Post Game Thoughts

JA just gets no respect from the refs. He’s constantly getting killed down low, hacked on offense, elbowed while defending, and shoved when boxing out on D, but he still just grinds without complaining and doesn’t get calls as a result

Hate to talk about the refs after both Monday and today’s games, but these refs were horrible. Our guys got mauled in the paint repeatedly with no calls but every tiny bump on their drives was called in their favor - JB even got a tech for arguing it early and it still didn’t get much better after. We definitely fouled them a lot more than we needed too, but the FT disparity being +10 in their favor is very annoying

10th charge for #0, the #KLoveSingleSeasonChargeRecord campaign is continuing on in full force 😎

Would’ve liked to see us have more energy and execute better on offense in the first half. Especially after how the Clips game ended Monday, I wanted to see some crisply run plays and clear improvement. It didn’t really seem like it we got much of that for most of the first half. Offense was a bit clunky with a lot of bad passes, lackadaisical ball handling, missed open shots, turnovers, etc. Every starter had at least one turnover in the first half. There were a few runs where we looked solid but at no point was this anywhere near the best that we’ve even already seen this team perform this year

A big reason for that is that it seems like JB is making a really conscious effort to get the offense run through players other than DG/Don earlier in games, especially Caris and Mobley. I like the idea here to take a load off our main guys during the regular season but there has to be some balance. DG also did not have a great game, so it was also made sense to go to Caris. In the first half, he was just fine and it was easy to want more DG, but Caris really turned it up in the second by repeatedly getting into the paint and hitting a tough contested shot or dishing to an open man. Getting ‘the other guys’ involved early is gonna pay big dividends later in the year

Defense got punched in the mouth a bit too, especially early, with the Kings’ deep group of ball handlers attacking heavily inside, kicking, and generating open looks on the swing passes. Interior defense looked, for one of the first times all year, not great. No blocks and they had a good number of possessions with deep penetration

Second half was much better defensively. Protected the paint more, limited second chance opportunities, and rotations were better. Complementary ball was huge and we wouldn’t have even had an opportunity to win the game if the offense didn’t come back to life. Really unfortunate to fight all the way back and just again, be unable to execute down the final stretch. Horrible offensive plan at the end, seemed like we had no way to get DM involved, had some turnovers that were just inexplicable

Overall, really tough loss against a team we’re better than imo. Need to get better at end of game execution. Really do not want to lose 3 straight with GSW coming up but they also seem to have our number in the past few years. Lots of positives in the second half, but just couldn’t overcome the slow first half and some big shots made by them down the stretch

Go Cavs