Cavs news and links for Tuesday, August 20.
Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Cleveland Cavaliers news and links of the day.
The below chart shows how far offenses were able to pull their opponent’s rim protector away from the hoop last season. The Cavs are in the bottom third of the graph and the Boston Celtics are at the very top. This isn’t surprising given how different both teams are constructed. The question is, how much does this matter?
Last season, the Celtics did a better job than any other offense of pulling rim protectors away from the basket. pic.twitter.com/mpCuGvbAua
— Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper) August 19, 2024
Spacing is of the utmost importance for NBA offenses. That can’t be debated. And, it also can’t be summed up neatly onto a chart.
Offenses need room to allow their best players to do what they do best. For the Celtics, that came in the form of getting the opposing center out of the paint and allowing Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to make easy reads when the defense rotates. For the Cavs, the goal is to keep help defenders from being in the key. Not necessarily the opponent’s center.
You can’t filter the graph, but I’m assuming the Cavs’ placement wouldn’t look too different when they were on their offensive tear from December to the All-Star break last season. Jarrett Allen was mostly occupying the lane as was his defender. The difference was there wasn’t a second big in there to complicate things.
The Cavs have shown that they can still get to the rim playing both bigs. As a team, they finished a higher percentage of shots in the restricted area with both on (67.9%, 65th percentile) than they did with just one on. That, however, didn’t lead to having a better offense with both on. The main issue was the dip in three-point shooting percentage lineups with two-bigs had (35.1%, 23rd percentile).
Kenny Atkinson was brought in to optimize the offense. To do that, he will need to find creative ways to get the bigs to be defended on the perimeter by either having them handle the ball more or leverage their screening ability for more open looks for the guards.
Žižić played three years with the Cavaliers from 2017-20. He was drafted by Boston in 2016 and signed a deal with the club the following summer. Then, he was included in the most controversial move in Cavs history as Kyrie Irving was traded for a package of Jae Crowder, Isaiah Thomas, Žižić, and the Brooklyn Nets’ pick.
Žižić never really blossomed into the NBA big man the Cavs likely hoped he would. He only played three years in the NBA and finished averaging six points and 3.9 rebounds per game. Žižić returned to Europe after the 2019-20 season and played for Virtus Bologna in the Italian LBA last season.
Although Žižić’s time with the Cavs wasn’t memorable, he was on the receiving end of one of LeBron James’s most iconic assists (shoutout to Kyle Korver). That has to count for something.
