A couple of weeks ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers were playing a Sunday national television matinee game against the Oklahoma City Thunder and found themselves down big early. On that national broadcast, former Cavalier and current ABC/ESPN commentator Richard Jefferson said something I found interesting.
He made reference to the fact that games played early can be hard for teams to get ready for, especially when you have veteran players. It was a somewhat weird assertion that was possibly colored by the Cavs recent acquisition of 36-year old guard James Harden, but what Jefferson was basically alleging was that Cleveland’s issues that afternoon were mental, based on the game starting early in the day (also, that the Thunder were a younger team than them, which I think is fair).
The conversation carried on into half-time, where the Inside the NBA crew acknowledged what Jefferson said. Their reaction was on a spectrum between being dismissive of the idea in principle and considering Jefferson’s idea to be an unacceptable excuse if true. Either way, on that day the idea that the Cavaliers were caught off guard by the early start time got a little bit of exposure, whether true or false.
To be more specific about the details that led to Jefferson’s commentary, the Cavs lost the first quarter of that game on February 22nd 40-25. They trailed by a less startling 64-55 score at the half.
The Cavs did end up fighting back and even tied the game in the third quarter before ultimately losing by eight. These kind of games early in the day are fairly rare and with Kenny Atkinson’s group willing themselves back into the ballgame, I think the narrative was forgotten about over the course of the next few weeks. Cleveland won three of their next five including quality wins against the Knicks and Pistons, making the idea even less top of mind.
However, the Cavaliers faced off with the Boston Celtics this past Sunday for another 1 PM start time. The Cavs were boat-raced in the first half by a score of 56-36, with an especially bad 2nd quarter that saw them score only 10 points. While a twenty point half-time deficit is bad enough, what made this situation worse was that Cleveland actually led 11-3 in this game, meaning they were outscored at one point to the tone of a 53-25 score.
Once again, Jefferson was on the commentary team on Sunday and he once again made reference to the start time. This time, I think his words were more along the lines of “these early start times can make things weird.” Oddly enough, Jefferson’s suggestion didn’t make as many waves this time on the broadcast. Shaq, Chuck and the half-time crew were much more interested in not knowing who Celtics guard Baylor Scheierman was. They did chastise Cleveland for its performance, but didn’t specifically talk about the start time.
The Cavs once again stopped the bleeding in the second half, but weren’t able to do much more than that as they ended up losing 109-98. The loss means a lot on a macro level. Boston’s star small forward Jayson Tatum made his second appearance of the season in recovery from a ruptured Achilles tendon and looks nearly as healthy as an ox. Boston appears to be going from being a decent option to come out of the Eastern Conference to perhaps the favorite, and a pretty noticeable drubbing of Cleveland enhances their argument.
On a more micro-level, I became interested in this narrative Jefferson has spun now twice. Quite frankly, I watched this game after the fact via DVR on Sunday night. I’m not all that plugged into social media either. So, I don’t know how much traction his idea has really gotten out there on the internet. But in a vacuum, I am intrigued. I’m not even certain I’m looking to endorse it. I just think it is something to check on. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m am going to try to discern if there is any merit to the idea that the Cavaliers this year have struggled with early start times.
To start, on a most basic level, we need to define an “early start time”. This is somewhat arbitrary. In both games that Jefferson commentated that inspired this idea, the Cavs’ game started at 1 PM Eastern Time. Cleveland has only played one additional 1 PM start time game this season. Any sample size I am going to be able to come up with is admittedly flimsy anyway, but in this case, I want to at least add a little more data.
I thought about including any game that started before sunset in the local area that the game was played, but that would have been a little weird because it would have included a 6 PM start against the Milwaukee Bucks on October 26th, but not a 5 PM start against the Memphis Grizzlies on November 15th, just by sheer virtue of Daylight Savings and the fact the Earth is tilted on an axis.
To avoid that inconsistency, I am including any game that started at 3:30 PM or earlier. There are nine of these in total. Interestingly, all but two of them have been home games, which should work in the Cleveland squad’s favor. All but one of them were in the Eastern time zone, with the aforementioned game against OKC technically being a noon start when considering local time.
As for results, the Cavaliers are just 3-6 in games that start at 3:30 PM or earlier. The average score of these games has been a Cavs’ 119-116 loss. What has been really telling in these games though has been Cleveland’s first half performances, or lack thereof. There seem to be two main components that lead to this deficit, and they both have to do with shooting the basketball.
The Cavs have shot a mere 39.6% from the field in the first half of these games, significantly down from their 47.5% mark for the entirety of the season. Their shooting from three is also down in these instances to 30.9%, which is noticeable (down from 35.8%) but not as drastic as their shooting from the entirety of the court.
Star guard Donovan Mitchell has had multiple duds in terms of shooting halves over the course of these games, including going 3 of 9 on December 14th vs. Charlotte, 1 of 6 on January 4th against Detroit, and 2 of 10 against OKC on January 19th.
Mitchell is shooting at a near career-high for efficiency this season, punching in at a Field Goal% of 48.3%. However, he is shooting just 38.4% in these early games. He has been more aggressive in the second halves of games over the course of the season in general. He is near the top of the league in second half scoring, but his lack of first half effectiveness seems especially pronounced in these particular games.
The other component involved here is how well opposing teams have shot the ball against Cleveland. Opponents have shot a blazing 45.5% from beyond the arc against the Cavaliers in the first half of these early games. Obviously, this is a very specific small sample, but no team has shot at that high of a rate for the season.
In more than half of these games, the Cavaliers’ opponent made more than ten threes in the first half. For reference, teams average about 13 made threes per game. To the extreme, the Thunder made a staggering 14 threes against the Cavs in the first half on February 22nd.
Teams are out-threeing Cleveland by 4.1 threes per first half in these games, a disparity of more than 12 points per half. That, along with Cleveland’s own inability to just put the ball in the hoop at large, seems to have really put them in a hole on multiple occasions. Four different times, the Cavaliers went into half-time losing by ten points or more.
I don’t have access to the metrics that could tell me the quality of shots that the Cavs have allowed in these games. What I can say is that defensive quality is loosely tied to effort and intensity. Other stats that I would also consider tied to effort and intensity don’t suggest lethargy on Cleveland’s part.
For example, the Cavs’ offensive rebounding comes in at about 6 rebounds per half during the first halves in question. This is basically in line with their effectiveness on the offensive glass over the course of the regular season. The same can be said about their ability to generate turnovers at 7.8 per half. Both numbers are nearly exactly half of the Cavaliers’ full game averages over the course of the regular season.
I do think though that the Cavaliers’ offensive woes are in some ways tied poor execution. They’ve shot the ball poorly and I believe there is some eye test indicators that show this isn’t solely a matter of poor luck. Cleveland really struggled to be decisive with the basketball and get quality shots on Sunday against Boston, for instance. There were a number of contested threes, late shot clock possessions and one particular instance I can remember where forward Dean Wade turned his back to the basket and dribbled out past the three point line to search for someone to pass to with the shot clock down to six and counting.
At the same time, I do think there has been a big streak of shooting luck for the Cavaliers’ opponents. I mean no offense to Thunder shooting guard Isaiah Joe. He is a really solid player that runs well as a cog in the well-oiled machine that is OKC. Additionally, he is having a really good shooting season, posting a 41.2% 3-point percentage. But him making four threes in two different first halves against the Cavs doesn’t feel sustainable.
Pistons’ guard Danniss Jenkins is a great story having been converted from a 2-way player to a full NBA contract this year. But his 6 for 6 shooting display in the first half against the Cavaliers on January 4th also seems excessively unfortunate.
The Cavaliers have put a lot of effort into self-regulating after these poor early showings, and their averages when you take into account the full game among these nine games are actually surprisingly in line with their numbers for the full season. Cleveland has shot 46.8% from the field in these early games from start to finish, as well as 35.9% from three and 78.4% from the free throw line.
For the season, they’ve shot 47.5% from the field, 35.8% from three and 77.7% from the charity stripe. In two cases, the Cavaliers’ rates are actually slightly better in these early in the day type games. In reality, the difference in these numbers is statistical noise. They also generate more free throw opportunities in these early games, with more than 3 more free throw attempts per game.
However, their opponents’ shooting efficiencies have been better than their own. Their opponents have shooting rates of 47.3/43.5/79.1 (FG/3P/FT) over the course of these nine specific games. For the season, Cleveland’s opponents have shot 46.2/37.0/79.3. So what really sticks out again, is that the Cavaliers’ adversaries have been shooting the lights out from three. A 43.5% three point rate would rank as the second best team in the NBA over the course of this season.
In the previously mentioned game against Oklahoma City, the Thunder made 21 threes on a 51.2% rate. Joe and fellow role player Cason Wallace made ten of them. If you were a Thunder bench player that took a three in that game, you made them at a rate of 50% or better.
That was one of two such games where the Cavs’ opponent shot 50% or better from three. The other was a 1 PM start on January 10th vs. the Timberwolves. Minnesota made 16 threes that day, with sixth man Naz Reid and star guard Anthony Edwards combining for nine of them. Spurred mostly by Reid, the T-Wolves bench shot 8 for 10 on threes in the game. Another instance where reserves really excelled from three point land against Cleveland.
The offensive rebounding and turnover generation numbers once again don’t suggest that the Cavaliers have shown a lack of intensity over these full game spans. That coupled with the fact that the Cavs have bounced back offensively in the second halves of these games leaves us in an interesting position.
I think it is fair to say that Cleveland hasn’t shot it well early on in these games. To say that they’d be better off not being so stagnant early and not falling behind in the process is Captain Obvious level analysis. Donovan Mitchell has had a couple of clunkers in there as far as halves go. But, it is also pretty clear though that in a number of these games Mitchell and company have come storming back offensively- enough so that their full game numbers for these games basically mirror their season averages.
However, those valiant efforts have often been stopped in their tracks because the teams the Cavaliers have been playing have flat out shot the cover off the ball. Is some of that poor defense? That could be. How many of these games do we need in order to be comfortable that this isn’t something where the law of averages will level off the other teams shooting rates?
I could make the argument that someone smarter than me should be answering that question, but what’s the fun in that? I think it is more likely that the Cavs have run into some hot shooting nights from solid contributing players like Joe, Jenkins and Reid as well as the more common heater from a star like Edwards.
There is something else here though that I think needs to be addressed. The fact of the matter is that if Cleveland is playing a game early in the day, there’s a pretty good chance it is a nationally televised game, like the two that Jefferson was on the call for. Nationally televised games tend to be against pretty stiff competition.
And here’s the real rub- the real potential cause for concern more than the idea that the Cavaliers just aren’t able to rub the sleep from their eyes early enough for a 1 PM start on a Sunday- I think we need to grapple with the possibility that this isn’t about the timing of the games, but who the Cavaliers are playing against in these games.
The Cavs may be potential Finals hopefuls, but they are also a team that is 5-11 against the top 3 teams in each conference this season. That .313 winning percentage is worse than their .333 winning percentage in these early slate games. Maybe the Cavaliers do potentially have an early game problem, but I think it is more likely they are still just struggling with high-level competition.
You know what teams at the top of the conference tend to do well? They defend. All but one of Cleveland’s 6 losses in early games was against a team in the top 7 in Defensive Rating. Sounds like the kind of thing that would cause them to have a significant drop in their shooting percentages. Quality teams also tend to scout well. So if they know a team is prone to a slow start, they could be in a mode to come out and try to punch them in the mouth early- like has happened multiple times now.
James Harden was brought to town to help the Cavaliers over a hump that they have stumbled over in multiple seasons. It is far too early to suggest that the Cavs won’t be able to surmount that hump with Harden’s help. There hasn’t been enough time for the team’s collective talents to coalesce since his addition. What I am more certain of though is that Cleveland still has work to do.
They might need to clean up their act in early slate games. After all, it is far from unheard of for this media market to play a playoff game early in the day (just ask the Guardians and their fans the last couple of years). What’s more likely is that they need to tighten up their offensive execution against elite defenses, Mitchell and Harden need to be able to utilize each other in an opportunity to create room to operate for themselves. It wouldn’t hurt to communicate on defense and be willing to run a sharpshooting role player off the three point line every once in a while.
Regardless of if the game starts at noon, 10 PM or anywhere in between.
Pick-Up Sports Talk: Cleveland 