The Cleveland Cavaliers continue to lose. They’ve now lost 17 games in a row, and 25 out of their last 26 contests. It’s a wonder Fox Sports Ohio analyst Austin Carr hasn’t started talking to himself during the games.
Still, you had to feel for the team when Daniel Gibson missed a three pointer that could have ended the losing skein against New Jersey. Gibson’s emotional response showed that ending this is very important to this team. His teammates didn’t know how to console him.
Coach Byron Scott said he felts like tearing his hair out, if he had some, after a recent practice in which he asked his players to run some offensive sets, and even after three months of training camp and the regular season, the guys couldn’t run the plays.
That should tell you everything you need to know about the players wearing wine and gold right now.
They seem to have a very low basketball IQ.
If you think back to the past few seasons, the signs of this were evident, but were covered up by the presence of LeBron James. When James wasn’t out on the floor, the team was disjointed at times, and frequently took silly, ill-advised shots, and unforced turnovers were on the menu as well.
Scott’s Princeton offense requires the guys to be basketball players. If you are being overplayed, you make a backdoor cut. You screen for other players. You hit the open man. You make the basic pass. You basically play your offense based on how the defense is playing.
It’s not the pick and roll offense played by most teams in the NBA, nor is it a beat your man off the dribble, penetrate, and kick the ball out to your teammates for open looks.
The current players are so ingrained with the way things were for the past seven years, they have forgotten to play the game. Either that, or they’ve decided they have no faith in Byron Scott. The first option is probably the current one.
The number of rookies and free agents he has had to give playing time to in the last two months exacerbates Scott’s problem in teaching a new way of playing offense. All of a sudden, Christian Eyenga, Alonzo Gee, Samardo Samuels, and Manny Harris are getting a lot of minutes. It wasn’t supposed to be that way.
However, this is a problem with the players of today. They aren’t schooled in fundamentals, and it is difficult for many of them to execute a play properly.
It doesn’t help that he doesn’t have a point guard who is a leader. Scott had that in New Jersey with Jason Kidd, and in New Orleans with Chris Paul. At this point, the wine and gold’s leader is Antawn Jamison, but he doesn’t have the ball in his hands a majority of the time.
The coach is used to having a guy who is an extension of him out on the court, and he doesn’t have that in Cleveland. That’s why the most important thing for the future of this franchise is getting a true point guard, and an elite one, whether it is in the draft or in a trade.
There aren’t enough players on this current roster who understand the game of basketball at the NBA level. That’s why you can see a difference in play now that guys like Joey Graham and Gibson are back. They aren’t all-star players, but they know the game.
Scott is in teacher mode right now, but he needs patience to get this team turned around.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 