What Will Cleveland Cavaliers' New High-Octane Offense Look Like?

With LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving at his disposal, Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt has plenty of scoring options on his team. How and whether they come together are entirely different questions which Blatt will have to answer in his first year on the job. 

We can certainly look to his career coaching internationally as a blueprint for his offensive principles, but Blatt has never coached this type of talent. That's why it's reasonable to expect that he'll loosen the reins a bit more than he's used to, relying on pick-and-roll play among his trio of stars to facilitate much of the offense. 

But history has shown that superteams tend to suffer from offensive turn-taking when left up to their own devices, so expect Blatt to control the wheres and whens of this freedom. Love and James are great and willing passers in their own right, but sometimes it takes sets or plays to force consistent ball movement. 

This year's Las Vegas Summer League likely provided a nice window into at least a small portion of his offensive game plan. Outside of the simpler post-up actions for Love and pick-and-roll play for Irving and LeBron, what kinds of sets can we expect this upcoming season?

While the exact movements of each player might shift for the regular season, some concepts are clearly visible. 

Straddling this tenuous line between too much player freedom and too much coach control is difficult, and NBA teams tend to lean toward the former. Plays are drawn up out of timeouts and to start quarters, but otherwise they're a mechanism to control the game when an offense is sputtering or the pace of play is out of hand. 

Even so, a handful of typical NBA sets are one-off actions, which is to say that there's a singular purpose for the play. Whether it's an intended target or dressed up pick-and-roll, many actions lack a secondary/backup plan in case of failure with the primary. 

Most of Blatt's play-calling in summer league did not suffer from this pitfall because the calls themselves weren't rigid. 

It's not that he didn't have plays meant to create an open three-point look or a layup at the rim; it's that they were used sparingly. Take this play against the Milwaukee Bucks, in which the two bigs set a double stagger screen for Scotty Hopson, only to shift direction and set a second one for Andrew Wiggins.

The first time the Cavs run it, Wiggins ends up with an open jumper:

When they ran it later in the quarter, it was promptly shut down:

That play didn't appear the rest of the game. NBA players are able to sniff out repeat movements and jump routes at a high level, and it's why such precise plays with specific goals have a shorter shelf life. 

Instead, Blatt ran European concepts involving plenty of perimeter dribble handoffs with the bigs on the perimeter.

Whereas most bigs without the ability to stretch the floor are seen as an offensive liability, Blatt instead seizes on an opportunity: Their size and mobility. 

Most NBA coaches prefer the throw-and-chase method of screening, which utilizes the big as a passer and has him follow his pass to a guard. Once the guard catches the ball, he waits for the big to set the screen and plays from there. 

But this type of standstill action is easy to handle for the defense because it is easy to see coming. The on-ball guard has time to recognize the screen, and the defensive big has time to call out a pick-and-roll defense. 

That's what the Boston Celtics were able to do on this play below against last year's Cavs when Spencer Hawes threw it to Dion Waiters in the corner. The Celtics read the incoming screen and essentially double-teamed Waiters. With nowhere to go, he jacked up a bad three-pointer:

Dribble handoffs—much more common in European play—has the guard and screener on the move. Defensive communication is more difficult, and it can often lead to switches that cause mismatches. 

What's worse is fighting through multiple dribble handoffs. Players are constantly moving on the perimeter, and any defensive lapse means the offensive ball-handler can slice through the lane with ease. Or, if the big is particularly crafty, he can fake the handoff, wait for his guard to pivot and give it to him cutting to the rim, back toward the ball or away from it.

In short, the dribble handoff provides limitless options. The throw-and-chase is stagnant and readable. 

Blatt has taken this dribble handoff-heavy style of play and adapted it to the Cavs. Here's a set from summer league utilizing multiple dribble handoffs in tandem, with the offensive player closer to the big cutting through and the farther player running into the handoff.

In this example it takes four handoffs before the Cavs are able to generate anything, but the continuous movement and cutting amongst all players confuses the Miami Heat defense. By the time Will Cherry decides to attack the paint, none of Miami's defenders are paying attention to the ball.

They're too busy chasing their men around the floor. Cherry waltzes into the lane for an uncontested finish:

This is the type of blend—part play design, part freedom to attack given the opportunity—that we'll see often from the Cavaliers this season. Especially with LeBron James at the 4 and Kevin Love at the 4 or 5, Cleveland has bigs that are able to use their size to screen while comfortably dribbling the basketball.

These endless dribble handoffs are also a nice last resort for late shot-clock scenarios. Instead of isolation or standstill pick-and-roll, Cleveland has the firepower to swing the ball around until someone has an opening. And with this type of offense facilitating movement, the Cavs offense won't be lost when the pressure is on. 

It will still take time for the Cavaliers to mesh and develop trust. An offense is only as successful as the players' willingness to execute it, so we'll see what happens when a play fails and Waiters has the ball with eight seconds left on the shot clock.

But it's nice to see that Blatt's concepts encourage ball-sharing and cutting. It's not enough just to screen away from the ball or just to swing it from side to side. Finding a way to seamlessly implement both in an offense is the key, and Blatt has already shown his willingness and ability to do just that.