The Cleveland Charge, G League affiliate of the Cleveland Cavaliers, were tied with the Wisconsin Herd with just over four seconds left and possession of the ball after a timeout. New head coach Eli Kell-Abrams
went to the play he felt most comfortable with: A dribble-hand-off that flowed into a pick-and-roll and wheel route that ended with a Luke Travers alley-oop for a 115-113 win.
No one in the building saw that play coming, not least of all, the guy on the receiving end of the game winner.
“I’m not gonna lie, I was a little surprised,” Travers said when asked about his initial reaction to the playcall. “It was an unbelievable playcall.”
It was indeed an unbelievable playcall. And it was also one that Kell-Abrams has had in his back pocket for years.
“It’s a play we practice all the time,” Kell-Abrams said. “It’s actually an old coach Kenny [Atkinson] play from Brooklyn. I’m almost 95% sure. It’s one of those things that in my career as a video coordinator, you’re trying to help your coaches, you know, ‘Here’s an ATO play you could run.’ So I’m pretty sure I either gave that ATO to either Coach Doc [Rivers] or Chauncey [Billups], and I liked it. I knew one day — if I had a chance like this — it was one that I might try. So credit to coach for drawing one up years and years ago. And credit to our guys for executing.”
It worked to perfection thanks to Wisconsin not expecting it, Darius Brown’s on-target pass, and Travers’s finish.
“Anytime DB (Darius Brown) is throwing a pass, I know it’s got a good chance to get there,” Kell-Abrams said. “And for me, it’s as simple as you see something. Maybe they are going to switch off one guy. Maybe they’re not going to switch off another. Maybe some guy is hot and they’re going to pay more attention to him. So just trying to get Luke a clean look off someone I didn’t think they were going to switch on.”
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This game was a tale of two halves. The Charge came out of the gates hot. Their offense was powered by continually getting second-chance opportunities and 14 first-half points from Travers. Cleveland pushed their lead to 19 at the end of the second quarter, but then something flipped at halftime.
The Herd opened the third quarter on a 31-8 run to turn a 16-point halftime deficit into a five-point advantage heading into the fourth. That lead grew to 13 before Cleveland was finally able to turn it around.
“We came out a little flat,” Kell-Abrams said about the third quarter. “We have a little bit of a young group, and I think some of them are learning, unfortunately, the hard way that G League leads aren’t safe. … But can you weather the storm? Shout out to our guys, we obviously lost the lead like that and you’re down 13 in the fourth, and you battle back. That’s a credit to our guys and how resilient they are.”
Clutch threes from Brown — who finished with eight points and nine rebounds — and Miller Kopp — who added in 17 points on 5-9 shooting from deep — helped put the Charge in a position that the game could be won on a last-second alley-oop to Travers.
This wasn’t the most impressive game from Travers if you just looked at the box score. He led the team with 21 points, but needed 22 shots to do so. This included going 3-10 from distance. Even though he wasn’t necessarily efficient, the willingness to take the outside shot without hesitating was exactly what you want to see from Travers.
“I love that he got up 10 (threes), I wish he got up 11,” Kell-Abrams said.
Getting to this point has been a journey for Travers. It isn’t necessarily his natural instinct to pull whenever he has daylight.
“I feel like that’s a step in the right direction,” Travers said about his three-point volume. “We tried last year and I was still a little hesitant, but that’s the first step, right? It’s shooting 10 threes.”
Travers played with much more confidence than he has in the past. He threw down an ambitious dunk, attempted another, and finished a tough alley-oop at the end of the game. Those are all things he might not have been as willing to do at this time last year. These G League minutes are about building his self-confidence and refining his skills so that he is ready when the Cavs call his number.
Charge forwards Chaney Johnson and Norchad Omier have both gotten off to impressive starts to their seasons. Johnson kept that going as he did a good job of cleaning the glass with 10 rebounds while adding in 17 points on 7-14 shooting. Omier supplied 18 points and eight rebounds on 8-12 shooting.
The Charge were able to keep their offense afloat despite not hitting their threes (13-44, 29.5%), thanks to their ability to attack the offensive boards. They generated 31 second-chance points compared to Wisconsin’s nine. This is all part of an organization-wide effort to win the possession battle.
“I don’t want to give too much away of what we do, but we definitely have emphasized something like that,” Kell-Abrams said when asked about the offensive rebounding.
Kira Lewis Jr. led the Herd with a team-high 18 points. Former NBA All-Star Victor Oladipo added 15 points on 6-18 shooting to go along with four assists and four steals.
The win brings the Charge record to 2-2 in Tip-Off Tournament play. They’ll host the Herd again on Saturday at 7:30 PM at Public Auditorium.
