The Cleveland Cavaliers Case Study

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The Cleveland Cavaliers completed the sweep of the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night. It was tougher than a typical 1-8 match up, but I expected a young, inexperienced Detroit team to give it their all. Now, the Cavs have earned some rest as they wait to play the winner of the Atlanta-Boston series. While we wait, here 's a review of some areas Cleveland did well and some they could improve in.
Good
First off, Tyronn Lue has been amazing despite being an inexperienced head coach. On more than one occasion where Lue designed magnificent after-timeout and baseline out-of-bounds plays. The one that stands out the most is Kyrie Irving 's three from the corner as the shot clock expired in the fourth quarter of game 3.
Also, he decided to …show more content…

Cleveland 's big three has also seen major success. They are playing exactly how everyone envisioned when they all got together. LeBron averaged 22.8 ppg, 9 rpg and 6.8 apg. Irving has been the leading scorer in three of the four games and set a new career high 31 points in game 1 and matched it in game 4. Kevin Love registered a double-double in all four games. Everything seems to be clicking at the right time. As a team, Cleveland out-rebounded Detroit throughout the series. The Pistons finished the season as the second best rebounding team in the league. This speaks volume to what the Cavaliers accomplished. Andre Drummond reached double digit rebounds just twice and was guarded by Tristan Thompson, who didn 't 'wow ' in the stat sheets. In four games, he scored 15 points and grabbed 22 rebounds. However, 16 of those were offensive boards that gave Cleveland extra …show more content…

It would be nice to see Cleveland take care of the ball more. There were two games where the Cavs only turned the ball over five or less times, but there also were two games when the turnovers reached 10.
Defense
Detroit was a tougher match up for Cleveland than initially anticipated. Drummond is a dominant force and stopping him was focal point on defense. The problem was that it made the Cavs susceptible to the three pointers. The Pistons shot over 50% in game 1 and over 40% in game 4. However, when Cleveland held them to around a 25% success rate, they allowed over 40 points in the paint. It wasn 't just Drummond, who averaged 16.8 ppg, but Reggie Jackson penetrating as well. These are some things the Cleveland Cavaliers could patch up. However, no team is perfect nor do they play perfect for a whole game let alone a four to seven game series. The Cavs next game will be Monday night when they host the