Continued Signs of Growth, Not 'Signature Wins,' Most Critical for Cavaliers
CLEVELAND — There's a natural desire to add relevance to the NBA regular season to make it seem like the six months prior to the postseason hold some real meaning for the league's more talented teams, and not just for the media who cover it or the fans who follow it.
That has given rise to searches for "signature wins"—48 minutes of evidence that a squad has turned the corner by taking down one of the other assumed contenders. Signature wins typically occur in a "statement game," another premise that coaches tend to find extraordinarily annoying.
That search was in full effect prior to the Memphis Grizzlies' visit to Quicken Loans Arena on Sunday, since, in truth, the Cleveland Cavaliers hadn't had anything resembling one of those so-called signature wins so far this season, more due to circumstance than incompetence.
The Cavaliers had won 15 of 25 games in all, and five of those were against the other teams in the top five in the East. But four of those had asterisks—Chicago didn't have Jimmy Butler (or Derrick Rose after the third quarter) in Cleveland's overtime win; Toronto was without DeMar DeRozan for both of Cleveland's wins; Nene played when Washington beat Cleveland, but not when they didn't. And, while the fifth was a 33-point romp and came against the healthy Atlanta Hawks in Cleveland, that memory was erased when Atlanta, without Jeff Teague, won by 29 on the same court a month later.
Meanwhile, the Cavs had played only eight games against the stronger West—winning just two. Both of those victories were against fringe playoff teams (New Orleans and Denver), but the Cavs lost to each of those clubs as well.
They also lost to San Antonio at home and Portland on the road, and had yet to play the Clippers, Rockets, Warriors or Grizzlies, with a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder tossed out because it was the only game that any member of the Big Three (in this case, LeBron James) has missed all season.
So, after Brooklyn lost to the Cavaliers without Brook Lopez or (for the final three quarters) Deron Williams, Memphis was supposed to provide that test, so long as they came in complete.
Naturally, they did not. The Grizzlies were without their low-post anchor, Zach Randolph, due to knee swelling, and without Tony Allen, their defensive stopper, due to a corneal abrasion.
Naturally, the Cavaliers capitalized, shooting 60.5 percent from the floor and doing just enough defensively—against a team that had trouble getting settled without Randolph, and missed 15 of its 16 three-pointers—to win 105-91.
The Cavs got a dynamic performance from Dion Waiters, who scored 15 points in the second half after being benched for all of it Sunday against Brooklyn. And they got 23 assists combined from Kyrie Irving and James, with the latter acknowledging afterward that he decided a few weeks back to handle the ball more often.
Naturally, though, they shouldn't get credit for a signature win—not at home against a Grizzlies team without two starters, that had played a total of six overtime periods (over three games) in nine days.
And, no, it really shouldn't matter.
"Every game, seemingly at this stage, guys are missing," Cavaliers coach David Blatt said. "Atlanta came in here the other night without their starting point guard and beat the hell out of us. And that's the same Atlanta team that we beat by (29) the first go-round. So NBA teams, top to bottom, are strong. There's gonna be games that guys are in, there are gonna be games that guys are out. I'm really more concerned with how we're playing, but I really don't judge where we stand in the league by one game."
Nor should he, even if it should again be noted that the Cavaliers have been healthier than every other contender in the league, other than the Clippers and Grizzlies.
Think about all the games Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have missed for Oklahoma City, and David Lee (and now Andrew Bogut) have missed for Golden State, and Dwight Howard and Patrick Beverley have missed for Houston, and Robin Lopez has missed (and will miss) for Portland, and every member of the starting five has missed for San Antonio. That doesn't even take into account how injuries have decimated Miami and Indiana, among others. Cleveland has been fortunate so far, with the month-long loss of a backup point guard (Matthew Dellavedova) hardly qualifying as calamitous.
Blatt shouldn't judge anything based on one game, primarily because history tells us that how a team performs against other contenders during fall and winter isn't especially indicative of how they'll fare late in the spring. There are countless examples of this, but, since this particular comparison is cited so often, even by James, take a peek back at the Heat's 2010-11 struggles against the elite.
At the time, it was considered alarming that the Heat, which finished with the No. 2 seed in the East, went 0-3 against top-seeded Chicago, 1-3 against third-seeded Boston and 2-2 against fourth-seeded Orlando. Then the playoffs started, and the Heat went 8-2 against the Celtics and Bulls in the second round and Eastern Conference Finals, respectively, to advance to the NBA Finals. Once there, they did lose to Dallas, which had taken both regular season meetings with Miami, and James, who had scuffled against the Mavericks in the regular season (shooting 30.6 percent in two games) did underperform again.
But that was the anomaly.
In the three years that followed the 2011 NBA Finals flop, James' Heat commonly reversed their regular season fortunes when they saw teams again in the playoffs. For instance, they dropped all four contests to Brooklyn last season, three times by one point and once in overtime, before bouncing the Nets in five games in the second round.
After the Cavaliers get through a soft stretch—their next four are against teams with losing records, albeit an emotionally-charged Christmas game in Miami—they'll get a chance to show continued growth in games against Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Golden State, Los Angeles (Clippers), Chicago, Oklahoma City and Portland, all before the end of January.
Maybe, by then, they'll have more of an identity. Miami, with James, developed one over time, feasting on turnovers, flying out in transition, perfecting pace-and-space.
This team?
What is Cavaliers basketball?
Forget signature wins. What's their signature style?
"It's a learning experience for us every day," James said. "Offensively, we want to move the ball, share the ball, and whoever is the recipient at the end of the possession, you take the shot. And defensively, we have to get a little bit tougher in our interior, all of us. But I think the communication is picking up. We're starting to be a little bit more active with our hands, getting deflections, and that helps too."
They're 16-10 now, fifth in the East, just a game behind Chicago in the Central Division. On nights that the bench gives them something, as it did Sunday with 14-of-22 shooting from Waiters and Shawn Marion, and they defend with some determination, they look formidable. On nights that neither occurs, they can get flattened, no matter who shows up on the other side.
"This is a super team," Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger said of Cleveland.
That remains to be seen.
But only this is for certain: It won't be settled by any single game they play before the spring.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
