The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Cavs aiming for more wins in rest of season
The Cavaliers’ health is improving, and they believe it will translate into more wins after the All-Star break, Jeff Schudel writes. Plus, more on the Browns’ Greg Joseph and Tribe ace Corey Kluber.
Only 24 games remain on the 2018-19 schedule when what is loosely called the second half of the season begins for the Cavaliers on Feb. 21 in a home game with Phoenix, and coach Larry Drew hopes to make the most of them.
By the time the Cavs play the Suns, Drew expects Tristan Thompson to be back from a foot injury. Also, Kevin Love should be well-rested as he gets back in playing shape from his own foot injury. Cedi Osman should no longer be on minutes restrictions because of an ankle injury.
“Mentally, I think we’re in a pretty good place,” Drew said on Feb. 13. “The way the first half of this season has gone, I’ve been in situations where after a poor first half, guys have gone into the break with a lot of doubt. I don’t see that with our club.”
The Cavaliers are 1246 at the break. The only teams with worse records are the Knicks (1147) and the Suns (11-48). The Knicks snapped an 18-game losing streak on Feb. 14 when they beat the Hawks in Atlanta, 106-91.
The Cavs play 12 games against teams with winning records and 12 against teams with losing records the rest of the way. Despite having only 29.2 percent of their schedule remaining, the Cavaliers, if healthy, should win nearly as many games after the break as they did the first 70.8 percent of the season.
“I’m really hoping and keeping my fingers crossed we can get everybody back at once,” Drew said. “We haven’t had that all year. I just want to get everybody together in the gym injury-free, Then we can see what we really have.
“The energy is there and the enthusiasm is there. This group has pushed through the adversity the first half of the season. I’m very proud of them and looking forward to after the break.”
A healthy team for the final 24 games could make staying among the bottom three teams difficult. The teams with the three worst records in the league have the best mathematical chance (14 percent) of winning the lottery to get the first pick in the draft in June. The Cavaliers are only one game worse than the Chicago Bulls (14-44) and five games behind the Hawks.
• The NBA All-Star Game, which tips off at 8 p.m. Feb. 17 on TNT, is unwatchable, in my opinion, just as the Pro Bowl in the NFL is unwatchable. Games in which defense is taboo are boring.
It didn’t used to be as bad as it is now. In 1986, for example, back when Magic Johnson played for the Lakers and Larry Bird played for Celtics, the East beat the West, 139132. And yes, the threepoint rule was in play then. The 3-point shot went into effect after the 1979 season.
Two years ago, The West beat the East, 192-182. A total of 122 three-point shots were attempted. That works out to one three-point attempt every 23.6 seconds. Forty-three 3s (35.2 percent) were successful, which means 79 shots misfired. Everything else seems to be a dunk fest.
• Nik Stauskas, acquired by the Cavaliers in a trade with Portland on Feb. 3 and then signed by the Cavs on Feb. 12 for the rest of the season, had a strange tale to tell.
“It’s crazy, I haven’t left Cleveland,” he said after a practice last week. “When I got traded here, I flew to Cleveland on Monday (Feb. 4) and was able to practice once with the team. I sat on the bench for the Boston game.
“I got traded to Houston (Feb. 6), but no one ever booked me a flight to Houston, they were thinking they were still going to make some moves and I was possibly going to be traded again. So I stayed in Cleveland, got traded to Indiana (Feb. 7), the same thing happened. I was told, ‘Just kind of stay put, don’t book any flights.’
As soon as Indiana waived me, Koby (Cavs general manager Koby Altman) called me and said, ‘We’re going to work with you back here in Cleveland.’ They were already on the road, so I stayed put at the hotel. I’m glad it worked out.”
Stauskas played 20 minutes against the Knicks on Feb. 11 and scored three points. He played 23 minutes in the triple overtime loss to Brooklyn on Feb. 13 and scored seven points.
Browns like Joseph
Once an NFL team finds a good kicker it should do everything reasonable to hold onto him. Maybe the Browns found one in Greg Joseph.
Excluding two seasons and the first five games of 1981, the Browns had five kickers from 1946 through 2012. Lou Groza (1946-59, 1961-67) started the procession followed by Don Cockroft (196880), Matt Bahr (1981-89), Matt Stover (1991-95) and Phil Dawson (1999-2012). The Browns were in hiatus from 1996-98 after the original franchise was moved to Baltimore after the 1995 season.
The exceptions were 1960 when Sam Baker kicked while Groza retired for one season because of a back injury, the first five games of 1981 when Dave Jacobs (4 of 12 on field goals with a long of 35 yards) preceded Bahr and 1990 when Jerry Kauric had a one-and-done (14 of 20 field goals made) NFL career.
So that works out to be five kickers over 63 seasons, minus the first five games of 1981.
Since Dawson fled to San Francisco through free agency in 2013, the Browns have gone through kickers like they go through head coaches.
Billy Cundiff kicked for the Browns in 2013 and 2014, Travis Coons in 2015, Cody Parkey in 2016, Zane Gonzalez in 2017 plus the first two games of 2018 and Joseph for the final 14 games of 2018.
So that works out to be five kickers over six seasons.
Joseph was 17 of 20 on field goal attempts in 2018, but just 6-of-9 from 40 yards and beyond. He was 25 of 29 on PATs.
General Manager John Dorsey is likely to find someone to challenge Joseph, but Joseph has the potential to start a new line of successful Browns kickers.
“I really liked Greg coming out of college last year, a strong-legged kid,” Browns special teams coach Mike Priefer said recently. “I still think he needs some technique work, but there’s something there. I think to kick in Cleveland, to go to Baltimore, to go to Pittsburgh or go to Cincinnati, you’re going to need a stronglegged young man.
“I like what Greg brings to the table. I think he has a chance to be a really good kicker. Will we bring in competition for him? I’m not sure yet. We haven’t had those discussions. At the end of the day, I think he has a chance to be pretty good.”
Preifer is in his first year as Browns special teams coordinator after eight seasons holding the same job with the Vikings.
Dawson, for the record, was 8-of-12 on field goal tries in 1999. He was 6-of10 from 30 yards and beyond. That was nothing special, but former Browns coach Chris Palmer stayed with Dawson in 2000, and so did Butch Davis, Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini and Pat Shurmur for the next 12 years.
Dawson has played 20 years in the NFL — the last two with the Cardinals — and will be a free agent when the new league year begins March 13. He has scored 1,847 career points, good for 11th on the NFL’s all-time scoring list.
Groza, who holds the Browns scoring record, is 19th all-time in the NFL with 1,608 points.
Kluber unruffled
If only one player can wade through a winter of trade rumors without being affected, that player is the Klubot himself, Indians starting pitcher Corey Kluber.
As soon as the 2018 season ended with the Red Sox beating the Dodgers to win the World Series, rumors Kluber would be traded because the Indians want to cut payroll began to circulate.
Kluber was going to Cincinnati, San Diego, the Yankees, the Dodgers, Milwaukee or Philadelphia in various reports.
It is true the Indians wanted to trim payroll. Kluber is working off a contract he signed in 2015 that calls for a $7 million raise from last season to $17 million this year.
Indians president Chris Antonetti talked to Kluber and told his ace he had to listen to offers if a trade would make the Indians better. But nothing happened, and Kluber is in Goodyear, Ariz., for his ninth spring training with the Indians.
“I totally understand that,” Kluber told reporters in Goodyear. “That’s part of running a baseball team. You have to listen to how other teams value players and that then gives you a value for guys.
“But it’s not like they were actively looking to get rid of me. Once we had that talk, I knew if there was something worthwhile to talk about, someone would let me know about it.”
Kluber is 96-55 over eight seasons with the Indians. He won the Cy Young Award in 2014 and 2017 and was third in the Cy Young voting in 2016 and 2018. He was 20-7 last season and pitched an American-League most 215 innings.
The Indians have one of the best starting rotations in baseball with Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, Mike Clevinger and Shane Bieber. Trading a starter is still a possibility, but the Indians are unlikely to make a deal without getting a young outfielder with a big bat under club control for at least three years in return.
I didn’t know that
… Until I read my Snapple bottle cap.
A human skull is made of 29 different bones. … One is the only number with letters in reverse alphabetical order. … John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826. … Jellyfish can clone themselves. … Lollipops are named for a famous race horse in the early 1900s, Lolly Pop. … Mangoes are the most consumed fruit in the world.
Reach Schudel at JSchudel@News-Herald. com. On Twitter: @jsproinsider