The Cleveland Cavaliers had a promising start to their trip to the west, winning in Detroit (yes, it’s west) without Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell and beating the Lakers.
They had fourth quarter leads in every other game, but lost the last three, and come home tonight to face Minnesota.
The Cavs have played eight of their first twelve games away from Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, and now five of the next six are in town, which helps immensely as the wine and gold have won all four games held there.
An old NBA adage tells us bench players play better at home and that was certainly true for J.B. Bickerstaff’s squad on the trek, as really only Kevin Love gave him quality minutes consistently.
Of course, Love’s a veteran, a guy who has started most of his career, so it’s not surprising he plays well no matter where the game is, he’s averaging 12 points and 7.7 rebounds a game.
Cedi Osman averaged 15.5 points per game on red hot shooting (52% from the floor, 9 of 19 from three) in the first four games. Since then, he’s made just 14 of 39 (36%) and just 8 of 26 three-point shots, scoring in double figures just once, the blowout win in the Motor City.
Dean Wade started while Garland was out with his eye injury and scored 22 points, a career high, in the win against the Knicks at home. He missed the last game of the trip, but in the four games he played, he scored 11 points, including a zero against Detroit.
And then there is Isaac Okoro, who’s confidence looks shattered right now, missing two-point blank layups against Golden State Friday night. He’s made just 9 of 32 shots from the floor, missing all 12 three point shots. He even put up a six trillion (playing six minutes without any other entry in the box score) vs. the Kings.
In the last four games of the roadie (he did have 9 points vs. the Pistons), he scored seven points on 1 of 8 shooting in 47 minutes, grabbing four rebounds and dishing out two assists.
When three of your four primary substitutes are playing like that, it’s difficult to win.
At what point does a concern become a problem though.
As we said earlier, five of Cleveland’s next six contests are at home, so the second unit has an opportunity to straighten out the issue. But if they don’t start playing well, what are the options?
One would seem to be putting Wade back in the starting lineup and bringing LeVert off the bench. Not that the latter has done anything wrong, it would simply be putting another scorer with that group. Doing this would also give the starters a bit more size.
As for Okoro, we don’t know what the solution is. Defensively, he is still excellent, contributing greatly to the win against New York with his effort on that end of the floor.
On offense, he appears lost right now. As mentioned earlier, he’s lost whatever confidence he ever had offensively. At times when he is passed the ball, it looks like he can’t get rid of it fast enough. Defenses are ignoring him, and it puts a burden on the offense when you are basically playing 4 on 5.
We’d also like to see more of a 10 man rotation to limit minutes on the starters, particularly Mitchell, who currently leads the NBA in that category. Raul Neto has done a solid job when used, so why not use him?
We understand it’s still early, but we are sure Bickerstaff hasn’t liked the last three games. Home cooking will help, but so will better effort by bench.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 