The Cavaliers’ win over the Trail Blazers shows how they aren’t overly reliant on the three-ball.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have been criticized for being overly reliant on the three-ball. That seemed to be true during their recent four-game losing streak, where they connected on just 33.8% of their outside shots. However, that fact doesn’t mean they’re overly reliant on their jump shooting.
Offensive success will naturally be tied to three-point shooting. The teams that consistently win are better at shooting than the ones that don’t. That’s part of the game. But there’s a fine line between accepting some level of variance as part of the game and being too reliant on the outside shot.
Tuesday’s win over the Portland Trail Blazers was a great example of why the Cavs aren’t part of the latter group.
The Trail Blazers have shown to be a good defensive team in the past two months. They’re ninth in point differential since the start of February, largely due to the strength of their defense. They’ve registered a 113 defensive rating in that time which is good for ninth in the league.
Portland’s ability to keep teams from generating three-point looks is why their defense has been solid. They’ve given up the fourth-fewest percentage of three-point attempts since the start of February. Their length at the wing and ability to go small have led to their success.
The Blazers’ defense focuses on taking away above-the-break threes, but allows corner three-point attempts. Their great rotations from and to the corners allow them to help on drives while still contesting corner attempts. This is necessary due to their lack of traditional rim defenders.
The play below shows this. Isaac Okoro thought he was going to get a clean corner three off, but an excellent rotation from Dalano Banton resulted in a contest Okoro wasn’t expecting when he first went up with the shot.
This defensive strategy has worked incredibly well over the last two months. Since the start of February, the Blazers have surrendered the third-lowest corner three-point percentage (35.9%). Their willingness to pinch down and help from the corner has also resulted in opponents completing just 64.2% of their attempts at the rim. That’s the league’s fifth-best percentage for a defense since the beginning of February.
So, how did the Cavs attack this? By simply accepting what the defense gave them.
The Cavs took a season-low 27 three-point attempts. They nearly matched that number of attempts at the rim (25) and exceeded that total in shots between the restricted area and free-throw line (26). They had almost a perfect balance between these three zones on the court.
via nba.com
This led to the Cavs putting up an exceptional 82nd percentile offensive rating in the game despite being without Donovan Mitchell. Let’s take a look at how they were able to be so successful.
Using their size to their advantage
Kenny Atkinson chose to close with a big lineup even though Portland went small. This is the opposite of what he did in their matchup earlier this month.
Mobley was aggressive in the paint. He forced some tougher turnarounds in the short midrange, but when he was able to get to the rim, he finished as he went 7-8 on those attempts.
There’s nothing truly unique about what Mobley did. He just used his size to continually attack and get into the paint. He did this both off the dribble and by aggressively diving in the pick-and-roll.
Jarrett Allen did the same thing. Portland just didn’t have an answer for either big when they were forceful inside.
It doesn’t need to be overly complicated. Sometimes you just need to press the advantage you have.
Attacking in the short midrange
You can’t take away everything on the basketball court. Teams like the Blazers, who pride themselves on running teams off the three-point line, will do whatever they can to take away the outside shot. Throw in two bigs that can provide the rim pressure of Allen and Mobley, and then you really have a problem.
Trying to take away both the three-point line and the rim allowed Darius Garland and Ty Jerome to feast in the in-between game.
Portland repeatedly went over screens and closed out hard to Garland and Jerome when they were on the perimeter. They did this while trying not to lose the bigs on drives to the basket. This left the in-between game there for the taking.
This is a great strategy if you’re the Blazers. You’d rather have Garland and Jerome take floaters than threes, even if it’s a shot both are very capable of knocking down. This speaks to how well-rounded Cleveland’s attack is.
The outside shot can still be a weapon at low volume
The Cavs have taken the fourth-highest frequency of threes this season, but have done a good job of not forcing them. They’ve mostly taken what the defense has given them.
The Blazers didn’t give them many looks, so they didn’t take many. But the ones they got, they knocked down as they connected on 12 of their 27 looks from beyond the arc (44.4%). That’s because they only took open, quality shots.
It was easy to point to the Cavs going cold from the outside as a reason they went on their recent four-game losing streak. They were 24th in three-point percentage (33.8%) during that stretch. That’s certainly a contributing factor to why things went sideways.
That said, the offense was still respectable (116.6 offensive rating) even with the outside shot not falling. It was their horrible defense during that span that (28th in defensive rating) did them in.
There will always be questions about how well a team can play when they aren’t converting their threes. The Cavs certainly won’t be at their best if they can’t hit their outside jumpers. They have, however, repeatedly shown throughout the season that they aren’t a one-trick pony. They have multiple ways that they can beat that don’t include just burying you with threes — although they can certainly do that as well.