Cavonometry Games 19 and 20: Prince William, King James!

Dec 8, 2014; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (right center) and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (left center) looks on as Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) plays against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

The Cleveland Cavaliers played in front of royalty Monday in Brooklyn when Prince William and Duchess Kate attended their matchup with the Nets (Game 19). Tuesday, the Cavs confirmed that they were the new royalty in the NBA’s Eastern Conference with last second heroics (the King James version) to beat the Toronto Raptors (Game 20).

Here are the boxscore stats in the order the games were played…

Cleveland 110, Brooklyn 88

Two-Point Percentages: Cleveland 52%, Brooklyn 52%

Three-Pointers: Cleveland 9/25, Brooklyn 4/19

Free Throws: Cleveland 15/22, Brooklyn 12/19

Rebounds: Cleveland 55, Brooklyn 33

Turnovers: Cleveland 13, Brooklyn 12

Cleveland basically went through the motions in a lethargic first half…then won the third quarter 35-17 on the way to a blowout. I’ll talk more about some defensive issues in a second. It’s very tough to draw meaningful conclusions from a game like this because Brooklyn largely had a D-League caliber team on the floor much of the night. Dion Waiters has been struggling of late. But, he would crush the D-League. He crushed the Nets for 26 points in 30 minutes. Big edge on the boards for Cleveland.

Cleveland 105, Toronto 101

Two-Point Percentages: Toronto 59%, Cleveland 57%

Three-Pointers: Toronto 7/23, Cleveland 9/26

Free Throws: Toronto 10/10, Cleveland 18/21

Rebounds: Toronto 35, Cleveland 31

Turnovers: Toronto 15, Cleveland 11

A dramatic rally keyed by a 24-13 fourth quarter victory extended Cleveland’s win streak to eight straight. LeBron James nailed a roof-raising three-pointer with 48 seconds left to break a 99-all tie. Both teams were playing on night two of a back-to-back. Toronto actually went overtime Monday vs. Denver. That may explain some of the poor defensive numbers. Both teams had extended stretches where they were scoring near the basket with little resistance.

Let’s talk more about that…

The Defense NOW Rests in the First Half!

We have to keep changing this header! A very poor start to the season in terms of Cleveland’s inside defense was followed up by a clear emphasis on fixing the issue. That’s what we’ve been documenting in this space. The last two nights, the Cavs showed an impossible-to-miss tendency to let opponents score easily in the first half before clamping down when it was time to win.

Brooklyn shot 16 of 24 on 2’s in the first half (67 percent for a shorthanded offense)

Brooklyn shot 16 of 38 on 2’s in the second half (42 percent)

Toronto shot 22 of 32 on 2’s in the first half (69 percent)

Toronto shot 13 of 27 on 2’s in the second half (48 percent)

If you watched on League Pass, you know this wasn’t a case of Brooklyn and Toronto being “red hot” on contested jumpers or something. We’re talking about a lot of dunks and lay-ins. Longtime fans of the NBA will remember an era where defenses would make opposing offenses pay for driving the lane. Attacking the basket would hurt. Cleveland was as passive as it gets near the basket.

Until the third quarter in Brooklyn and the fourth quarter vs. Toronto.

If this was intentional…and you have to assume at least some intent given the eye test…it’s a fairly logical big picture strategy.

*The most important starters stay out of foul trouble

*The most important starters avoid collisions that could cause injury

*The most important starters avoid potential retaliation for hard fouls

Teams are pacing themselves these days for the 82-game regular season grind, and the subsequent two-month tournament to determine a champion. Cleveland has the offensive talent to counter-act what they give up to opponents who are able to get close. They’ve clearly grown more comfortable intensifying their defensive approach when it’s time to win the game. They don’t seem to be doing this with physicality, but by more aggressively closing off lanes and forcing longer shots. Keeping James, Love, and Irving out of foul trouble means that those guys are positioned to win the game if needed late. Keeping them away from contact improves their chances to be on the floor all season.

Now, I don’t think the plan was “let’s give Toronto as many dunks as they want.” Let’s monitor this in coming games…particularly those that aren’t part of back-to-back pairings.

Updating what we had normally been doing in this section…the 52 percent allowed to Brooklyn, and the 59 percent allowed to Toronto push the season-long number line in a disappointing direction…

38-42-43-44-44-47-47-48-50-(52-52)-52-53-54-54-54-57-58-59-62

The median is back up to 52. And, that season-long trend toward improvement has whipsawed backward.

First Five: 54-47-58-57-52 (median 54, composite .535 on 149/278)

Next Five: 44-62-54-54-52 (median 54, composite .531 on 167/314)

Next Five: 50-43-38-48-42 (median 43, composite .443 on 141/318)

Last Five: 53-47-44-52-59 (median 52, composite .508 on 161/317)

I also wanted to note before I forget that the boxscores are suggesting that part of Cleveland’s defensive approach may be to emphasize one key player on the opponent. Remember that Carmelo Anthony was a poor 4 of 17 from the floor against Cleveland last week. Deron Williams was only 3 of 14 for Brooklyn.

Eastern Royalty

Tuesday’s victory over Toronto represented the end of a 10-game stretch exclusively against Eastern Conference opponents. Here’s Cleveland’s number line of final margins ranked from worst to best in that stretch. Note that the first two on the list also happened to be in the first two games played. Cleveland started with bad losses to Washington and Toronto…before winning eight straight that included three wins in rematches against those same teams.

-17, -13, 3, 3, (4, 12), 14, 22, 26, 32 (average 8.6, midpoints 4-12)

With five games against Toronto (15-4 when not playing Cleveland) and Washington (13-5 when not playing Cleveland), that’s not a particularly soft 10-game slate. It’s not like the Cavs were bullying the likes of Charlotte or Detroit the whole time. Strong run.

Tug-of-War

The median is up to three in the full-season number line, as the Cavaliers continue to pull their way out of an early tailspin. I’m using 0 for the overtime game in Chicago so we can keep everything at 48-minute samplings.

-19, -17, -13, -9, -5, -2, -2, 0, 1, (3, 3), 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 22, 26, 32, 33

We have a few running storylines that only deserve a quick mention. Touching on those briefly…

LeBron’s Legs: That gutbuster trey from James turned a 1 of 4 night from behind the arc into 2 of 5. He’s now 12 of 43 over the last 10 games for 28 percent. It’s 7 of 28 from long range in the last six games for 25 percent.

Looks of Love: After 45 percent of Kevin Love’s field goal attempts were three-pointers in the first 11 games, only 31 percent have been trey attempts in the last nine games. Looks like everyone’s happy with the newer ratio.

Waiters, You Deserve a Tip!: Dion Waiters busted out of a lengthy shooting slump with a pair of very strong efforts. At the very least, it was a showcase in response to trade chatter. Cavs fans are surely hopeful that it’s a sign of things to come. It would be great for the pacing and health of “the big three” if Waiters can come in and offensively take over matchups vs. D-League caliber opponents as he did vs. shorthanded Brooklyn. The East has more than a few of those.

Market Report (thru 20 games)

4-8 ATS in their first 12 games (ending with a 6-in-9 fatigue stretch), followed by:

Cleveland (-11) beat Orlando 106-74 (covered by 21)

Cleveland (-7.5) beat Washington 113-87 (covered by 18.5)

Cleveland (-10) beat Indiana 109-97 (covered by 2)

Cleveland (-10.5) beat Milwaukee 111-108 (missed by 7.5)

Cleveland (-7.5) won at New York 90-87 (missed by 10.5)

Cleveland (+4.5) won at Toronto 105-91 (covered by 18.5)

Cleveland (-8) won at Brooklyn 110-88 (covered by 14)

Cleveland (-6) beat Toronto 105-101 (missed by 2)

For the full season, Cleveland is 9-11 ATS. At the end of regulation, market expectations have been too high by 22.5 points through 20 games.

The next edition of Cavonometry will go up over the weekend, reviewing the Thursday-Friday back-to-back challenge of visiting Western Conference playoff contenders Oklahoma City and New Orleans. TNT will televise that Thursday night game in OKC…where Russell Westbrook will surely be attacking the rim with abandon in the first (and second) halves. The follow-up in the Big Easy will represent a fourth game in five nights, a sixth game in nine nights, and will be the Cleveland’s third back-to-back in that nine-day stretch.

Don’t forget that you can monitor Cleveland’s offensive and defensive efficiency based on REAL possession counts on our Team Possession page. The default takes you to Cleveland’s game-by-game summary automatically. You can use the scroll option to see the same information for the other 29 NBA teams. Real possession counts (grabbed from play-by-play data) are exclusively available at Nylon Calculus!