Hey, Cavalier fans and CavFanatics! It’s been a while, but it’s A.C. – checking in from Denver. What’s happening?The Cavs are in a bit of a funk since the All-Star break, and it won’t get any easier out West.
Right now, it’s apparent that the team really misses Andy. I’ll put it this way: Andy is one of the few non-scoring players that have such a huge effect on their team. There’s not a lot guys in the league like that. He’s a non-scorer who has an MVP-like effect on the game.
His energy and confidence level really affect the team. They don’t have the same confidence level as when Andy was out there.
But Andy’s absence has given the Cavs bigs a golden opportunity. The opportunity is there and it’s knocking. Pretty soon, it won’t be knocking. Pretty soon, the opportunity will be gone. There are only so many chances that you get, and some of these guys are on their third opportunity. And they’re lucky they’re playing on a team like we have, where they can get that many opportunities. Sooner or later, they’re going to have to wake up.
Tristan Thompson has taken advantage of his extended minutes after the Break.
He’s much more confident, first of all. He’s definitely grown more on the defensive end than the offensive end. And now he has to take the offseason and work on moves after he gets a rebound under the basket, moves facing the basket, things like that. He’s got to work on developing the offensive aspect of his game. But defensively, he’s done a super job, I think. He’s been almost a double-double guy since he’s started getting consistent minutes.
Tristan needs to keep this pace up. Consistency is king. Guys like Andy and Ramon Sessions prove it.
That’s what professional ball is all about. The key to professional ball is being able to play the game well, but being able to do it consistently – night-in and night-out. So that means you have to have a different mindset, a different understanding of the game – it’s how you play over the long haul. It’s not about flash-in-the-pan games, one or two good games and a bunch of bad games after that.
I learned that from Lenny Wilkens. He’d tell me: ‘You’re going out here trying to score 40 points in one quarter, you’re dead for the next three quarters – and the team suffers. Divide that up – five points, two rebounds, two assists every quarter. You get 20 points, eight boards and eight assists and you’re an All-Star.’ Give your team positive minutes over the whole game instead of for a few good minutes.
Kyrie’s been very consistent, but I think he has to play more and get in better shape. He just hasn’t played much. That toe situation cut his conditioning down because he didn’t play. Now he’s been pushed into the fire and you’ve got to have lung-power and leg-power. And he has to work on that in the off-season; it’s almost impossible to get that now. So just keep working on it until you get it. But he’s been superb, I think.
It’s just like when I trained with Nate Archibald. His whole thing was: ‘I’m not going to let fatigue make a coward of me. The only advantage I have is to use my quickness and my speed. I have to be in condition where I’m able to use it all the time. I have the control instead of letting others control me.
A guy who continues to impress me is Alonzo Gee. He’s a great story because, what you like to see is a guy who works on his weaknesses and you see him turn that weakness into a positive the next year. Right now, he’s done so much to improve his game. This year, he added the outside game. Next year, hopefully he’ll add the mid-range game. He has a little bit of a tough time controlling the ball in traffic.
If he gets that to go with his shooting and his driving ability, he’ll be almost impossible to guard.
For a lot of guys around the league, this next week heading towards the Trade Deadline is going to be difficult.
I don’t care what era you play in, whether it’s my era, the Magic-Bird era, this era now – the Deadline is always a factor. It’s always in the back of your mind, especially if you’re in the last year or your contract or have one more year left in your contract. All that is definitely a factor. These guys hear things – they have agents, they read the papers. And some guys can handle the pressure and some guys can’t.
What the Cavaliers have to worry about is how they’re going to approach these next two games.
They must control the pace of the game, which is going to be tough against Denver because they have seven or eight guys that average double-figures. That means every position is going to have to be defended. Individual defense has to be good tonight, or we’re going to have a lot of trouble.
And Oklahoma City is an entirely different animal. You have two guys with skill-level that’s off the charts. And then they have Harden coming off the bench. But I like the role their big people play. They have Ibaka and Perkins and those guys play solid roles also. They may not be prolific scorers, but they’re solid at every other part of the game.
It’s going to be a more physical game than the Denver game – although Denver is one of the league’s best rebounding teams. But these two games will show us where we are and, more importantly, where we need to go.