CLEVELAND: Twenty thoughts for the 20-point lead the Cavs blew in Tuesday’s 106-100 loss to the Houston Rockets…
1. For the second time in their last three games, the Cavs went ice cold in the fourth quarter. Yes, the defense wasn’t very good in the second half Tuesday. Yes, James Harden got hot in the fourth quarter. But the Cavs have privately operated under the belief that there are going to be nights in the postseason when they just have to outscore their opponent. They couldn’t do that against the Rockets.
2. Of course, LeBron James didn’t play while the Cavs missed eight consecutive shots in the fourth quarter and went six minutes scoring just one basket. It was similar to Thursday at Brooklyn when they missed 10 straight shots and went essentially the last six minutes without scoring. James did play that night, but it didn’t matter.
3. The Cavs are too talented offensively to struggle to score so badly in fourth quarters. But the Rockets made a concerted effort to get the ball out of Kyrie Irving’s hands and no one else helped.
4. “They were just trying to take my aggressiveness away,” Irving said. “A few times I’m hearing them say, ‘Just make him give up the ball. Make these other guys make plays.’”
5. Kevin Love went scoreless in the fourth quarter and took only one shot, blaming it on an inability to get position inside. But he also passed up an open 3-pointer – albeit early in the shot clock – in the final minute with the Cavs down 98-97. The possession ended with Tristan Thompson missing a contested shot under the basket and Trevor Ariza’s 3-pointer at the other end put the game away.
6. “I don’t think I got the touches inside,” Love said of his fourth quarter disappearance. “They were doubling me and sending another guy from the top. We had to play the kick outs and look for different guys to make plays. They definitely played me different in the second half.”
7. Rockets coach J.B. Bickerstaff blitzed Irving on pick-and-rolls to get the ball out of his hands. He switched pick-and-rolls and doubled Love. He realized Matthew Dellavedova was trying to draw the defense to him, so the Rockets laid back in the second half and tried to force Dellavedova to beat them. He couldn’t, missing all three of his shots while still passing for five assists. Delly trying to create for himself off the bounce isn’t nearly as good for the Cavs as Delly on catch-and-shoot 3s.
8. “They got stops, we couldn’t make a shot,” Tyronn Lue said. “They kind of got James Harden going, feeling good about himself. Against this team, if you don’t make shots and you don’t convert on the offensive end, they do a good job of attacking early in transition.”
9. Harden scored 18 of his 27 in the fourth quarter and outscored the Cavs by himself (they finished with 16). Tristan Thompson and Richard Jefferson were the only Cavs to score in the fourth aside from Irving, which tells you something about how the fourth quarter went.
10. “Even when we got down 20 points, we felt confident,” Harden said. “They weren’t shooting the ball well, even when they were winning.”
11. Give the Cavs credit for at least playing hard, something that has been an issue too often this season. They competed at both ends, they just couldn’t make an open shot and couldn’t control Harden in the fourth quarter.
12. The Rockets are fighting for their playoff lives. This win moved them a half-game ahead of the idle Mavericks for the final playoff spot in the West – and this is a team that played in the conference finals a year ago. Like the Cavs, they’ve also made a coaching change and received mixed results.
13. The Rockets, strangely, looked lethargic and uninterested in the first half – similar to the way they played against the Cavs in Houston a couple of months ago. All that changed in the second half and the Cavs couldn’t match them.
14. The Rockets scored 66 points after scoring 40 in the first half. They scored 14 in the second quarter when they made just 5 of 18 shots. Third quarters have been a problem for the Cavs much of the season and it was again. The fourth was even worse because the Cavs offense got stagnant trying unsuccessfully to feed Love.
15. “They went small and started switching everything and kind of made us stagnant,” Lue said. “I thought we had some matchups that we tried to go to and I tried to exploit, trying to post Kevin against the small guys with Trevor Ariza on him. They were able to front him and kind of take him out of the game. He couldn’t get post position and it kind of put us in a bad way.”
16. The Cavs had a chance to extend their lead to 3 1/2 games over the Toronto Raptors with eight to play. But Lue made no apologies for resting James and has indicated in recent days there is more to come. James will likely get at least one more day off. Tristan Thompson won’t get a full day off (the consecutive games streak and all), but he’ll get most of a day off and Matthew Dellavedova has a day coming. J.R. Smith, too.
17. “The season is long and guys are banged up. Talking to the training staff, if guys need rest, we have to give it to them,” Lue said. “I want to get the No. 1 seed, but if the training staff feels like guys need rest because they’re in that (danger) zone, I’m not going to fight that.”
18. The Cavs have done a terrific job of remaining healthy once Irving and Iman Shumpert returned. The back problems Kevin Love endured last season have subsided, or at least subsided enough that he hasn’t to miss any games because of it. Irving and Shumpert, two others with lengthy injury histories, have stayed healthy. James feels great. Keeping those guys fresh is far more important than chasing a No. 1 seed they may not even need.
19. The only way the Cavs need home court throughout the East is if the Raptors were to push them to a Game 7 in the conference finals. The same Raptors franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series in 15 years and won their division last season, only to be swept out of the first round. Now suddenly they’re going to win two series and push the Cavs all the way to Game 7 in the conference finals? No thanks, I’ll take the rest.
20. The Nets come to town Thursday following the Cavs’ pitiful display last week at Brooklyn. Talk to you then from the Q.