A Thorough Examination Of How The Knicks Exposed The Cavs' Softness, Arrogance, And Lack Of A Competent Postseason Caliber Coach
I started to write this last night but decided to shelve it until the morning and let my anger dissipate. The problem now is that it hasn't dissipated at all. In fact, I might be more incredulous this morning than I was when turned on Inside Man for the 800th time and tried to fall asleep.
First off, all credit to the Knicks. They took the Cavs manhood in this series. They grabbed them by the balls and squeezed while the Cavs soft ass roster said, "thank you sir, may I have another." The Cavs played like spoiled kids whos parents had been telling them how great they are all season while the Knicks played like men who know the playoffs are a fist fight so you might as well bring brass knuckles.
For example, in the 4th quarter Mitchell Robinson fouled Garland on a layup attempt and then stood over him while he laid on the floor grabbing his face. The "Junkyard Dog" Cavs did absolutely fucking nothing about it.
The Cavs have coddled their young team for the last few years. Preaching about learning curves and life lessons. At one point this year JB Bickerstaff even went on a rant about how everyone in the fan base and media need to be more positive. Despite the fact the Cavs had been playing like ass for a two week stretch and were in a mini free fall in the eastern conference standings.
Be nice to the boys! They're trying their best! Well their best was capped off with an absolutely embarrassing effort that resulted in them getting punked on their home floor to a chorus of boos in an elimination game
They weren't anywhere near ready for the toughness or bright lights of the playoffs. Unfortunately, that's just the start of how JB Bickerstaff failed.
The playoffs are a chess match and while Thibs was strategically moving his pawns and setting up attacks, JB might as well have been chewing on his rook and picking his nose. JB's lone adjustment in the series came in Game 2 where he started Caris LeVert and decided to blitz and trap Jalen Brunson. And to his credit it worked. Brunson went 5-17 from the field and the Cavs won going away.
But chess isn't about the next move. It's about the three moves after that. The best players in the world - and our eventual AI overlords - are always thinking multiple moves ahead. So Thibs, being the veteran coach that he is, made a counter-adjustment to expose the flaws in that blitz/trap defensive aggression.
He decided to have shooters - namely Immanuel Quickly - set the screens for Brunson which completely negated the trap element. The Cavs had to respect IQ as a shooter and thus left Brunson in ISO situations more often. Which is his bread and butter since he is basically a human cinder block with braids and killer fade away jumper.
OK, fine. Adjustments happen. It's time to react JB. Whatcha got?
What he had was…nothing. He stayed with LeVert in the starting lineup and played Okoro - the Cavs lone defender who can handle Brunson 1v1 - 12, 17, and 19 mins in the final three games.
In perhaps the perfect illustration of how comically bad the Cavs coaching was, assistant coach Greg Buckner simply said "Okoro" at halftime of game 5 when asked how they slow down Brunson. AND THEN THEY DIDN'T PLAY OKORO FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE QUARTER!
He continued to blitz Brunson - who now had Garland as his primary defender for some unknown fucking reason - which allowed him to go for 24 ppg on 47% shooting through games three, four, and five. Brunson dictated the pace. Brunson dictated the tempo. Brunson was the best player in this series.
For the second year in a row he ate Donovan Mitchell's lunch and this time we don't have the "one foot out the door" excuse like they had in Utah last season.
The other byproduct of all the blitzing, which we just established wasn't working in the slightest, was the Cavs' bigs scrambling to rotate and cover shooters outside the paint or picking up the opposite big across the paint. Which led to them being out of position for rebounds over and over and over and over and over.
This isn't me making an excuse for Jarrett Allen either. That man needs to look in his fucking mirror this offseason and ask himself how he had 5,4, and 4 rebounds in the last three games of the series and allowed Mitchell Robinson to put up a historic performance on the offensive glass. Maybe a little less Pokemon and a little more Rocky before training camp my man. Sack the fuck up.
And then there is Kevin Love. The two things the Cavs desperately needed in this series were rebounding and shooting. I wonder where they could have gotten some of that from? How about the from the guy you let walk out the door midseason for nothing and just helped the Heat knock off the 1 seed Bucks in 5 games.
Love averaged 7.4 rebounds and nearly 3 threes a game in that series. And just look at his performance in Game 5.
So what does that have to do with JB Bickerstaff? Everything. JB moved Love out of his rotation at the end of January and had been whittling down his minutes for a month prior. Kevin was starting to get disgruntled and the Cavs (JB included) thought that Dean Fucking Wade was a better option for them moving forward.
Dean Wade who has a 5 points per game average in his career and played just 10 total minutes in this series. Dean Wade who was given a three-year $18.5 Million extension this season. Dean Wade who was behind Danny Green and his paper mache knee in the rotation in the playoffs. That Dean Wade.
That's on the front office (and I'll get to Koby Altman in a minute) but it's also on JB. You have to figure out a way to keep Kevin happy enough AND get other guys minutes when Kevin isn't playing well. Because while Love wasn't the only difference in this series, he may have been the difference in them embarrassing you or not.
Coaching is as much about managing personalities as it is about Xs and Os and JB was dog shit in both categories.
And then there is GM Koby Altman…
Talk about arrogance. I understand not every move is easy to make and having patience. But what about the guy who was brought in midseason to New York and just ate you alive for 3 of the 5 games in this series? Josh Hart averaged 12 points, 8 rebounds, and played stellar defense. That doesn't move the needle?
It sure as fuck seemed to move the needle for Knicks fans.
Congrats to the Knicks and their fans. I've said it many times but they have been the Cleveland Browns of the NBA for the last 20 years. I could almost feel good for their fans if they weren't the most arrogant, obnoxious group of people on the planet.
But no matter how much I dislike Knicks fans, I currently loath JB Bickerstaff's performance even more. Sure, he was great for what they originally needed him for. To get young guys to play hard and believe. To get them experiencing some regular season success and make it to the postseason. But this series showed this needs to be the final stop on the Bickerstaff express. His time should be over and it should be over sooner rather than later.
The Cavs were not a championship contender this season but they sure as shit weren't supposed to be a team who would get bitch slapped out of the first round in just five games. Especially when this was probably the easiest path to the conference finals that they will see in this contention window.
Go get Nick Nurse. Go get a seasoned coach who can actually draw up an inbounds play and counterpunch in a series. Go get anyone who won't have his team be an absolute fucking embarrassment while they get swatted out of the first round. The time for learning and life lessons is over. It's winning time and there weren't many bigger losers in the 2023 playoffs than the Cavs.