Game Thread: Cleveland Cavaliers (1-1) vs. Indiana Pacers (2-0), 7:00 PM ET

[Meticode]

Cleveland Cavaliers
C - Anderson Varejao
PF - Tristan Thompson
SF - Earl Clark
SG - Dion Waiters
PG - Kyrie Irving

Indiana Pacers
C - Roy Hibbert
PF - David West
SF - Paul George
SG - Lance Stephenson
PG - C.J. Watson

[Meticode]

Some interesting matchups I want to see is Thompson against West. West is much more physical and strong, but Thompson has came into his own and shown he's progressed this season thus far.

Irving said he lost feeling his shooting arm the whole 4th quarter last night. Apparently he's fine today?

I want to see Bynum versus Hibbert for a little bit, but we might not get that because of the rotations.

[andremiller07]

Crazy move by Waiters that was super nice

[bagelred]

Yo, who be having a link...aight?


LINK ME!!!!

[Meticode]

A better start to the first quarter so far compared to the last two games for the Cavs.

[ballup]

Totally forgot that Mike Brown is the Cavs coach. Thought that guy wasn't hired after his Lakers stint.

[It's A VC3!!!]

Although I still hold a slight grudge at our loss, I'll be rooting for the cavs to win since the pacers haven't lost a game yet..

[MP.Trey]

C.J Miles just threw the hammer down. Damn, that was naaaasty.

[andremiller07]

C.J Miles just threw the hammer down. Damn, that was naaaasty.
Yeah took me by surprise, very nice.

[Meticode]

:eek: C.J. Miles with the posterize!

[Project018]

Stephenson has 3 point range now? Indiana bench doing work early :applause:

[ballup]

Orlando Johnson got murdered there.

[Suguru101]

Ahh.. let's see some old school butt whipping by the Pacers, Hibbert and George are going to make Cavalier fans salty. :D

[Meticode]

I fully expect the Pacers to win this game before I started watching it. We lost against the Bobcats and it's a back-to-back. We were in Charlotte less than 24 hours ago.

[Suguru101]

Wait, why isn't Hill playing? Urggh.

[Meticode]

Wait, why isn't Hill playing? Urggh.
Injury is all I can think. He's not even suited up. Doesn't really matter in this game. I'd be surprised if the Pacers didn't take this.

[Uncle Drew]

Wait, why isn't Hill playing? Urggh.
Something with his hip.

[Meticode]

I like how they showed a graphic stating every freethrow George Hill makes they'll donate a back-pack. And Hill isn't even suited up, they showed him on the sideline in a suit. :lol

[Suguru101]

I like how they showed a graphic stating every freethrow George Hill makes they'll donate a back-pack. And Hill isn't even suited up, they showed him on the sideline in a suit. :lol

:roll:

[Meticode]

Waiters get's mugged at the rim, no foul called. Pacers get called for travel and turn it over, Waiters still running his mouth and he gets T'd up. :facepalm

[MP.Trey]

Kyrie's in a serious slump. Wow. Especially at the FT line.

[Meticode]

Irving's freethrow struggles continue. Misses a technical free throw. I think he's 9-16 for the season now.

[b1imtf]

Waiters get's mugged at the rim, no foul called. Pacers get called for travel and turn it over, Waiters still running his mouth and he gets T'd up. :facepalm
What's up with Irving so far this season?

[Meticode]

Irving get's fouled. Misses 1 out of 2. 10-17 for the season.

[ballup]

Waiters get's mugged at the rim, no foul called. Pacers get called for travel and turn it over, Waiters still running his mouth and he gets T'd up. :facepalm
He has to establish dominance over the refs. That's how you become a superstar.

[Meticode]

:facepalm Johnson for the Pacers misses the three, Thompson goes to rebound and no Pacer is within 15 feet of him and he loses it out of bounds.

[Meticode]

He has to establish dominance over the refs. That's how you become a superstar.
I know this. It's bullshit honestly. Just call a foul if it's a foul in-my-opinion. I hate the superstar calls players get.

[Meticode]

Stephenson money from three tonight.

[MP.Trey]

Good to see Waiters getting in a groove.

[Project018]

the left hand and 1! :rockon:

[CavaliersFTW]

Kyries body-control and touch is among the greatest I've seen - and I'm talking about historically not just currently. He consistently finishes what should otherwise be known as lucky 'circus' shots. Except in his case it isn't lucky, it's like he has extremely precise control over what the appropriate spin should be on a shot, this precision control carries over to his dribbling too of course, giving him one of the sickest handles I've ever seen.

[Meticode]

Kyries body-control and touch is among the greatest I've seen - and I'm talking about historically not just currently. He consistently finishes what should otherwise be known as lucky 'circus' shots. Except in his case it isn't lucky, it's like he has extremely precise control over what the appropriate spin should be on a shot, this precision control carries over to his dribbling too of course, giving him one of the sickest handles I've ever seen.
While this is true, he was below average at finishing around the hoop last season compared to the rest of the league in the paint.

[Meticode]

9-2 run by the Cavs led by Waiters and Irving.

[Project018]

Pacers Bulls Cavs & Detroit all in central division
:eek: :eek:

[CavaliersFTW]

While this is true, he was below average at finishing around the hoop last season compared to the rest of the league in the paint.
Well it's just a very specific trait I noticed, not saying it has made him that much better than anyone at what he does compared to others - but he's got a tool or 'gift' or w/e that not many people who have played the game have ever had. Gifted players don't necessarily always know how to best capitalize on their tools though. But he sure does make nice highlight plays.

[Meticode]

Horrible close to the quarter. George gets a dunk to put them up by 6. Brown calls a play and Irving passes it to Zeller and he hesitates to shoot, then decides to shoot because there's 2 seconds left and get's his shit swatted. :facepalm I'll take the 6 point deficit

[RRR3]

Waiters has taken 18 shots in 22 minutes :biggums:

[MP.Trey]

So many moving screens.

[MP.Trey]

Bennett left too early and barely got any elevation there. That was not pretty.

[MP.Trey]

Bennett's got no confidence right now, Kyrie better play the full fourth quarter and he better put up some points, or somebody's gotta start hitting shots. Our offense is absolutely horrid right now.

[Meticode]

Bennett left too early and barely got any elevation there. That was not pretty.
He's completely struggled so far in the regular season. He's literally score 2 points in 2.5 games this season. And he's 0-12 from the field so far this season counting this game so far.

[Meticode]

After I entered the reply above Bennett missed another shot. 0-13 from the field so far.

[Meticode]

After I made the last post again Bennett shot a three and it barely hit the rim. 0-14 so far this season for Bennett. The game is getting away from the Cavaliers. 13 point lead for the Pacers.

[MP.Trey]

Good run at the end of the quarter though. In position to make it interesting.

[Meticode]

This has bad the game is. Thompson didn't score his first basket of the game until about 45 seconds left...in the third quarter.

[JimmyMcAdocious]

What are you guys expecting from Bennett anyway? It's weird because he went #1 and from the outside perspective, he has nothing remotely close to #1 expectations as a rookie or career wise. You don't see that often. Even Bargs had allstar level expectations at one point.

[Meticode]

Good run at the end of the quarter though. In position to make it interesting.
Yes, at least they made a run to cut it to 7 I think...

[It's A VC3!!!]

This has bad the game is. Thompson didn't score his first basket of the game until about 45 seconds left...in the third quarter.
I wish he played like this against the Nets.

Anyways, Bennet has been atrocious. Why was he picked again? Bad pick for the Cavs. Come on Cavs. Win this darn game.

[Meticode]

What are you guys expecting from Bennett anyway? It's weird because he went #1 and from the outside perspective, he has nothing remotely close to #1 expectations as a rookie or career wise. You don't see that often. Even Bargs had allstar level expectations at one point.
Personally, I wasn't a big fan of the pick, but it is what it is. I'm not sure what they were expecting to do with Bennett in the future. Thompson is a 4 naturally and that's going to be his position long-term. he can play the 5 in spurts. Bennett is a 4 by nature, but he plays like a 3, but he can't guard 3s right now because he's not fast enough. His body and shoulders are for a 4.

You can blame Bennett's struggles on being a rookie or out of shape, but he's 0-14 for the season so far. You can only blame those things for so long.

Especially if Bynum works out for the long term possibly what does that mean for Bennett?

[Meticode]

I wish he played like this against the Nets.

Anyways, Bennet has been atrocious. Why was he picked again? Bad pick for the Cavs. Come on Cavs. Win this darn game.
I'm not calling it a bad pick for the Cavaliers yet. It's the third game of the season for god sakes and he just turned 20 years old. Everyone said this when we picked Thompson and Thompson is in position to possibly be MIP of the year or at least in contention if he keeps playing the way he has.

Like I said, I wasn't a fan of the pick when we have Thompson, Zeller and Varejao up front and then added Bynum, but we'll see. SF was our weakest position and you would've thought they'd add Porter Jr at the time, but we signed Clark which at least you'd think would make SF stronger, but Clark has struggled thus far.

In short, so far everyone is playing below expectations this season to me (even Irving) except for Thompson, Jack and Miles.

[MP.Trey]

Stephenson's lighting us up.

[Meticode]

Horrible game. Pacers 89, Cavs 74.

Some my notes...

* The main bright spot so far this season is the defense. The Cavaliers have held all three of their opponents to 94 points or less so far.

* Whatever Mike Brown is doing on offense or allowing on offense isn't working. Each game our offense has scored less points. 97 in Cleveland, 84 in Charlotte, 74 in Indiana.

* Anthony Bennett has struggled really bad so far this season. You can blame him being a rookie and out of shape all you want. We've been saying he's out of shape since the first game of the pre-season which was almost a month ago. So far he's shooting 0-14 from the field this season. I wasn't a fan of the pick when we picked him, I'm still not, but I will wait at least the full season until I say it was a bad choice or not.

* Irving seems to have lost confidence on his shot. He seems reluctant to take the jumper. A few times during the Pacers game he had a shot for a jumper and either didn't take it or pump faked to drive to the basket to try to make an even more difficult shot. It took him literally 12 quarters this season to make his first three which was tonight in the fourth quarter in garbage time when the Cavs were losing by 15+. Another thing that makes me feel like he's struggling is his free throw shooting. He's 11-18 this season. I don't know what it is. Whether it's because he's giving more energy on defense or what, but he's struggling offensively really badly.

* Waiters struggled 7-21, but it's mainly because he was making his jumpers for the most part. He got mugged at the basket a couple times with no calls. He's played below expectations so far this season. Played good defense on Joe Johnson in the Brooklyn game, then he only played 14 minutes in Charlotte because Brown felt Jack was the better option. Tonight he looked frustrated a lot with the non-calls he was getting. He has to play through this to "be the best shooting guard in the league within 2 years" as he puts it.

* Thompson shot the ball 5 times tonight, made 1 shot, 2 points. 4 rebounds in 35 minutes. Not sure what happened here. I know we were mainly a jump-shooting team tonight.

* Tonight the starting lineup a total of 5 assists...all from Irving. The other 4 starters? 0 assists. Varejao turned the ball over 4 times. He keeps getting passes from Irving and instead of putting the shot up he'll make a stupid bounce pass right back to Irving in the lane in traffic and it'll either be a bad pass, or you have 6'3" 190 pound Irving going up against 2-3 big defenders.

Summary

In the end the defense is okay. I'm fine with the defense. What the issue is, is the offense. They've had 15 assists and 16 turnovers for the game. Whatever they're doing on offense needs to change. Whether it's Mike Brown or Mike Brown letting Irving control the offense. It isn't working.

This will be a difficult stretch to start the season. You get the first home game to start off the season, then go on the road for 5 straight games. 5 out of their first 16 games this season are on the road.

[Uncle Drew]

We lost to the title favorites, on the second night of a back-to-back, in their arena. I get it, the chance of us winning this game was close to 5%. But I do have some serious concerns.

- Earl Clark, or better; the SF position. Clark hasn't impressed me for one second thus far and has scrub written all over him. Gee is just Gee and Miles will knock some shots down, but he will also miss a lot of them.

- Bennett.... I get it, rookie, shoulder surgery bla bla bla. This dude needs to get in shape asap. In his first three NBA games, he's scored 2(!) points and shot 0 for what, 15? That blown lay up was making me laugh.

Looks like Kyrie missed his start, but I'll give him a pass as I don't want to be too negative. I like his more playmaking style, but his shooting seems to be hurting from it. Needs improvement.

This was painful to watch. On to the next one. vs Minnesota

[Meticode]

Another sad stat I noticed. C.J. Watson who started for injured George Hill had 6 assists in the game. Which is more assists than all 5 of the Cavaliers starters combined.

[crunk-juice]

We lost to the title favorites


in the top 5 of title favorites anyway...

[chips93]

- Earl Clark, or better; the SF position. Clark hasn't impressed me for one second thus far and has scrub written all over him. Gee is just Gee and Miles will knock some shots down, but he will also miss a lot of them.


dude has been invisible. he is basically a taller gee, who plays with no energy. i just dont get this guy. when he drives, it looks like hes just trying to find room to shoot a pull up jumper, which he cant hit. he actually gets a play run for him late in the 4th, a post up, and he settles for a long jumper.

he needs to be a lot smarter, and play with much more energy to justify the minutes he is getting. i would be happy if a good chunk of his minutes went to gee or miles


Horrible game. Pacers 89, Cavs 74.

Some my notes...

* The main bright spot so far this season is the defense. The Cavaliers have held all three of their opponents to 94 points or less so far.

* Whatever Mike Brown is doing on offense or allowing on offense isn't working. Each game our offense has scored less points. 97 in Cleveland, 84 in Charlotte, 74 in Indiana.

* Anthony Bennett has struggled really bad so far this season. You can blame him being a rookie and out of shape all you want. We've been saying he's out of shape since the first game of the pre-season which was almost a month ago. So far he's shooting 0-14 from the field this season. I wasn't a fan of the pick when we picked him, I'm still not, but I will wait at least the full season until I say it was a bad choice or not.

* Irving seems to have lost confidence on his shot. He seems reluctant to take the jumper. A few times during the Pacers game he had a shot for a jumper and either didn't take it or pump faked to drive to the basket to try to make an even more difficult shot. It took him literally 12 quarters this season to make his first three which was tonight in the fourth quarter in garbage time when the Cavs were losing by 15+. Another thing that makes me feel like he's struggling is his free throw shooting. He's 11-18 this season. I don't know what it is. Whether it's because he's giving more energy on defense or what, but he's struggling offensively really badly.

* Waiters struggled 7-21, but it's mainly because he was making his jumpers for the most part. He got mugged at the basket a couple times with no calls. He's played below expectations so far this season. Played good defense on Joe Johnson in the Brooklyn game, then he only played 14 minutes in Charlotte because Brown felt Jack was the better option. Tonight he looked frustrated a lot with the non-calls he was getting. He has to play through this to "be the best shooting guard in the league within 2 years" as he puts it.

* Thompson shot the ball 5 times tonight, made 1 shot, 2 points. 4 rebounds in 35 minutes. Not sure what happened here. I know we were mainly a jump-shooting team tonight.

* Tonight the starting lineup a total of 5 assists...all from Irving. The other 4 starters? 0 assists. Varejao turned the ball over 4 times. He keeps getting passes from Irving and instead of putting the shot up he'll make a stupid bounce pass right back to Irving in the lane in traffic and it'll either be a bad pass, or you have 6'3" 190 pound Irving going up against 2-3 big defenders.

Summary

In the end the defense is okay. I'm fine with the defense. What the issue is, is the offense. They've had 15 assists and 16 turnovers for the game. Whatever they're doing on offense needs to change. Whether it's Mike Brown or Mike Brown letting Irving control the offense. It isn't working.

This will be a difficult stretch to start the season. You get the first home game to start off the season, then go on the road for 5 straight games. 5 out of their first 16 games this season are on the road.

nice post

agreed on the defense. the effort has been pretty good. they are hedging really hard on screens, a lot like what the heat do on defense. the probably tonight, especially in the first half, was that after having trapped the ball handler, we are forced the rotate, and switch, so somebody else has to rotate onto hibbert, and he got a lot of easy looks. or he would draw help, and it opened up their 3pt shooters.

i like the defense so far, but i think it just doesnt work well against a team like indiana.

dion had a nice first half, but i dont even remember him shooting in the second half.

the pacers played pretty good defense on kyrie, but he just didnt play that hard, and missed some easy looks. im pretty sure he'll get it together, and when he does, we should be fine this year, but if he isnt playing at last years level, we dont really have a shot at beating any worthwhile teams.

i feel like tristan has earned the right to have some more plays called for him. he got like one post up in the game. hes earned more than that.