What We Learned: Cavs vs Heat
The Cavs took care of business at home against LeBron’s former team. Cleveland dominated the entire game and coasted to a 113-93 win against Miami. Here’s what we learned from the win.
• The Cavs can dominate the paint. There was a lot of talk about how Cleveland would handle Hassan Whiteside in the paint, but it turned out not to be an issue. The Cavalier’s outscored the Heat in the paint 52-32. Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson had huge games down low. Remember when the Cavs would get pushed around in the paint by everybody? Well those days are long behind us. The new look Cavs don’t let anyone push them around in the paint!
• The Cavs can blow teams out even when the Big 3 doesn’t dominate. LeBron, Kyrie, and Love combined for 45 points on 16-38 shooting. It wasn’t a bad day, but it wasn’t like the performance they had on Sunday against the Lakers. I look at this as a positive. I love seeing that players like Smith, Shumpert, Mozgov, and Thompson can step up the scoring when they need to. The Cavs have a much deeper team than they had earlier this season.
• Kevin Love >>>>Chris Bosh. Love has been under a lot of criticism this year (some of it unjust) but there’s no way I’d take Bosh over Love. K-Love had his 2nd solid game in a row. He finished with 12 points on 5-8 shooting and 6 boards in the brief time he played. Love left the game with an injury to his eye. He will make the trip to Chicago with the team, but we don’t know his status for the game yet. On the other side of the equation, Bosh had 15 points on 5-17 shooting from the field. It’s never good when you have more shot attempts than points. Bosh was pushed around in the paint by the Cavs bigs. He only came down with 2 rebounds in 36 minutes of play. ONLY 2! I don’t understand how you can play power forward for the whole game and only grab 2 boards.
• LeBron was once again so close to a triple-double. He finished with 18/7/10. He’s been so close on many occasions, but he just can’t get it. The NBA took back what should’ve been triple-double from him back in November. It’s only a matter of time until LBJ grabs that elusive triple-double this season.
The Cavs will be back in action Thursday night against the Bulls. It’s always good when these 2 teams go at it. This will be the Cavs last game before the All-Star break.
Jackson Flickinger
pic credit Cleveland.com
