Depleted Cavs Take Out Depleted Pelicans in Down to the Wire Win
Cleveland Cavaliers 93 - New Orleans Pelicans 90
The Pelicans enter tonight starting their last back to back as they try to end this 6 games in 9 nights stretch on a high note. Jonas Valanciunas returned back from his recent non-Covid illness, but Brandon Ingram remained out with his ankle injury. For the Cavaliers Darius Garland missed tonight’s matchup with lower back soreness, and Lauri Markkanen experienced a right ankle sprain just over a week ago that made him miss the game, as well. Not going to waste too much time though, let’s get into the game.
Willie Green decided to counter Cleveland’s big starting lineup consisting of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley with the his own version as he moved Jaxson Hayes into the four spot along with Valanciunas at the five - Hart, Graham, and Herb finished the rest of the starters. The Pelicans started the game off well with an 8-0 run as the Cavaliers were forced into a lot of difficult shots early on including Josh Hart getting a steal with some quick hands on a Dean Wade drive. Also, Willie Green’s starting lineup adjustment worked pretty well. The first basket of the game was Hayes making a running hook over Mobley as Graham hit him on the cut. Then, the second score was Jonas scoring over Allen in the post. Hayes and JV did not seem too phased by the Cleveland bigs throughout most of the game, but once this first run by the Pelicans finished up, the biggest storyline offensively was the 3-point shooting from the Pelicans - surprise surprise. The Pelicans started the game 0 for 12 until Jaxson Hayes of all people made the first 3-pointer with about 5:20 left in the second quarter. Nickeil Alexander-Walker did not have a particularly good game when I was highlighting his passing on the last post. His first two possessions lead to two turnovers. The first he was called for a carry, and the second turnover he threw directly out of bounds when he was expecting Herb to slide up from the corner towards the break. Willie Green did use a Willy Hernangomez - Jaxson Hayes lineup as well, but Willy just struggled against the Cleveland bigs, especially Mobley.
Hayes played pretty good defense overall on Mobley throughout most of the game, and he even had some great help defense as he finished the game with 3 blocks. One play, Valanciunas decided to blitz the ball handler on a pick and roll, and after Jarrett Allen received the pass on the roll, Hayes rotated from the corner and fouled Allen instead of giving up a wide open dunk. Hayes had another great help block on Allen after Allen pump faked Willy and got him out of position. A couple more individual plays during the first half. Rajon Rondo entered the game and made a corner 3 on his first shot of the game. Then on the next possession, Jose Alvarado was guarding Rondo and still went under the screen on a pick and roll just above the free throw line and let Rondo shoot and miss the open mid-range shot. Jose didn’t overreact to Rondo making one shot and stuck with the gameplan which I would guess was to go under on all Rondo pick and rolls. On an offensive possession, Cleveland had great defensive rotations and were flying around the court for most of the shot clock, but Garrett Temple drove from the corner and found a wide open Devonte Graham for a corner 3 that he ended up missing. It just looked like one of those possessions were the defense deserved to get a stop because of their effort. Cedi Osman had two post ups on Graham after some switching that resulted in two scores for Cleveland. It was a pretty low scoring, rock fight-type of game, especially in the first half as the Pelicans lead 39 to 38 at halftime.
For the third quarter, the offense was a little better for the Pelicans. Hayes had a great floater over Mobley after gathering an offensive rebound. Graham knocked down his second 3-pointer of the game off of a nice flair screen. Valanciunas finished the game with 6 offensive rebounds, only had 3 defensive rebounds, as he was able to just out muscle Jarrett Allen at times for position. Defensively, Hayes still held Mobley in check and had a nice possession where he defended a reverse layup pretty well without fouling when he did foul on a similar play in the first half. Nickeil had a great defensive rotation to cover the open 3 and made them swing the ball, but then Temple was sagging too far off the ball handler worried about the drive and gave up a pretty open mid-range shot. Towards the end of the quarter, both teams were playing pretty chaotic and fast which lead to some floppy plays including NAW just losing the ball while going up for an open layup. The Pelicans entered the fourth quarter with a 6 point lead.
Willie had JV in to start the fourth quarter while Cleveland had neither Mobley or Allen on the floor, but New Orleans could not really capitalize on the mismatches as Cleveland would double Jonas once he put the ball on the floor. Nickeil had a nice flash at the free throw line for a mid-range make while the rest of Pelicans were waiting for Valanciunas to get solid post-up position. Gary Clark got called for a shooting foul on Mobley when he held his arms straight up the entire time defending the rookie. Josh Hart hit a big corner 3 during this stretch which was his only make from 3-point range all game. NAW had another turnover in the pick and roll where he just decided he was going to pass it to Jonas without really looking and seeing Stevens right next to JV in the passing lane. He just seems to make up his mind on what he’s going to do instead of reacting to what he sees on the court. Devonte Graham hit a ridiculous stepback 3 but took the same exact shot on the next possession and missed. That ended up being his last made 3 of the game and finished 3 for 11 from 3-point range, 6 for 15 from the field with 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. Willie subbed Jonas out for a breather and put Willy back in which did not end up working out. Mobley was just destroying Hernangomez on every one of Willy’s post-ups during this stretch, and the entire game really. Jaxson Hayes flashed at the free throw line on a possession for a mid-range score. I think this was Jaxson’s best game of the season, he just did a little bit of everything in tonight’s game. Might be recency bias, but I cannot think of another game where he had so many just good and solid moments. Might have to do more minutes of Hayes at power forward, we shall see.
Now the last stretch of the game. Kevin Love was being guarded by Josh Hart and made a post fade over Hart to tie the game with about 3 minutes left. Devonte Graham drew a sweep through foul on Brandon Goodwin, who finished with 21 points off the bench by the way, for two free throws as the Pelicans were in the bonus for the rest of the game. Kevin Love got another post-up on Hart and made an even more contested post fade on him to tie the game again. Then, Graham scored a floater off of a Jonas pick and roll. Cedi Osman missed a 3-pointer pretty badly, but Love got the offensive rebound, missed his layup, but Jarrett Allen rebounded the ball and dunked it. Also, Jaxson Hayes could have been called for a shooting foul and gave them an and-one as it looked like Hayes hit Allen in the head on the dunk attempt. On the next defensive possession, Hayes was called for a blocking foul on an Isaac Okoro drive along the baseline that lead to free throws since Cleveland was also in the bonus at this point in the game. This is when you question Willie Green’s defensive assignments during the last stretch of the game. You have Josh Hart, a guard, getting scored on twice by Kevin Love, a power forward, in the post by simply shooting over him while Jaxson Hayes, an athletic 6’11 center, is guarding Isaac Okoro, another guard, on the perimeter. Maybe Willie was worried about Hayes fouling Love or Love drawing fouls on Hayes, but these defensive assignments just lead to 8 straight points for the Cavaliers as Okoro made both free throws after the blocking foul call. Anyways, JB Bickerstaff subs Lamar Stevens and Evan Mobley in for Kevin Love and Cedi Osman during the free throws to have a more defensive unit while Willie Green subbed in Nickeil for Herb for the offensive possession. The Pelicans run a pick and roll with Graham and Jonas again except Graham denies the screen and tries to run past Stevens for the layup, but Mobley helps late from the strong side corner and blocks Graham’s layup. It was a pretty difficult shot since Graham never really got a step on Stevens and had Mobley and Allen also there to block the shot. Now the Pelicans are down 2, and Cleveland has the ball. Cedi Osman tries to drive on Herb Jones, but Herb cuts off his drive, which he did all night, and forced a turnaround jumper that missed. There was a bit of a scramble for the rebound, but Josh Hart finally collected it and called a timeout with 5.6 seconds left. Josh Hart inbounds the ball to Jonas near the break after not being able to get the ball to Graham as he cut from the baseline to the top of the key. Herb Jones was in the strong side corner and kind of faked a dribble handoff cut towards Jonas and then did run around Jonas which just seemed odd. JV does get a lane towards the rim but was a bit off-balance with Allen guarding him and missed the game-tying layup. It was a brutal way to end the game as the final play just did not seem to work correctly, and Willie Green had an extra timeout he could have called to reset or just draw something different up. Give credit to the Cleveland defense late though, they denied Graham and Herb to where Jonas did not have many options besides trying to just beat Allen one on one.
All in all just a tough game. As a unit, the Pelicans shot 6 for 30 (20%) from 3-point range. Only one player made multiple 3-pointers which was Devonte Graham. Jaxson Hayes finished with 19 points, shot 9 for 10 from the field, 1 for 2 from 3-point range, and also had 7 rebounds with his previously mentioned 3 blocks. Was also a +2 for the game. On the other side for the Pelicans, Willy Hernangomez finished with 7 points on 2 for 12 shooting along with 10 rebounds. This was the first game where I think you can question some of Willie Green’s decisions, not calling a timeout when it seemed Hart was having trouble inbounding the ball, having Hart guard Kevin Love in the post while Jaxson Hayes was guarding Okoro on the perimeter not really being able to provide help defense. I am not going to be too hard on the final play, I think Cleveland just played it well, and Jonas had a chance to tie the game, he just missed the shot. Sometimes it really is a make or miss league. Willie Green and the coaching staff just need to make sure the guys put this game behind them and focus on their next opponent, the Detroit Pistons. Tomorrow’s game is at 6:00 at Detroit.