“There can only be one King. Sorry, LeBron.”
Another big bout in primetime! The Atlanta Hawks have done tremendously (and oddly) well this season with the whole world watching, on either TNT or the Four-Letter Network. It would be great if they can keep that run going tonight at the Highlight Factory, against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers (8:00 PM Eastern, 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports South, ESPN, Fox Sports Ohio), leaving analysts in their predictable postgame mode: “What’s Gone Wrong with the Other Team?”
Either way, I’d prefer tuning in to the local broadcast, as the 13th-leading scorer in NBA history provides his u-Nique blend of color analysis to the game featuring the 12th-leading scorer all-time. LeBron swapped places with Dominique Wilkins during last night’s easy-breezy victory over the Nyets. “It’s an honor,” James remarked postgame about moving up to 12th. “It’s great to be in that position.” Of course, he’s referring to scoring, not the standings.
The Eastern Conference coronation hasn’t happened just yet for LeBron and his merry band of Cavaliers. Cleveland (53-22) sits just 2.5 games ahead of the Toronto Raptors, who just slowed the Hawks’ roll on Wednesday. They know they need not fool around with clinching the top-seed, as the sooner they wrap things up, the easier it will be for deposer-head coach Tyronn Lue to rest his veteran players.
Clevelanders were kind of hoping they’d be cruising into April. But while last year’s conference top-seed had to literally break a leg to get anyone’s attention, this year’s banner-carriers could do without one show-stopping distraction after another.
There’s LeBron, subject of the annual player option this summer, casually unfollowing his team on Instagram just days after a blowout loss in Miami, scrambling to re-follow the team (but not on Twitter! Dun-dun-dunnnn…) just as the ensuing freakout reached its fever pitch.
There’s LeBron, practicing in preparation to win the gold in Rio 2016, but not medaling in men’s basketball, no… in the men’s synchronized coaching event. Given a rest against the Rockets on Tuesday, he showed up in a suit and then suited himself to coaching duties, mimicking his marionette Lue on the sideline and during a timeout. Owning the owner and serving as the de facto president of basketball operations apparently isn’t enough. I imagine David Blatt was entertained by the display.
There’s LeBron, palling around with Dwyane Wade at halftime of that Miami game, fraternizing with his old teammate during the second-half shootaround while his Cavs were down 21 points. There’s LeBron, saying that, yes, he would love to “get a year in” alongside Carmelo Anthony, Wade, and Chris Paul before his career concludes. “We’ve had plenty of conversations” about building such a super-team, James asserts. I’m sure all of that just warms the cockles of Kyrie Irving’s heart.
Speaking of Kyrie’s heart, there was even more social-media drama for yo baby mama this past week, as his starlet girlfriend was sepia-filtered in the arms of her former beau, some random musician who’s better at the “arts” of getting trending clicks and making people use caps-lock than anything else.
After grabbing her V-Day sweets, she chose to break up with the player she called, last month, “the greatest boyfriend of all time,” and run back to her old flame, which is perfectly fine. Except, there’s this thing, that once you’ve gained six-digit followers on social media for posting every silly detail of your life, you have to kind of carry them along with you on your journey from one celebrity bed to another. Twitter panic ensued, whole Instagram accounts were deleted, pics were scrubbed, suicidal fears were detailed (back on Instagram, of course). It was quite a time to be alive.
“It’s hard enough to win without worrying about a d@mn Twitter,” noted Lue. Even Anthony had to acknowledge that while his Knicks are up to their knees in Melo-drama, the drama over in Cavalier Country has been “more comical.” Irving is doing his part to get his team’s stories out of the supermarket cashier aisles and nail salons, and back in the sports bar.
“Everything surrounding our team, (it) is just crazy to think that we’re still in first place and we’re still the team to beat, honestly.” Not leaving well enough alone, ESPN pressed for clarification from Kyrie that he meant “team to beat” just in the East, but Irving wouldn’t oblige. “I feel like we’re the team to beat,” Irving responded, including the likes of the Spurs and Warriors.
To LeBron’s credit, he’s able to insulate his on-court play from his off-court play as well as anyone. That was demonstrated as he earned the most recent Eastern Conference Player of the Week honor, averaging 29.0 PPG, 8.8 APG and 8.5 RPG while shooting 56.4 FG% (45.5 3FG%). It’s quite possible that LeBron is engineering some of these non-issues to draw the media heat lamp away from his team’s more pressing problems on the floor. Among them…
Tristan Thompson is getting paid $15 million to do what? Cleveland’s newest Iron Man feasted on the glass against the Hawks in the postseason of his contract year, and promptly made bank. Yet, while he leads the league with a 129.5 O-Rating thanks to his outstanding ability to clean up the glass (13.5 O-Reb%, 6th in NBA), his on-ball defense hasn’t improved.
While it’s not just Thompson’s fault, Cleveland’s team defensive rating has been going in the wrong direction, from 101.1 to 104.2 since the All-star Break, and their opponents’ 61.1 at-rim FG% ranks in the mix with a lot of non-playoff teams. The Cavs force just 13.8 turnovers per 100 possessions, which is also bottom-ten in the league.
To try addressing the defensive issues, Lue has been interchanging Thompson’s starting spot with Timofey Mozgov, who has just been sort of there all season. Thompson’s offensive skillset despite having a marginal defensive imprint is nice, but they’ve got that guy already, in Kevin Love and now Channing Frye. Speaking of which…
Can Kevin Love play center adequately? Assistant coach Jim Boylan doesn’t think so. “Kevin at center just hasn’t been effective for us,” he told Zach Lowe of ESPN. But as the SB Nation Cavs site pointed out, Cleveland has been fantastic offensively (133.7 O-Rating, team 61.9 TS%) with Love plugged into the 5-spot, while being no more than the usual sieve at the other end. Boylan and Lue have also noted that the once-feared pick-and-roll play featuring Love and James doesn’t work well, since teams simply switch and the ball stops moving.
What was the whole deal about picking up the pace? A big part of the sell-job in replacing Blatt with Lue was that the Cavs were going to run more. The post-Blatt pace is 95.97 possessions per-48 (26th in NBA), hardly a noticeable uptick from 95.47 under Blatt (28th in NBA). It can be a chore to bring vets like J.R. Smith and Richard Jefferson up to speed when they’ve grown accustomed to a certain tempo.
Can they get some steadier play out of the bench? After apparently making a wrong turn along his way to an Aussie Rules Football game, Matthew Dellavedova is being relied upon more than ever. But he hasn’t shown many new wrinkles to his game (39.8 2FG%, 41.8 3FG%) aside from passing more often and improving his free throw shooting (85.2 FT%). Mo Williams started the season in place of Irving, but is only now rounding back into form after sitting to rest a swollen knee. Lue has fresher-legged options at his disposal, in Delly and Iman Shumpert, but is leaning on the likes of Jefferson, James Jones, and Frye more than he’d like.
All of that said, in the mind of LeBron, there ain’t a problem that he can’t fix. But casting aside the James-less Cavs losing in Houston on Tuesday, there was the South Beach beatdown, and a road loss in Brooklyn last week, at the hands of Shane Larkin and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
A home loss to the remnants of the Grizzlies earlier this month was as bad optics-wise as anytime the Hawks were beaten by a shorthanded for. Fourth-quarter collapses included a 30-15 frame against Dallas, a game where the Mavs resurrected the ghosts of David Lee and J.J Barea, and 24-12 in Brooklyn after spotting the Nyets 59 first-half points. James, Irving, Love and company should not be working this hard, this late in the season, to be winning these types of games.
The Hawks would relish that type of slippage over long stretches this evening. As for Atlanta (45-31), it’s fascinating that after a half-season of the team seeming to carry its star point guard, the roles apparently have switched.
Jeff Teague led the way with 18 points in Toronto on Wednesday, making 8 of his 13 shots and doing his part to keep Kyle Lowry cool (17 points, but 2-for-15 2FGs, 5 TOs). But while Lowry (11 assists) had plenty of help from his supporting cast, Teague seemed to be the only starter willing to drive the bus for the Hawks. He’d have matched Lowry’s assist tallies easily if his teammates played with focus and finished plays without turning the ball over (18 player TOs @TOR, most since March 5).
Kent Bazemore, Al Horford, Kyle Korver, and Paul Millsap were a combined 11-for-32 from the field. Bazemore, Korver, and Tim Hardaway, Jr. struggled to get open along the perimeter, and when they did, made just two of their eight attempts through the first three quarters. What good are wings without a feathery touch? To escape The Dime Trap tonight, Teague and Dennis Schröder need their shooting guards to live up to their position title and shift pressure onto Cleveland’s interior defenders. They’ll need Horford to make more out of his touches as well.
It wasn’t until the final quarter, when Mike Budenholzer turned mostly to a quintet of Kirk Hinrich, Schröder, Tim Hardaway, and the Mikes (Scott and Muscala), that the pilot light finally came on, Atlanta chopping a 24-point cushion in half and forcing the Raptors to play Lowry and DeMar DeRozan much longer than they’d have preferred.
Unlike the situation during last year’s conference finals, Thabo Sefolosha’s presence alleviates Paul Millsap of the dubious task of checking LeBron at the halfcourt line. Sefolosha’s sore ankle got plenty of rest in Toronto (12 irrelevant minutes of action) and Detroit (DNP-CD), and it will get even more recuperation time with three off days coming up. So Thabo should be spry and ready to give Bazemore and Millsap the help they’ll need, particularly when LeBron wants to break out in transition.
Ultimately, this is shaping up to be another disappointing loss for the Hawks, who would fall to 2-9 against the league’s top six teams…
April Fools!
The Hawks took three of four from the Cavs last year, including three in a row, and it ultimately didn’t matter when the calendar turned to the postseason. Winning tonight only serves as a momentum builder, but that’s not the most important thing. A win tonight would not only pile onto Cleveland’s championship anxieties, it would help in the race to firm up a first-round homecourt situation for the Hawks.
Despite the tough closing schedule on-paper, one thing the Hawks have working for them is that they’ve got more games in their pocket (76) than any playoff contenders that could catch them in the East. Each victory for Atlanta makes it extra hard for the teams in the 4-through-8 slots to keep up. And no win would be a better confidence-builder (and Twitter trender) than one in front of a ravenous crowd tonight.
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
