Brooklyn Nets snapped a five-game skid against Cleveland roughly a month ago, and improved to an early-season record of 3-2 after recording a 112-107 win over the Cavaliers at the Barclays Center in New York. LeBron James recorded his first triple-double of the season, but the biggest star of the night was a man expected to see limited minutes: Spencer Dinwiddie got to play because D’Angelo Russell and Jeremy Lin were injured.
But Dinwiddie made big plays down the stretch, scored a career-high 22 points off 7-of-13 shooting, passed for six assists and grabbed five rebounds. And the Nets improved to 3-0 at home: the first time they will start the season that well on their floor since they went 5-0 in 2002/03.
LeBron James, who recorded his 56th career triple-double in the game, commented after the loss that the Cavaliers needed to focus on starting games better, as they fell to 3-2 following the loss – the same record as the Nets.
But things have changed since then. While Brooklyn have won just three more games and lost eight since that meeting, Cleveland have won seven and lost five; the Cavs are 10-7, while Nets are 6-10. Brooklyn are bottom of the Atlantic Division standings, while Cleveland—currently on a five-game win streak—are one game behind Detroit in the Central Division standings.
The odds that the Cavaliers, whose team statistics mirror the Nets’ despite the difference in win totals, will get a sixth straight win are huge, simply because of the manpower available to the coaches. The Cavaliers backcourt of Jose Calderon (averaging 2.6 points per game, but torched the Pistons for 14 points on 4-5 from field-goal range) who has started two games with Derrick Rose (sidelined for two weeks with an ankle strain) and JR Smith (averaging 7.6 ppg, but was plus-minus 23 in efficiency rating versus Detroit) are not as productive as the Brooklyn pair of the injured D’Angelo Russell (20.9 ppg) and Caris LeVert (10.2 ppg), but they bring something else to the table: experience.
However, the frontcourt is another matter. The troika of LeBron James, Jae Crowder and Kevin Love are as good as you will find on any team in the league, but the focus of this team is not necessarily the daily grind of the regular season. The Cavaliers have their eyes on a bigger target: the Boston Celtics, who are the runaway leaders of the Eastern Conference. They have won 16 straight games and sit 5.5 games above the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Two things in basketball matter above everything else: team work and defense. And the Boston Celtics work hard in these two areas. The Celtics defense allow just 94.8 ppg, the best in the league. The Cavaliers’ 110.8 ppg allowed is in the bottom three. The Celtics are also ferocious rebounders, which creates second-chance points. While the Cavs are grabbing an average of 43.1 rebounds per game, and are 18th in the league, the Celtics are pulling down an average of 47.8 boards per night, sitting third in the league.
Then there is the superstar factor. In order to get close to the level Boston are at, the Cavaliers must find a way to give LeBron James more rest between games. The King did say his minutes don’t matter, but he is a 33-year-old playing an average of 37.9 minutes each night, while Kyrie Irving is a 25-year-old averaging 31.5 minutes each night. James is averaging 28.3 ppg, while Irving is averaging ‘just’ 22.5ppg and the Cavs have a better team-scoring record than the Celtics (the Cavs are averaging 110.9 ppg, third in the league; the Celtics 102.9 ppg, 20th in the league).
But the fact remains that Irving has – by himself – outscored the last five of Boston’s opponents put together in the last five minutes of the game. Those games have all resulted in wins … simply because he was fresh when needed to close games out.
The Cavaliers may need to give this formula a try against Brooklyn, whether Rose returns to the team or not, and just maybe they will start a winning run of their own. The Cavaliers-Nets clash will be live on Kwese Sports 1.
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