Lakers beat the Cavs 115-108 as Lebron finishes with 46 points on 73% from the field and hitting 7 threes including 21 points in the fourth quarter alone. The game was close though, the Cavs had a 96-95 lead with 8 minutes left and it was a 3 point game with 1:50 left but Lebron got hot and just decided he wasn't going to miss. He takes it personally when coaches match up rookies against him so I probably should've seen this coming when Isaac Okoro was Lebron's primary defender.
Larry Nance didn't play tonight, so Taurean Prince got the start in his place. Javale McGee also saw some court time as a result. Coach Bickerstaff ran with 2-big lineups 22 of the 48 minutes, and the effects were certainly felt. Anthony Davis was bad at shotmaking tonight, but still took 9 free throws. However, he hasn't been himself so far this year so it is what it is. Still, holding him to 17 points is good regardless. Playing 2 bigs for 22 minutes also had an affect on the offense. Sexton finished with 17 points as well, and shot 4/13 for 31% on 2pt attempts. He clearly suffered from it. Overall, the Cavs shot 31/65 for 48% on 2pt attempts, and everyone except for the bigs shot 15/36 for 42% on 2pt attempts. The lack of spacing predictably killed our offense. Whenever you let guys like Anthony Davis help off their man without consequences, you're not going to get good results. The Lakers finished with 7 blocks, and for reference the league leader in blocks are the Sixers at 6.8 per game.
Drummond wasn't bad tonight, finishing with 25-17 on 52% shooting and only 2 turnovers. His play style hasn't changed one bit, tonight was just one of those nights where the shots were falling at a passable rate. Cedi Osman also had a good game, scoring an efficient 20 points and grabbing 3 steals while hitting 5 threes. Darius Garland doesn't look 100%, his jumper is still not back after the shoulder injury. He's 1-10 from deep since returning didn't even take a single three tonight. Dylan Windler looked really good in his 17 minutes. I would really like to see him get consistent playing time from now on. He also plays good defense and fits JB's turnover forcing scheme. Add the 26th pick out of Belmont to the list of 3nD players that were drafted with late picks if they were even drafted at all, proving my theory that you shouldn't give up significant assets for 3nD players because you can draft them and develop them yourself for cheap. Okoro got some good looks tonight but was bad at finishing at the basket. That's probably not a trend that's going to continue, as Okoro was good at finishing in college and hasn't been bad this season aside from tonight. He also didn't play bad defense on Lebron, Lebron just made the shots anyway.
Overall, despite the loss, the Cavs had a very good bounce-back game after the abysmal performance the night before in Boston. Considering it was a one possession game with 1:50 left against the best team in the league, and the biggest reason for the loss being Lebron James scoring 46 and hitting 7 threes, it was very encouraging. The upcoming schedule for the Cavs includes Detroit, New York, and Minnesota twice before the brutal February gauntlet. Taking advantage of the light schedule while you still can would be crucial for a potential playoff push.
I don't think Bickerstaff should be in control of this offense for much longer. I'm not suggesting he should be fired, but he needs to either figure out how to create efficient offense or bring in someone as an assistant coach who can. I don't know who out of the assistant coaches in the league are good, but some places I would look for them would be Utah, Houston, Toronto, Indiana, and Portland, in that order, based on how they structure their offenses. Utah stands out the most as the best candidate. I have no idea who out of their 10 total coaches to give credit for what, but Sergi Oliva is labled as "Assistant Coach/Basketball Strategy" on basketball reference, so that must mean something. He's also spent time as the Vice President of Basketball Strategy in Philly after joining the team as a Basketball Operations Analyst in 2014. He also has multiple computer science degrees. Overall he sounds like an analytics guy and those guys typically produce good offenses. However, this is his first year with Utah so they might not want to let him go so soon. Anyways, I don't know a lot about assistant coaches in the NBA, but if I had to pick a guy to add to this coaching staff, it would be Utah's Sergi Oliva.
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