See what happens when Cavs play competition

[Bankshot]

Cleveland needs a championship more than anybody - I am pulling for Cleveland provided Lebron doesn't get away with traveling.

Meh, who cares what the Cavs need.  I'm rooting for the Magic.  I can't stand Lebron.

[guava_wrench]

Everyone hated Magic few days ago howard etc now were all fans?

*closes browser*

Kheeko,

I certainly am. As soon as the Magic eliminated the Celtics I think we all instantly became Orlando Magic fans. Reasons being:

1) We all hate Lebron and the Cavs
2) We all hate Kobe and the Fakers
3) If you're going to get eliminated, at least get eliminated by the CHAMPS

Why would we hate Lebron or the Cavs? I have no problem with either. The Cavs are historically irrelevant and Lebron seems like a nice guy.

[Steve Weinman]

Everyone hated Magic few days ago howard etc now were all fans?

*closes browser*

Kheeko,

I certainly am. As soon as the Magic eliminated the Celtics I think we all instantly became Orlando Magic fans. Reasons being:

1) We all hate Lebron and the Cavs
2) We all hate Kobe and the Fakers
3) If you're going to get eliminated, at least get eliminated by the CHAMPS

Why would we hate Lebron or the Cavs? I have no problem with either. The Cavs are historically irrelevant and Lebron seems like a nice guy.

Cosign me on that.  And further for me, I do hate the Knicks, and I wonder if a title in Cleveland is the best remedy for keeping LBJ out of orange and blue.

-sw

[Rondo_is_better]

Again this is the same thing someone said to me last time.  These are not cherry picked games.  Those are the Cavs last 14 games against teams who have a .600 or better winning percentage.  There is nothing cherry picked about that. 


 It is a good measure of how they play against quality teams. 

That's exactly what cherry picking is.

That's why its really not a good measure of anything.

[Mr October]

Everyone hated Magic few days ago howard etc now were all fans?

*closes browser*

Kheeko,

I certainly am. As soon as the Magic eliminated the Celtics I think we all instantly became Orlando Magic fans. Reasons being:

1) We all hate Lebron and the Cavs
2) We all hate Kobe and the Fakers
3) If you're going to get eliminated, at least get eliminated by the CHAMPS

Why would we hate Lebron or the Cavs? I have no problem with either. The Cavs are historically irrelevant and Lebron seems like a nice guy.

Cosign me on that.  And further for me, I do hate the Knicks, and I wonder if a title in Cleveland is the best remedy for keeping LBJ out of orange and blue.

-sw

Oh I kinda want to see Lebron win for this very reason. If he wins a title in Cleveland, he can't blame the organization or his lack of good teammates for why he wants to leave.

It would be a scumbag move to leave a championship team in favor of the 'Clippers East' in NYC, just to get more pub.

Plus Lebron winning a title will drive Kobe INSANE.

[Edgar]

Everyone hated Magic few days ago howard etc now were all fans?

*closes browser*

Kheeko,

I certainly am. As soon as the Magic eliminated the Celtics I think we all instantly became Orlando Magic fans. Reasons being:

1) We all hate Lebron and the Cavs
2) We all hate Kobe and the Fakers
3) If you're going to get eliminated, at least get eliminated by the CHAMPS

Why would we hate Lebron or the Cavs? I have no problem with either. The Cavs are historically irrelevant and Lebron seems like a nice guy.

Cosign me on that.  And further for me, I do hate the Knicks, and I wonder if a title in Cleveland is the best remedy for keeping LBJ out of orange and blue.

-sw

Oh I kinda want to see Lebron win for this very reason. If he wins a title in Cleveland, he can't blame the organization or his lack of good teammates for why he wants to leave.

It would be a scumbag move to leave a championship team in favor of the 'Clippers East' in NYC, just to get more pub.

Plus Lebron winning a title will drive Kobe INSANE.

Maybe i am the minority here
but i want to see Bron buries himself in NYC after this season
even if i am scared of Lee and bron combo I think overall theres no way that team ends champ.

[LB3533]

We are all witnesses to Lebron's greatness.

He was the reason the team was up by 15 at the end of the first half, and he was the reason the Cavs were still in the game during the 2nd half.

[Hoops]

Let's not kid ourselves though into thinking this means we could have gone in there and done the same thing without a healthy KG or Powe in the lineup. We would have been lucky to win a single game. There would have been a couple close ones that we had a chance to win, but doubtful that we would even pick up a game. The best thing for next year happened.

I don't think that is kidding ourselves. we would have been a total pain in the neck for CLE to beat even without KG. Just based on how scrappy we are.

Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if we started to hear the "KG is working out" rumors right about now that would make CLE very nervous.

Like i said earlier in this thread, if you can turn Bron into a jump shooter, it totally changes their team.

I don't know if this was covered earlier in this thread, but our lack of bigs wouldn't have hurt nearly as much in this series. The only big Cleveland has that needs a defender is Big Z - and even then, he's more of a jump shooter than a guy that draws fouls in the post.

Depending on how badly Ray and Paul were hurt, I don't think a Bos-Cle series would have been nearly as lopsided as most people have suggested.

You  think BBD could guard Smith and Andy with the height difference without foul trouble?

Im skeptical.

Wait, you're worried about Joe Smith and Anderson Varejao? The last time I saw Smith working the post was about 10 years ago. And Varejao? Mr. 6 pts. per game Varejao? He's got fewer post moves than Dwight Howard.

Look I'm not saying either of these guys are bad players. Not at all. Both are very good players and are players I would love to have in Boston. But strictly from the point of view of being undermanned up front, Cleveland's bigs don't put nearly as much foul-pressure on our undermanned front line as Dwight Howard did all by himself. Sure, Joe Smith will kill you with some 12 foot jumpers and Varejao will get his on hustle and put-backs. But Cleveland's front line combined can't draw fouls the way Dwight Howard can. So, in that sense, Cleveland would be a better match up for our injured team.

Of course, if LeBron gets into the lane, that foul-pressure increases dramatically. But like one poster said, if you can make LeBron a jump shooter, you don't expose your thin front line all that much. Given that Paul and Ray were apparently playing injured, it doesn't seem likely that we could have prevented LeBron from getting into the lane. So, in the end, the Cavs have the advantage. But I still stand by my point that facing Cleveland's front line would have been much easier than handling Dwight Howard.

[BballTim]

Let's not kid ourselves though into thinking this means we could have gone in there and done the same thing without a healthy KG or Powe in the lineup. We would have been lucky to win a single game. There would have been a couple close ones that we had a chance to win, but doubtful that we would even pick up a game. The best thing for next year happened.

I don't think that is kidding ourselves. we would have been a total pain in the neck for CLE to beat even without KG. Just based on how scrappy we are.

Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if we started to hear the "KG is working out" rumors right about now that would make CLE very nervous.

Like i said earlier in this thread, if you can turn Bron into a jump shooter, it totally changes their team.

I don't know if this was covered earlier in this thread, but our lack of bigs wouldn't have hurt nearly as much in this series. The only big Cleveland has that needs a defender is Big Z - and even then, he's more of a jump shooter than a guy that draws fouls in the post.

Depending on how badly Ray and Paul were hurt, I don't think a Bos-Cle series would have been nearly as lopsided as most people have suggested.

  I don't think we would have been swept, but without KG LeBron would be very hard to stop and without Perk on the floor it would be impossible. Defense on Smith and Varejao wouldn't be the biggest concern.

[star18]

"That's exactly what cherry picking is".   No its not its their last 14 games against .600+ or better teams. So you are only supposed to judge them by how they play teams below .600? If they are not playing well against .600+ or better teams they are not going to play well with only 4 teams left in the playoffs

[Fafnir]

"That's exactly what cherry picking is".   No its not its their last 14 games against .600+ or better teams. So you are only supposed to judge them by how they play teams below .600? If they are not playing well against .600+ or better teams they are not going to play well with only 4 teams left in the playoffs

Cherry picking is the act of pointing at individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.

You're ignoring the many metrics that cover the results of the entire regular season in favor of a small sample. In particular a sample which is likely to have skewed results.

So yeah you cited a stat that could easily be interpreted as cherry picking.

[star18]

No its not, its not a small sample with skewed results.  Its 14 full games. How would you judge how the Cavs would play against ORL,BOS,HOU,DEN,LA by looking at how they played against DET,ATL,PHI,WAS, & TOR? No.   By looking at how they play against the better teams in the league.  So are you saying because they beat DET & ATL, they will beat DEN,LA & ORL? Or because they are 7-7 against teams .600+ in their last 14 with 6 of those 7 losses being in double digits so that is an accurate measure of how they may play against the last 3 other teams in the playoffs.  So you're saying if a team can beat PHI,NYK,TOR & IND they will win the NBA title because they are playing the Heat and the Bobcats in the final 2 rounds of the playoffs. I dont' understand where people come up with this stuff.

[star18]

Even if you look at the entire regular season, they still have similiar numbers against .600+ or better teams.  So if the Cavs lose to ORL,LA,DEN they should be awarded an NBA title because remember they played great against the 76ers & Knicks and that's a "significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position" 

[fairweatherfan]

Gotta agree with Star18 on this one - cherry-picking is more "look at these 3 random games where they sucked (and ignore the other 79)!!"  Star is applying a reasonable standard (teams over .600) and doing it consistently.  It might be more reasonable to look at every game against +.600 competition, rather than just the last 14, or to compare their win % against top competition to those of recent champions to see if it's different, but it's definitely not an arbitrary selection standard.  

It does look like a chink in their armor to examine performance against elite teams - unlike other recent teams with great W-L records, the Cavs basically never lost to a bad team this year (3 losses to lottery teams, 2 to Washington and 1 to Indiana who beat everybody), which helps to gloss over a more mediocre record against the relatively few elite teams.  

Last year we lost against Charlotte, Washington twice, Toronto, Golden State, etc - all of these were mediocre teams at best.  Against top teams we did very well, especially against the West.  Maybe not coincidentally we kind of matched that in the playoffs, struggling against two teams with mediocre W-Ls and finding our stride against the two elite teams at the end.  Cleveland has so far matched their pattern too, crushing two lesser teams but now struggling in their one game against a good squad.  Whether that'll hold up remains to be seen though.

The Cavs have to be the favorites for the title now, but their struggles against top teams are very relevant to what's ahead of them.

[Rondo_is_better]

No its not, its not a small sample with skewed results.  Its 14 full games. How would you judge how the Cavs would play against ORL,BOS,HOU,DEN,LA by looking at how they played against DET,ATL,PHI,WAS, & TOR? No.   By looking at how they play against the better teams in the league.  So are you saying

"That's exactly what cherry picking is".   No its not its their last 14 games against .600+ or better teams. So you are only supposed to judge them by how they play teams below .600? If they are not playing well against .600+ or better teams they are not going to play well with only 4 teams left in the playoffs

because they beat DET & ATL, they will beat DEN,LA & ORL? Or because they are 7-7 against teams .600+ in their last 14 with 6 of those 7 losses being in double digits so that is an accurate measure of how they may play against the last 3 other teams in the playoffs.  So you're saying if a team can beat PHI,NYK,TOR & IND they will win the NBA title because they are playing the Heat and the Bobcats in the final 2 rounds of the playoffs. I dont' understand where people come up with this stuff.

*shaking head sadly*