Cavaliers use late run to beat Pacers in Game 4: 3 takeaways

The Cleveland Cavaliers were in serious danger of falling behind 3-1, but LeBron James and Kyle Korver led a late run to win Game 4 and tie up their series against the Indiana Pacers.

The Cleveland Cavaliers had to be suffering déjà vu as the Indiana Pacers erased an early 16-point deficit to take a fourth-quarter lead in Game 4 of their first-round series. But unlike Game 3, the Cavaliers responded just in time to squeak out a 104-100 victory and tie the series up at 2-2 with play shifting back to Cleveland for Wednesday’s Game 5.

LeBron James and Kyle Korver made the key plays down the stretch. Over a span of nearly two minutes, LeBron hit two driving layups and Korver made two 3-pointers to turn a two-point deficit into a six-point lead with 1:52 to play.

There was some weirdness in the final seconds when Jeff Green and Lance Stephenson got tied up and went at each other with the Cavaliers up three. There initially was some indication that a jump ball was called, but the call was actually a foul on Stephenson:

Green hit one of his two free-throw attempts to put the game out of reach.

The Cavaliers are breathing a sigh of relief after nearly losing another game in which they had a big lead. Cleveland got off to a nice start with Jose Calderon starting in place of the injured George Hill, and Tyronn Lue even dusted off Tristan Thompson for seven minutes in the first half. Thompson didn’t do anything that notable, but he did some nice little things and was a plus-7 in those minutes.

The Cavaliers opened up a 16-point advantage midway through the second quarter and led by 15 late in the quarter, only to close the half poorly. The third quarter was a nightmare again as Lue strangely played four of his starters the entire frame while the Pacers made their run. Cleveland then only had 11 points in over eight fourth-quarter minutes before the final surge. The Cavaliers shot under 36 percent in the second half, but they were saved by 7-of-17 shooting from 3 after struggling from long distance in the first half.

Although, one of the five 3-pointers Cleveland did make in the first half loomed especially large given how absurd it was:

https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/988225898791952384

The Cavaliers will take it.

Takeaways

The Pacers missed a huge opportunity. The Pacers’ resolve has been incredible in this series. They nearly made a huge comeback in Game 2. They pulled off a huge comeback in Game 3. They made a huge comeback in this game, but they failed to finish it off thanks to horrendous offense down the stretch.

After taking a 92-89 lead with 6:12 to play following a rare LeBron technical foul, the Pacers scored only three points in almost six minutes until scoring five points in the final 15.2 seconds. They made just one out of 10 shot attempts and missed all four of their 3-pointers during a stretch that could ultimately cost them the series.

Indiana shot 32 percent in the fourth quarter overall and made only two of its 10 3-point attempts. Over half of the Pacers’ shots in the final frame came from outside the paint despite all of the bricks, with Victor Oladipo forcing up a number of questionable shots as part of an ugly performance. Oladipo shot just 5 of 20 for the game and was 2 of 8 in the fourth quarter. Bojan Bogdanovic, the Game 3 hero, missed all three of his triples in the fourth quarter and shot 4 of 13 on the night.

Indiana had LeBron and Co. on the ropes, but now the Cavaliers have home-court advantage back. The Pacers aren’t going to sleep well thinking about how they fumbled this game away.

LeBron James’ burden is enormous. LeBron once again played the entire second half as part of a 46-minute night. The Cavaliers can’t afford to keep him off the floor for long stretches because so many of the other players have struggled, and there’s no Kyrie Irving to bail them out anymore in those minutes. Jordan Clarkson hit some difficult shots off the dribble in the first half, but he didn’t score in the second half. Rodney Hood continues to be quiet in limited minutes.

LeBron put up another monster stat line with 32 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists, giving him his 100th playoff game with 30 or more points (only Michael Jordan has more). He shot 12 of 22 from the field and went 8-of-9 from the charity stripe. However, there were times where James seemed weirdly passive. He scored just one point and missed all three of his shots (all jumpers) in the third quarter as Cleveland’s lead slipped away.

A simple explanation for those stretches is LeBron was trying to steal rest while on the court. While it seems like he’s a cyborg, he can’t go full bore 100 percent of the time. He ultimately turned it on when necessary, and luckily Korver got hot in the second half after an ugly first-half stint. Korver scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half.

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Kevin Love had a real bad night. LeBron’s burden would be a bit less if Love could provide anything of value. The All-Star has had a rough go of it in this series, but he was especially awful in a Game 4 that saw him pick up two quick fouls right out of the gate. He had only five points on 2-of-10 shooting and was routinely bullied down low by Thaddeus Young:

Love also struggled guarding the pick-and-roll, with Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis both taking advantage of his shortcomings on that end. To Love’s credit, he did make a key stop on Darren Collison late in the game, but overall it was ugly.

Simply put, the Cavaliers need a lot more from Love if they’re going to make a deep playoff run. 12 points per game on 36.2 percent shooting while playing poor defense isn’t going to cut it.