The Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t able to overcome a slow start as they dropped Wednesday’s game to the Houston Rockets 114-104
Here are the four factors from this game. These numbers are from Cleaning the Glass.
Now, let’s dive into some of the stats.
- The Cavs missed 27 threes. The players or coaches will tell you the Cavs are a defensive-first team. But in reality, they’ve succeeded or failed on the strength of their three-point shot under head coach Kenny Atkinson. The three-ball abandoning them in the playoffs was one of the things that did them in against the Indiana Pacers. That’s been an issue this season as they went 30.8% from beyond the arc again on Wednesday.
- Eight of Cleveland’s 12 made threes came from Donovan Mitchell and De’Andre Hunter. They combined to go 8-17 (47.1%).
- Hunter and Mitchell’s teammates went 4-22 from deep (18.1%). It’s not surprising that Cleveland’s best shooters — considering Darius Garland, Sam Merrill, and Max Strus all missed this game — shot the best. That’s why they’re good. That said, the role players need to be much better than this if you’re a three-point shooting team playing against an elite opponent.
- Cleveland made just three more triples than Houston despite taking 15 more threes. This was the Cavs’ biggest advantage over the Rockets coming into this game. Houston nullified that by going 37.5% from distance.
- The Rockets grabbed 19 offensive rebounds. Houston is the best in the league at this.
- Those offensive rebounds turned into a 21-6 second-chance points advantage.
- Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley combined for just 13 rebounds. It’s reductive to boil down rebounding ability to pure rebounding numbers. There’s a lot that goes into clearing the glass that doesn’t always show up in the box score. But that isn’t a great number for the Cavs considering their counterparts, Steven Adams and Alperen Sengun, combined for 22.
- Mitchell scored 2 points in the first three quarters. It’s no surprise that the offense struggled when he did.
- Mithell put up 19 in the fourth quarter. It also comes as no surprise that the offense wasn’t an issue then, as they put up 34 points in the final frame.
- Houston scored 40 fourth-quarter points. That killed any chance of a Cavs comeback. They did so by going 7-9 in the restricted area and shooting 4-7 from deep.
- The Cavs lost the point off turnovers battle 20-16. Atkinson mentioned before the game that they want to combat the Rockets’ style by enforcing their own. That includes generating a lot of turnover. The Cavs did commit one fewer turnover than the Rockets, but it didn’t translate to the scoreboard.
- The Rockets won the possession game by taking nine more shots from the field and just five fewer free throws.
- Cleveland completed just 64% of their shots at the rim (38th percentile). The Cavaliers did a better job in the restricted area on Wednesday, as 36% of their shots came there (70th percentile). It just doesn’t matter as much as it should if you don’t convert them and aren’t making your free throws.
- The Cavaliers missed 12 free throws. They went 20-32 (62.5%) from the charity stripe.
- The Cavs had just 97 possessions this game. This was one of the team’s slowest games of the season. The offensive rebounding plays a large part in that happening.
