Hey, Cavalier fans! It’s A.C., home from Boston and ready for the rematch. What’s happening?Sunday’s win over the Celtics was real nice. It’s always a great atmosphere in Boston. Even though the Celtics are not up to par yet – because of injuries – they and their fans still have that Celtic bravado, that cockiness.
The Celtics are a good matchup for the Cavs. Our styles are much different. They don’t beat you off the dribble. They beat you by executing their plays. It’s always the third or fourth pass that’s the killer. That’s how they do it. They’re familiar with one another and they execute to perfection.
The Cavaliers, under Byron Scott, are trying to be a running team, an up-tempo team. And we’re starting to see that.
It’s something that has to become your identity. Even when it’s not there, you have to push the ball. And by the end of the third and fourth quarter, you start seeing what you saw at the end of the game on Sunday night.
By the fourth quarter, the Celtics were tired. And it forced them to keep Garnett out of the game maybe a little longer than they wanted to because of the pace. At one point, Sessions came down the floor and blew past everybody.
Our system, our style wore them down at the end. And you saw how Kyrie closed them out.
Kyrie is starting to become respected by everyone throughout the league now. Everywhere we go, either one of the TV people or one of the opponent’s coaches will come up to me and say, “Now THAT kid can play.” Doc Rivers said he’s stronger than most people think he is.
Personally, I think it’s amazing the way he finds his way through the maze. He seems to get better, game by game.
Almost lost in Sunday’s big win – and Kyrie’s big shot – was the play of Andy down the stretch. He proved again why my nickname for him is “Priceless.” How many guys in the league do you see do the things he does? It’s all about heart. I call it “want to.” It’s all about “want to.” And Anderson wants it. He wanted it more than anyone on that floor on Sunday night.
To me, he’s playing not just All-Star-level, but in a way, MVP-level. Because you look at this team last year without him – we were awful. We lost 26 straight games! And all we’ve done is added a couple rookies and a healthy Varejao, and we’re already back to respectability.
Andy’s a quiet leader. He’s not the type of guy to go around beating his chest. But he wanted that game Sunday night. When he plays against the big boys, he steps his game up, and he takes it to heart. Garnett does a lot of talking, but Andy ran circles around him in Boston.
I was talking with one of the scouts on Sunday – I won’t say with which team – but he said something to me that I found interesting. (Byron had mentioned this at the beginning of the season.) The scout said, “The Cavs play with heart and they play for each other. They play like they like each other.”
You can see it on the floor. That is the ingredient that you want to have with a team. It makes up for a lot of things you may not have.
The Cavaliers aren’t a one- or two-man team anymore. They get contributions from everywhere, and that was the case again on Sunday night.
Alonzo Gee was pressed into more time than he usually gets, and he responded.
Alonzo’s definitely improved on his jump shot. The only thing he needs now is a pull-up shot, a mid-range game. Right now, he determines he’s going to the basket, come hell or high water – no matter how many guys are there. As he develops, he’ll learn to read that more effectively. He has to work on that in the offseason, but other than that – WOW!
All Gee needs is one dribble to get from Point A to Point B. And that dunk on Garnett: He wasn’t expecting it and neither was the crowd. When he threw that down, the crowd at the Garden just went “Whoa!”
We’re going to need a guy like that – especially against the LeBrons of the world. Because Alonzo is extremely physical.
I was also impressed with Mychel Thompson. He came into the game in a crucial part of the game. I was a little surprised Byron threw him in there. But he stepped up big time and he shot with a lot of confidence.
Coach Scott just has an excellent pulse on his team. He strung Samardo along to where Samardo was just really hungry and he couldn’t wait to get in the game.
Byron must’ve told Mychel to be ready. And he came in and played like he was looking for some playing time. He defended well, getting over picks. I thought this was interesting.
What we’re seeing is what I think many of the smaller market teams are going to have to do. (Even though I don’t consider us a small market.) You have to develop your players.
The league doesn’t do that anymore. They don’t develop guys.
That credit goes to Byron and the coaching staff. It seems like we focus on weaknesses and try to bring players up to a certain level. I don’t see other teams develop guys like Gee and Mychel Thompson and Samardo – guys that nobody knew about that we turned into serviceable ballplayers. And it’s a credit to our organization – scouts, coaches, player development guys.
On Tuesday night, the Celtics will be back looking for a little revenge. It’s going to be a blood battle. That’s who they are and you know it from the get-go. So you better be ready to get in the trenches.
The key is even when the fastbreak is not there, you have to rush it up the floor and make them continue having to backpedal. They should be backpedaling that whole first half. And you’ll see towards the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, you’ll start being to go by them.
That’s how we have to win – by wearing people down. Let’s see if we can do it again on Tuesday.