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The Cleveland Cavaliers and Failures of Offensive Imagination

Only possible because they didn't have to share.

Remember the optimism in Cleveland when they won the 2013 Lottery? They were going to add another young star to Kyrie Irving! Andrew Bynum was going to be healthy and given them a potent inside-outside mix! LEBRON WAS COMING BACK! Surely he'd be anxious to be reunited with Mike Br...oh now I see where the wheels came off.  Needless to say, it hasn't exactly worked out, in large part because one of the Cavs' supposed strength heading into the year, their offense, has been not only bad, but nearly unwatchable.

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While the offense was not what might be called "good" last year, it wasn't abysmal. This year? I fear for your liver. 

First a quick look at the numbers:

Cavs 2012/13 Offensive Possessions

Cavs 2013-14 Offensive Possessions

I'm not entirely sure what "All Other Plays" entails, but I'm going to guess Anthony Bennett is prominently involved. Beyond that, comparing this year's production with last year, (when they had unarguably worse talent), the mix of shots and possessions hasn't changed a great deal aside from a few more post ups - (PnR Ball Handler and Isolation is a category where the line of demarcation can be murky, but the total of those two categories is roughly the same). The biggest changes have been sharp drops in efficiency relative to the league in isolation and spot up situations.

Now some of this could just be the Cavs missing shots, but I think it goes a little deeper than that. First of all, they have traded about 4 shots at the rim for midrange shots this year. All else being equal, that alone costs them about 2 points/100.  Beyond that, I would suggest the quality of shots they are getting in both locations has dropped. Again, the numbers back this up to a degree, with the Cavaliers shooting a few percentage points worse both from midrange and from the basket area.

This aligns with what you can see on the game tape. Much as Portland's offense is in many ways a "how to" guide for NBA offense, the Cavs are very much what not to do. My basic critique of them is that they don't respect the second most important commodity for an NBA offense to possess - time. There are 24 seconds on an NBA shot clock and the Cavs use them about as unwisely as can be imagined. On the one hand, they are painfully slow to get into any sort of set:

In the above, the Cavs haven't made any of the defenders move more than about 5 feet at any time. Hard for the defense to make any mistakes if they don't have to do anything.

Once Cleveland does get into a set, the play tends to take an lot of time develop, partially due to poor design:

But also because they are literally going through the motions. Not to compare everything to Portland, but a major reason the Blazers' offense is successful is every play, every pass, cut, screen, roll, kickout is executed in the anticipation that it is going to "work" in terms of creating a good shot or opportunity to break down the defense. BlazersEdge had a quote from Nic Batum following his dagger three to seal the win over the Thunder this past week:

"The play was for LaMarcus. I should come off a pindown and give the ball inside," Batum said. "I just run the baseline, cut, received the ball. I was surprised at first to be that wide open. So, shoot it."

By comparison, the "action" that starts most Cleveland plays is part of the play in much the way as a receiver shifting pre-snap in football. On a 4th and inches play, since everyone already knows where the ball is going anyway.  In the case of the Cavs offense, the ball might get passed once or twice before the three-handed monster of rock-pounding shoot first guards (Irving, Waiters, Jack) takes over and either runs a desultory pick and roll or goes straight into an isolation, usually leading to a contested pull-up jumper

And the thing is, they don't go into these isolation situations out of necessity, with the shot clock winding down. They willingly choose to dribble into the worst shots in the NBA with, as the images above show, plenty of time remaining on the shot clock. These are shots that analysts are actually right when they "that shot will always be there for him", implying that hey, maybe look for a better one first?

So not only do they waste time on the front end of most possessions, they don't make much of an effort to use the time remaining in any sort of sensible way. They are lighting the seconds of the shot clock on fire from both ends, if I can mangle a metaphor or three as badly as the Cavs do to the notion of basketball as an aesthetic endeavor.

And further, they appear to have become acculturated to this rather lackadaisical approach, so that when someone does try to inject a little more pace and zip into the attack, it still looks completely out of sync. To blatantly rip off some work done by a friend:

This shows Waiters taking the ball up the court in what could generously be called semi-transition. The defense is reasonably set and the offense isn't quite set yet.

Varejao moves to set a screen for Waiters, however Waiters makes his move well before the screen is set, using an inside-out dribble to fake towards the screen before going baseline. In a vacuum it's a fine move. Unfortunately for one thing, he goes too fast and so he doesn't really pin either his man or varejao's man on the 'fake' screen. Secondly we can see that Blake Griffin is just parked in the lane, cutting off any driving angle. If Waiters had waited a little longer then Blake would have had to either find his man or leave the paint to avoid a 3s call. Instead Waiters drives right into the help and, predictably, has no path to the rim.

From here we see the entire Clippers defense collapse into the paint. Which is great, except somehow Waiters has very few passing options. Varejao and TT aren't in a position to catch the ball, Kyrie is in the corner (which is good) although Waiters has to pass it through ~1.5 defenders to get the ball there (less good), and Jack is somewhere behind the 3pt line and again, it seems like it would be an awkward pass in terms of angles. So, even though Waiters did a good thing in getting the ball into the heart of the D, in some ways they're in a much worse position than they were a few seconds ago. And in the end he tries to throw it to Kyrie and it goes way over his head and out of bounds (TT sets a nice screen on Kyrie's man though).

So why is this occurring? It's not simply that they have bad players: for about the last three minutes of the Clipper game, Cleveland ran some nice crisp stuff.  Some of it is chemistry - the fairly well-documented animosity between Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters can't not make each of them less fond of setting up the other, at least to some degree. Some of it is personnel - three-ball dominant guards, extremely offensively limited wing play, a center in Bynum who is fine if you throw him the ball in situ and give him time are not exactly mutually complimentary pieces. Plus there is the question of Kyrie's health and/or conditioning. His shooting has fallen off, even from the free throw line. His steals and rebounds (decent measures of "effort" plays for guards) have dropped significantly.

But even acknowledging those issues a great deal of this is coaching - Mike Brown is simply not a good coach of offensive basketball at the NBA level.  The scheme is bad in both theory and execution.  The players aren't totally sure where to go, but even if they DO go to the right spots at the right time, it is predictable and not particularly difficult to contend with. Finally, it often appears there is a plan B if plan A doesn't result in a good shot - it's sort of one look and then "recognition motion" (read: pickup style offense) without having a lot of players outside of Irving for whom this is a good mix.

Of course given the dreadful state of the Eastern Conference, all Cleveland needs to "contend" for a playoff spot is Irving to recover somewhat towards his career shooting norms. However, the turmoil of the first month-plus of the season has probably done its damage already, with the locker room fractured, the coach having lost the faith of the fanbase if not the players, and the (always remote, in my opinion) chance of Lebron coming back probably dashed by the thought of hoping on  board this sinking ship.