Cavs, Thunder flirt with danger
Teams are playing themselves into big holes
Hard truths are tough to come by this early into the season, but we’ve drawn a few foolproof observations.
Week 3 of USA TODAY Sports’ Jumping to Conclusions features several postseason deductions and an end to a rookie of the year campaign that never really got started. (Records and statistics through Tuesday.)
If the Cavaliers don’t start playing better defense, they won’t finish as one of the top two seeds in the Eastern
Conference: Right now, they have the worst defense in the league, allowing 112.4 points per 100 possessions. LeBron James rarely makes a big deal about securing the top seed, saying you need to win on the road in the playoffs anyway. During his seven consecutive trips to the Finals, James’ teams have been the No. 1 seed in the East twice and had home-court advantage in the Finals just twice. But they’ve always had homecourt advantage in the first two rounds. If they don’t finish with at least the second seed, they will have home-court advantage in the playoffs only for the first round if the higher seed wins each round. That would make their road to the Finals more difficult. Now, the Cavs have plenty of time. The 2010-11 Miami Heat started the season 9-8 and finished with a 58-24 record with the second seed in the East, and the 2014-15 Cavs started 19-20 and ended up 53-29 with the No. 2 seed in the East. The Thunder aren’t winning the title this season: This prediction was coming even if the Thunder had taken care of the lowly Sacramento Kings on Tuesday. But since they didn’t, instead falling 94-86 in a game that was as ugly as we’ve seen this season, there’s now this bit of historical context to support that stance.
Teams that start this slow simply don’t win titles.
In the last two decades, only the
1998-99 San Antonio Spurs won a championship without having a winning record in the first 10 games (they were 5-5). From last season’s Warriors (8-2) to the
2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers (8-2) to the
2014-15 Warriors (8-2) on down the line, the recent history has been steady when it comes to early dominance. That doesn’t mean Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony won’t mesh enough to make a serious mark come playoff time, but the prospect of ripping the Larry O’Brien Trophy out of the Warriors’ hands looks grim — for them and every other team, for that matter. If the Boston Celtics finish with the
top seed in the East and win close to 60 games, Brad Stevens will win the
coach of the year award: With a revamped lineup, Stevens’ Celtics have the No. 1 defensive rating in the NBA, allowing 95.9 points per 100 possessions. When the Celtics traded solid defenders Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley to make room for Kyrie Irving, they weren’t expected to be better defensively. Well, they are better, and that’s with rookie forward Jayson Tatum, 19, and secondyear forward Jaylen Brown, 21, in the starting lineup and Irving playing better defense than he did in Cleveland. All this, too, without Gordon Hayward, who was injured in the season opener. The New Orleans Pelicans will make the playoffs: That might not sound like a bold proclamation, but the Western Conference is loaded yet again and there are at least 11 teams that are widely seen as good enough to secure one of the eight postseason spots.
But not only have the Pelicans won five of their last seven games, they’ve managed to do so while making the most of the eye-popping production from big men Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins. Beyond their absurd individual stat lines — 28.9 points, 13.6 rebounds, 5.8 assists per game for Cousins; 28.4 points, 12.8 rebounds, 2.1 blocks per game for Davis — is the welcome reality that they’re functioning well during their time together on the floor.
Of the Pelicans’ 19 two-man lineup combinations thus far this season, the Davis and Cousins pairing (276 minutes in all) is the best (net rating of 10.2, per NBA.com/stats). What’s more, concerns about Cousins’ defensive shortcomings aren’t supported by the stats: New Orleans’ defensive rating of 97.1 during that time would be, hypothetically speaking, good enough for third best in the NBA if it were the teamwide mark (as it stands, they’re 10th overall at 102.4).
If this comes to pass, of course, it should help the Pelicans next summer when Cousins will be one of the most sought-after free agents of the bunch.
Charlotte Hornets center Dwight Howard will flirt with an unexpected All-Star appearance if he keeps this up: He is averaging 15.2 points, 13.3 rebounds and 1.3 blocks and shooting
59.3% from the field. When Howard is on the court, the Hornets score 110.8 points and allow 101.5 points per 100 possessions for a +9.3 net rating. When he is on the bench, the Hornets have a
-15.1 net rating. While he isn’t the offensive force he once was, he’s efficient at the rim, collecting rebounds at a strong rate and anchoring the defense.