San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers Are Miles Apart Despite Close Contest
CLEVELAND — Sometimes, the difference between where two teams stand can't be captured accurately by the scoreboard or even the standings. Sometimes, it's about the expectations. It's about what each side perceives as a sign of success and what isn't even the slightest bit satisfying.
That's rarely been better demonstrated than it was Wednesday, before, during and after the Spurs' 92-90 victory, a day on which the losers felt as if they'd progressed some, while the winners still didn't feel quite like themselves.
And while the perspectives may change some by the time the Cavaliers and Spurs meet again, on March 12 in San Antonio, or perhaps—if the Cavaliers make major leaps—sometime in June, there was no ignoring what currently divides them.
The Spurs know who they were and must again attempt to become.
The Cavaliers still don't know quite who they are or who they can be.
That contrast was clear early, after shootaround at Quicken Loans Arena, when LeBron James characterized the Spurs, with their track record of success and sacrifice, as "too far for us to even try to put ourselves in the same category or same breath; we've got a long way to go."
Then, the Cavaliers gave way to the Spurs and an intermittently gregarious and grumpy, playful and prickly Gregg Popovich.
When asked about the "temperature" of his team, Popovich quipped that nobody had asked him that in 19 years. "We don't exist" compared to the NBA's glamour teams, he said, before adding more seriously, "But the temperature of our team is we're not anywhere close to where we were at the end of last year. Time will tell if we can get there or if that will be good enough. But we're certainly not there yet."
Popovich then doubled down on that premise in the evening. While he said he wasn't dwelling on the team's rather ordinary 6-4 record, calling it meaningless to all but "you all," he did acknowledge that the Spurs' 2014 championship had been a "detriment" to the team's focus thus far, which isn't a surprise considering the Spurs no longer have the heartbreaking 2013 Finals defeat as a driver.
Why?
"Because the team is made up of human beings," Popovich said.
And while the coach quarreled with the descriptor of "hangover," he explained, "I think when somebody has success, it's to be enjoyed. And I think every human being would take his or her own time in deciding when it's time to move on from the satisfaction. Everybody doesn't do it at the same time."
Clearly, he doesn't believe all of his guys have done it yet, but that certainly hasn't been the only cause of the Spurs' relatively sluggish start—albeit, still a start better than Cleveland's and against a superior schedule.
Absences have played a part in San Antonio's inconsistency, especially offensively, as well. The Spurs didn't have Kawhi Leonard for the first game, haven't had Patty Mills for the entire season, haven't had Tiago Splitter for more than one game and have missed others—due to rest, minor injury or ailment—on occasion, including Marco Belinelli and Mills on Wednesday.
So Popovich again had to plug in players, such as Aron Baynes and Austin Daye, who would seem to have no place in a contender's rotation. And yet, he did so, because that's what he has always done, while the first-year NBA coach on the other side, David Blatt, continued to stay with a tighter rotation even while possessing a healthier roster, missing only "significant rotation player" Matthew Dellavedova.
Blatt held to his promise, honoring James' request for a little less time on the floor, removing the star forward with two minutes and 27 seconds left in the first quarter and keeping him out through the first 3:09 of the second quarter. Ultimately, he trimmed James' total-minute count to 34, the third-lowest of the season, though three early fouls contributed to some of that pine time.
And Blatt didn't use James' lesser load as an opportunity to spread the minutes to a greater number of players, which was the other potential benefit, beyond just rest, that James cited as a reason to give up some of his allotment.
He didn't play any of the four active veterans—Mike Miller, James Jones, Brendan Haywood, Lou Amundson—on the end of the bench, and he played a ninth man, rookie point guard Will Cherry, just two minutes. He rode center Anderson Varejao, who was exceptional (23 points, 11 rebounds) Wednesday, for 22 minutes in the first half and 37 minutes overall, with the latter total greater than in 59 of Varejao's 65 games last season.
His most unconventional decision, however, concerned rookie Joe Harris, the second-rounder who has earned some trust due to his willingness to listen, hustle, spot up and defend. Harris had been getting regular time, with 20, 19, 21 and 24 minutes, over the Cavaliers' past four games. Even so, it was a surprise that, after he replaced Shawn Marion with 7:28 left in the third quarter, he never came out.
Not once.
Blatt explained that he wanted another shooter on the floor, and that he liked Harris' physicality on defense. And Harris generally held up fine—he was a minus-one in 27 overall minutes. But he's green and, as he admitted later, he got a bit gassed. While he didn't know exactly how long he'd been out there, "by the end, I was sucking wind a little bit."
So it wasn't a surprise that the crafty Manu Ginobili sucked him in when it mattered.
After Varejao's lob for James was short, leaving the latter to deflect it out of bounds, the Spurs called a 20-second timeout with a one-point lead and 34.9 seconds left. Ginobili brought the ball up the floor, passed to Tony Parker on the wing and lost Harris as Parker passed to Tim Duncan at the top and Duncan one-touched the ball to the rim.
Layup.
Three-point Spurs lead.
"That was a frustrating one," Harris said. "Because I'm not a dummy. I figured they would probably be coming at me, and we had talked about it too. That was one of the plays we had prepared against. He kind of just almost lulled me to sleep.
"He knew that I was getting on top of him hard on all of his cuts. He just kept me on his back side and it was quick high-low action. I should have done a better job with my vision...tried to get between him and the basket, instead of playing it on the top side."
That's when Blatt called that third and final 20-second timeout, with all five of their full timeouts already utilized. A well-designed play, and a strong Kyrie Irving drive, drew a foul on Duncan, and Irving made the two free throws. Then, after Kevin Love intentionally fouled Ginobili, and the Spurs guard made just one of two, the Cavaliers had the ball.
But no margin for error.
Varejao grabbed the rebound with seven seconds left and handed it off to James, who went behind his back to elude Ginobili.
"I tried to make him change directions, and I was going to chase him from behind," Ginobili said. "But I think it was a bit of a bad move by me. I should've run backwards, but it worked out."
Sure did.
"Just lost it," James said of the ball.
And with it, the game, and with Duncan, who was impeding his path, credited with the steal.
Would it have been different if Blatt had retained a timeout to set up a play?
"I think we needed to make the timeout calls that we did, in all honesty," Blatt said. "Do I wish I had one? Yeah. But I thought that we took our timeouts with purpose and for good reason. And the way things played out with that turnover near the end, which wasn't expected, we got caught a little bit."
Perhaps. Yet Popovich still had a 20-second timeout remaining at the end, even though he had burned a full one just 17 seconds into the third quarter, after a Love layup, to scream this at his players:
"They think this is a playoff game, these people. And we're letting 'em get away with it."
In the end, the Spurs didn't. They did what they do.
Still, James wasn't sweating it too much, not after getting swamped by the Spurs in the 2014 NBA Finals, not after witnessing some defensive growth from his new squad, with Irving playing what Blatt called "the best defensive game I've seen him play all season," helping limit Parker to eight points.
"I think this is a game that I am happy about," James said. "I'm never happy about a loss; I hate to lose, but I'm happy about the progress we made tonight. It's totally different from Monday (in a loss to Denver). We came to play. We competed for 48 minutes, and if you give yourself an opportunity to win, that's all you can ask for."
Well, perhaps, unless you're Popovich.
"We executed a couple of plays—the layup from Manu was executed pretty well, and the defense down the stretch was pretty good, I guess," Popovich said. "But I don't think either team played that great, to be honest with you."
He said he expected the Cavaliers to "multiply by two or three" in terms of performance, by season's end.
Maybe, by then, their expectations will too—in order to match those held by the Spurs.
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