center, really small sample size, but plus thirty four point five, Like, yeah, that's going to come down a little bit. Yeah, I think all three of those are probably going to come down after today. But I think it's just so much more clear that those best minutes for him have been coming at power forward and if we're going to kind of have an understanding that if he does come in off the bench, he's going to be plain about the same minutes, which has been the case this year. He plays twenty minutes game coming in off the bench twenty four is the starter, and I think one of those was impacted by him leaving a game early. I just think that he is best optimized when he's playing at the four and it still gives you the option to close with Dean Wade. In fact, it might make it easier to close with Dean Wade if he's not playing those minutes earlier in the game.
Yeah. I mean, how many times have we seen players come off come off minutes restrictions. Then a lot of times they'll come off the bench because the coach is like, I don't want to burn seven minutes to start the game right in case I want to close with them.
Yep.
So yeah, I would like to see that change. And I know it's really hard to make those kind of tweaks when the season's been going this well, But you know, whether it's Max or Isaac and like, well enough since coming back. That's the that's the problem is, you know, to some extent, you got to earn it. And I think Max has just been better tonight now, withstanding where he had really rough one tonight. Yeah, you know, another member of the bad assistant turnover brigade with only one assistance who turnovers for him and one of five from three. But yeah, I do think I just think it makes the choices easier, you know, like like this is a really reductive way to put it. But you ever like are you know, planing two Q and you're like, man, why are the subs so hard? Like I don't know who to put in win? Why are the guys I want to play all at like seventy energy? And it's like that's kind of the way it feels like it can be sometimes with Deans minutes if you want him around twenty, you know, And I just don't think you want him closer to more than twenty five on any given night, whether he's starting or off the bench, because this team has too much talent down down roster.
Yeah, I think that's the case for everybody outside of the core. For right, you want to keep those core guys minutes down in the regular season and everybody else, they deserve enough minutes to find a rhythm, to to find a groove, to stay sharp, right, And I think that's one of those important things that you want to capitalize because if you're trying to give each of those starters thirty minutes a night, that means there is eighteen minutes that they're not playing each right, And that's four eighteen minutes slots and then a fifth one as well, right, So the availability is going to be there, and obviously in tougher matchups, those minutes might go closer to thirty six, but you can evenly distribute across a pretty deep rotation. If that's how you're going to be approaching your star player minutes, I think it's been an overwhelming success. I joked about it on the last podcast. But part of the reason why you have redundancies when it comes to your star players is so that when Darius has an off night, Donovan's able to step up, When Jared has an off night, Evan's able to step up. And the other part of it, too, is not just when things aren't working well for somebody in the lineup. The reality is most teams, or I shouldn't say most teams, but the best teams probably have someone that they can throw at Donovan and they have someone that they can throw at one of Evan and Jarrett. Most teams, or I don't think any team really has four guys that can throw at every single one of the core players. So the Cavs have to whether it's in this.
Case, see when they get healthy, might be the only one.
I mean, until Shay actually starts taking the Darius assignment. I don't know if that's going to be true. But you know what the Cavs have to do is understand that on the other end, right when things aren't working, we need to find which of our guys is going to be the callust on any given night, because all four of these guys are playing at an all star level and are capable of stepping up in that way.
Yeah, that's fair. It's uh yeah, it's It is tough to make these kind of choices, though, I gotta keep reiterating like we are tinkering and trying to find the right angle. I do think there's been a little slippage of the last couple of games, yep, and it makes it a little easier to want to make these adjustments. Like it's just like we're not having the starting conversation after a win or rarely are you know, yeah, I was planning on having it either way because of the graphic today, But you know, I do think that it's something to look at.
But I think the most interesting thing is just how they're going to navigate this right or are we going to let one or two losses snowball in any significant way? How do we navigate that eighty two game schedule? That is to me the most interesting thing. I think they're just like, there's lessons to take away from every win. There's lessons to take away from every loss. Doesn't necessarily mean you know that Atlanta and Indiana have figured out the Cavs offense, just like winning against Okay, see, it doesn't mean, hey, if you met them in June, it's to work out for you. You're gonna win all You're gonna win this series, right. It's just how the wins and losses occur, and how they build upon both those wins and losses and make adjustments from that. I think that's going to be the real key.
A famous man once said, wins and lessons justin absolutely wins and lessons baby.
Hopefully the next time we're podcasting it's after a win, because we were going live Thursday after the OKC game. A little bit of a scheduling change up for us because hey, if the NBA is going to flex OKAC and we should do the same and do it later in the week podcast, So fingers crossed for that. It'll be interesting to see how we bounce back. First Indiana three game road trip starting now. Big thanks to everyone that tuned in live on YouTube. Make sure you guys are liking, subscribing, clicking that notification bell so you know when we're going live. If you're listening via podcast and you want to support us, leave us a rating, lead review, subscribe, unsubscribe to subscribe and help cook those books. If you want to be part of the Chasdown's exclusive discord chat, Sidey screenshaw that review to Chase down potogmail dot com. However you choose to support us, we really do appreciate it. Sure you guys are staying safe out there until next time, Yo Ca