The Cleveland Cavaliers have had an interesting first week of the basketball season. They played extremely well on Opening Night to defeat the Boston Celtics at home, but laid an egg in their first road contest, losing by 20 to a Toronto team that is not considered a playoff contender.
They came back home last night to take on a young Sacramento team, that blew a game to New Jersey the night before. The wine and gold played a stellar first half, leading by 14 at the intermission. Unfortunately for them, the game has two halves, and Cleveland got hammered in the third quarter, giving up its lead in the stanza, and wound up losing by three.
Here are the high and lows for the first week of the Cavs’ season:
Highs: J. J. Hickson looks to be the team’s best offensive player. The third year player is scoring 14 points and grabbing almost 6 rebounds per night and is shooting 50% from the floor.
Daniel Gibson has shown he deserves the faith shown in him by coach Byron Scott, scoring 15 points per game while dishing out 6 assists per game. Gibson has also hit six of 17 three point shots, making him the wine and gold’s best threat from beyond the arc.
Reserve center Ryan Hollins has looked good. Although he’s averaging just 18 minutes per game, Hollins is scoring 7.7 points and grabbing 4.3 boards per contest. It’s the latter category that was said to be his weakness.
The always reliable Anderson Varajao has done a good job in the middle, even though that’s not his natural position. He’s grabbed 9.5 rebounds in his two starts, and has hit six of ten shots from the field, showing he’s not forcing his offense.
Lows: The biggest concern for Scott has been the team’s defense. In their two defeats, Cleveland has allowed over 100 points, and opponents are shooting almost 49% and outrebounding the Cavs by seven per game. That’s not going to gain the team a lot of victories. Scott wants to run, but needs his defense to step up so that can occur.
Antawn Jamison has looked lost. He’s scoring just 6.3 points per game, but more disturbing is that he has taken nine of his 23 shots from behind the three point line. That’s not his game. Hickson’s emergence has hurt the veteran, but Scott has to figure out a way to get both of them on the floor at the same time. That would mean the youngster getting some minutes at center.
Ramon Sessions has scored well, getting 13 points per night, but is not running the offense well, getting just 3.3 assists compared to four turnovers a game. He has to take care of the ball better, and learn when to look for his shot, and when to set up his teammates.
Jawad Williams played okay against Sacramento, but gave the Cavs nothing in the first two games. He can’t just settle for the three point shot. He needs to take the ball to the hole occasionally to keep defenses honest.
The good news is that Scott knows his team hasn’t played good defense the past two games, and the practices the next two days before the Hawks come to town on Tuesday will emphasize that. Besides, the Cavs also have been missing Mo Williams, who is expected to be back on Tuesday. That’s probably isn’t a factor defensively, but it does put another guy on the floor who can shoot from the perimeter.
As for the team, yes, 1-2 is below where the Cavs could be, but Houston is 0-3, Utah is 0-2, and Phoenix and Milwaukee have the same records as the wine and gold. That doesn’t make Byron Scott happy, but it just shows it’s a long season, and improvements will be made.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 