Cleveland Cavaliers

(First off, sorry for the delay in talking about these last two games. Holiday season with friends, family and drink-y times and all. It will likely be a little hit-and-miss around here with coverage until the New Year. Indy has five days off for some reason after tonight, however, so there won’t be a lot to talk about anyway. Moving on … )

The Pacers did what they had to do Friday night to keep us convinced that they are a good team by beating up on the lowly Cleveland Cavaliers. As you can see from the game flow, it took them a little while to take complete control of this one, but after they did, there was no looking back. The Pacers are just clearly a better team.

Danny Granger led the way to the 108-99 win, posting 30 points, 12 boards, 3 blocks and 2 steals (and 4 turnovers). Most importantly, he shot well. His 12-for-22 night marked only the second time he has finished a game above 50% in December and only the third time he has done so since November 16. He needs to make this a more regular thing. Shooting 42.4% is just not really acceptable for a shooter as gifted as him. Last year he was playing hurt a lot so that, combined with the fact that he reverted back to 45.6% after the All-Star break, eased most of my fears that he had become just a volume scorer. But this year? He’s just taking too many bad shots. I know this offense doesn’t consistently generate all that many great looks for anyone, but that can’t be an excuse. If you’re 6’9″, physically strong, capable of penetrating and one of the better pure shooters in the game, you just can’t shoot 42.4%. It’s almost 2011. He needs to fix this.

Danny said his better shooting against Cleveland was the result of him being more aggressive.

Granger had shot a combined 8 for 27 in losses to Atlanta and the Los Angeles Lakers, and he didn’t play in the loss to Chicago in between because of a sprained ankle. He bounced back to make 12 of 22 shots against the Cavaliers, including four of seven 3-pointers, to help the Pacers snap a three-game skid.

“I went through a stretch when I wasn’t being very aggressive or assertive offensively,” Granger said. “I made a point to just go out and try to be an assassin. That philosophy works better for me. Other games I’ve been coasting. I have to be aggressive.”

It’s either that or just that the Cavs are horrible.

Brandon Rush also played pretty well, dropping 15 points and, even better, getting to the line 6 times. I think Danny’s point about being aggressive applies more to Brandon. He can help the offense on occasion just be making some spot-up shots. But on the nights when he actually takes initiative and tries to make things happen, he adds more. Unfortunately, there can be some collateral damage like the 4 turnovers he had in just 28 minutes, but you have to take the good with the bad, I guess.

Speaking of the bad …

There actually were some positives to take away from the 88-99 loss to the Boston Celtics yesterday, even though it felt like the Celtics controlled the game throughout. The Pacers were very much in an early afternoon road game late in the fourth quarter against the reigning Eastern Conference champs, which were on a 12-game winning streak, despite the fact that they shot 35.4% (and a putrid 30% in the second half). That’s really where the positives end. And at this stage of the franchise’s perhaps-rebirth-to-relevancy, there are no moral victories.

The offense was just atrocious. Those percentages in the previous paragraph are really all you need to know. Boston’s defense is really impressive (I think they’re the best team in basketball right now … that depth isn’t fair), but you need to execute better than that. They did find something that worked late when Roy Hibbert started posting up Glen Davis and hitting 3 of his 5 shots in the fourth, but the Pacers just couldn’t get any stops on the other end as Indiana’s bigs watched Big Baby jumper after Big Baby jumper splash through the net.

Oh, yeah … coach Jim O’Brien also took Roy out as that was going on. It would seem weird — if it was. But it’s almost expected to see the coach yank a starter late in the game at this point. It’s kind of his thing.

In Jimmy’s defense, Roy did look utterly gassed. He had just put up a sloppy, looping, way-off-the-mark hook shot as he staggered across the lane looking like Sonics-era Patrick Ewing. He was also increasingly hunched over and his gait up the court looked more to be more taxing than it should. So presumably for this reason, O’Brien subbed in Solomon Jones while Indy was shooting some free throws. Maybe the coach just wanted to give him a quick blow while Solomon Jones played a possession on defense.

It proved a decent idea since Solo covered Big Baby well, forcing him to miss a tough fadeaway jumper. The Pacers tried to capitalize on this by pushing it up the court and had somewhat of a slow break going that looked promising as Darren Collison forced the issue, breaking Nate Robinson’s ankles with some nifty crossovers. Then Darren made one of the worst passes of the year, gifting the ball to Ray Allen, who sped up the court and scored on a helpless Mike Dunleavy. O’Brien got a timeout quickly thereafter and got Roy back in the game.

In a practical sense, taking Roy out for 48 seconds of game time and only one offensive possession had no material impact on this game. Roy couldn’t have done better than Solo at forcing Davis to miss. He couldn’t have done anything about Darren’s boneheaded turnover. And he certainly couldn’t have outrun Ray Allen to contest a breakaway layup.

But it still makes me squirm a little bit. And I’m far from the only one.

Pacers beat writer Mike Wells, Pacers Digest founder Hicks, several other bloggers who were tweeting during the game and even Celtics color commentator/legend Tommy Heinsohn were shocked to see Hibbert come out. Some seemed disgusted. Noam Schiller, a contributor to my other blog Both Teams Played Hard and someone with absolutely no rooting interest in the Pacers or the Celtics, had this and this to say in reaction to Roy being taken out of an 82-89 game with 3:41 left to play.

ROY HAS BEEN KILLING THEM ALL GAME!! ARE YOU TRYING TO LOSE?!?! ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE TOMMY HEINSOHN HAPPY?!?!

Nothing infuriates me more than a coach insisting to keep his best players out. I hate Kurt Rambis. I hate Larry Brown. Now I hate JOB.

As stated previously, Roy looked pretty damn tired. Not only that, but after he returned, Big Baby hit three jumpers to score 6 of the Celtics final 8 points while Roy not only didn’t score again but failed to even attempt another shot.

All in all, as Jim O’Brien might say, the whole thing was “irrelevant.”

But why not just play your best players? It’s the same thing with Collison.

I can’t say I’ve particularly enjoyed watching Darren play that much this year. His first 23 games as a Pacer have been underwhelming. He has scored more than 19 points a total of … how you say … one time and he has yet to record even 8 assists in any game. When this acquisition was billed as a significant offseason move for the franchise, I can’t say I expected this. I figured he would have a half-dozen games above 25 points already and as many double-doubles. Meanwhile, TJ Ford has played adequately. The stats all look bad for the little guy, but he has contributed positively out there at times — even some of the times when he was closing the game while Darren sat on the bench. I’ve seen it happen.

Despite all this, tinkering with the rotation and crunch-time minutes is just starting to feel like over-coaching. Roy Hibbert and, to a lesser degree, Darren Collison are expected to be foundational pieces of this team for the next few seasons. I get the idea that you play each game to win that individual game any way you can with whatever tools you currently have at your disposal. But at some point, you have to look at this roster, understand that it’s a 6th seed at best this season and allow the core of the team to bond by succeeding — or failing — together at the end of games. They need end-of-game reps if they are ever going to learn how to execute when defenses perk up and really dig in for stops. You can’t get those reps in the second quarter. And getting them against an elite defense like Boston could be invaluable to learning for the future.

Look, this was just a quick rest for a tired Hibbert so maybe it’s not the ideal time to bring this all up, but it has become a pattern. It really is starting to feel like a coach who knows he might not be around next year is over-thinking things, desperately trying quirky on-court and motivational strategies to scrape out wins.

Getting wins is the only reason these guys have jobs playing basketball so I get that sometimes you might have to try something wacky to get one. But, call me crazy, I just think that a better path to long-term success might be “play your best five basketball players at the end of games.”

Related Topics: Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Game Recaps

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