CLEVELAND -- Continuity.
It’s a word that sticks with you as Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt, with his hybrid Boston/Israeli accent, punctuates all five syllables.
“They have been consistently good all year and is a team that’s been playing together for some time now,” Blatt said before the Cavs hosted the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday. “Continuity is really one of the keys to success and they certainly have it. And they’re confident right now because they’ve won consistently.”
And it’s a word that Blatt uses pretty frequently because for all of the improvements the Cavs made in the offseason, it’s a quality that his team fundamentally lacks. As the saying goes, you always want what you can’t have.
You can’t completely overhaul a coaching staff, front office and bring in 10 new players on a 15-man roster and expect to be able to lean on stability as one of your strong suits.
Contrast that with Memphis -- one of those continuity clans with title aspirations, having made the postseason each of the past four seasons with a core four of Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen.
And while the Grizzlies’ grind-it-out style is so firmly entrenched that they look like the same type of team even without Randolph (sore right knee) and Allen (scratched right eye) in the lineup, Cleveland is still establishing exactly what “Cavs basketball” is.
“It’s a learning experience for us every day,” LeBron James said after the Cavs’ 105-91 win over Memphis. “Offensively we want to move the ball, share the ball and whoever is the recipient at the end of the possession, you take the shot.
“Defensively we have to get a little bit tougher in our interior -- all of us -- but I think the communication is picking up and we’re trying to be a little more active with our hands, getting deflections and that helps a lot, too. So, we keep learning from our film sessions and our shootarounds and our games, and we’ll be fine.”
As the Cavs build their brand, that’s the mission statement right there. The goal is to become a selfless team that makes the extra pass on offense, because with their personnel they will always be able to space the floor to allow their penetrators room to attack. Defensively, they know they have their weaknesses to overcome with no true rim protector on their roster, but if they can force enough turnovers each game with their activity on the perimeter, their transition offense is so deadly that they’ll simply be able to outscore teams even if their halfcourt D is mediocre at best the rest of the time.
And they followed that formula to a T against the team with the league’s second-best record coming into Sunday. The Cavs racked up 34 assists on 46 baskets as both James (11) and Kyrie Irving (tied for a career high with 12) reached double-digits in the category. Defensively, they might have allowed Memphis to outscore them 62-50 in the paint, but they made up for it by holding the Griz to 1-for-16 shooting from 3-point range and by turning Memphis’ 11 turnovers into 18 points on the other end.
The Cavs know their schedule has been relatively soft so far, with more home games than road trips, more Eastern Conference foes than Western foes and the benefit of opposing stars happening to be hurt when they played them (such as Randolph and Allen, the Cavs also dodged bullets with Washington’s Nene Hilario, Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan, Brooklyn’s Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez, etc., in matchups this season).
But to be able to stick to this game plan against a team like Memphis meant something. Especially since their route to success has seemingly come more into focus since a 29-point loss to Atlanta on their home court just four days ago. It proved to everyone involved with the Cavs that there needs to be some consistency to how they operate or they’ll just ride the seesaw all season, winning games based on talent, losing games based on lack of discipline.
“They’re a true, veteran playoff team,” Irving said of the Grizzlies. “They know how to win ballgames. And for us, we knew it was going to be a challenge and we just wanted to come out with a high defensive intensity. I think we did that tonight. We still got to improve on a few things, especially on our weakside defense, but for us we’re pretty proud of this effort tonight and I’m proud of our guys.”
The guys to be especially proud of were Mike Miller and Tristan Thompson. A game after scoring 21 points, Miller took just one shot to go with four assists and was all smiles in the locker room afterward. And Thompson, the Cavs’ most consistent bench player all season, didn’t let up on defense one ounce even though he got only two shot attempts.
They understood that with Dion Waiters (21 points on 9-for-16 shooting) and Anderson Varejao (18 points on 9-for-12) going off, they wouldn’t be needed to score in order to get the win. And Waiters knew that it was his night, just like it was Miller’s night the game before when he didn’t play a minute in the second half.
“You got to still be mentally locked in, because once you get it rolling they’re going to continue to feed you,” Waiters said, basically stating that sharing the ball is an automatic on his team.
It will take years for the Cavs to build the continuity the likes of Memphis, San Antonio, Golden State, Oklahoma City, Chicago and the L.A. Clippers can boast, but they don’t have to wait to start having recognition regarding the way they need to be playing.
“We have to play like that all the time,” Waiters said. “We are finally making the right plays, playing defense, playing together and we’re a dangerous team when we can do that.”
That’s what will give the Cavs a chance this season. A recognition of how their pieces best fit together has occurred. Now the players have to embraces those roles.
“That’s what it has to be about,” James said. “Team sports has to be about not me. It’s about the team. … It’s not about you. It’s about the team and if you’re not about the team then you should play golf or there’s one other sport too, tennis.”