It’s time to split up the Twin Towers.
Let me preface this by saying I’ve been in the lab for hours, analyzing how we can succeed with the current roster construction- oh and rewatching that Knicks series (ouch).
Here are our 3 best lineups- they had the highest net rating; the best underlying stats, and surprise, surprise… featured only one big man:
Garland – Mitchell – LeVert – Strus – Mobley
Garland – Mitchell – Strus – Wade – Allen
Mitchell – LeVert – Strus – Wade – Mobley
Average Net Rating of +32.3 over 85 Total Minutes Played
I know the sample size is small, and that’s frankly because JB has shied away from the one-big lineups. But this was the easiest way to explain it’s working. We can play Garland and Mitchell together, no problem. In fact, we do best with 2 genuine ball handlers on the court whether that’s Garland/Mitchell or LeVert/Mitchell (and sometimes get away with a lineup of death with all 3 of them and Strus at the 4, which happens to be our best lineup till date, albeit the minuscule sample size). At the 3 and 4 we need spacing, as we went and bought in free agency. Strus/Wade, Okoro/Wade is just fine here; and Niang on occasions we can survive the defensive hit. That leaves Mobley and Allen splitting minutes at the 5. I know Mobley’s development is important, so no one will blame JB for giving him 10 odd extra minutes at the 4 to help his skillset there. But if we are truly in win-now mode, all the data points towards us being much better on the court, and a team that can make a deep run in the playoffs with the roster as it stands, if we just carefully split those minutes at the 5.
I believe we have a very good roster, with enough playmaking, defence, and 3 point shooting to beat any team on any given night. We just need spacing- as we can see with the team’s recent trend due to forced injuries
TL;DR: We play only 1-big man lineups, we are one of the best teams in this league.
by BiggDikkNRG
4 Comments
they already do that. and they know this.
Mobley and Allen have 304 minutes together over 16 games. That’s about 19 minutes together a game. If Mobley plays 33 minutes and Allen plays 30 they have to overlap 15 minutes at least. They’re pretty close to that. So the whole point of staggering is pretty mute. They already do that.
Back to the arguments about the two big lineups. The Mobley/Allen pairing is +4.2 per 100 possessions. Remember when Mobley went out the team was actually negative. Net rtg has been boosted due to easy opponents the past 2/3 weeks. The pair has worked this year. Last year the pairing was +8.5/ 100 possession. One of the better pairings. In the playoffs the pairing was positive and the 5 of Mitchell, Garland Allen Mobley and Okoro/Levert out scored the Knicks by 9 in 95 minutes. Given that we got destroyed in that series being +9 in about two games worth of minutes shows that the two big lineup was NOT the issue.
There’s really 3 reasons why Cavs fans have so much discussion about the 2 big lineup.
1) Offense is fun
2) Offense is easier to see than defense
3) The gap between a good and a great team/lineup is 2 points per game.
For these reasons it’s hard to get a good feel that the 2 big lineup does work. We see the lack of spacing a lot easier than the suffocating defense. And it’s easier to see a basket made than Allen and Mobley making an extra miss by the other team.
The key to the Cavs success will not be going away from Mobley/Allen, but by making the pairing work even better. It’s why they got Strus and it’s why we all hope Mobley develops more offensive skill sets.
At these amounts of minutes played, lineup stats aren’t indicative of anything. You need to be hitting 100+ minutes, if not 200, before you can draw any type of conclusions.
Even then, you need to contextualize who the lineups are playing against once they hit those numbers. Otherwise you might think something crazy like “hey we should start T. Thompson – C. LeVert – G. Niang – S. Merrill – C. Porter Jr., they’re +41.8 in 36 minutes playing together!”
The screenshot you took is nearly meaningless. As another comment posted, D. Mitchell – J. Allen – M. Strus – D. Garland – E. Mobley is our most played lineup, and is +4 in 145 minutes together. Good, not amazing.
Last year D. Mitchell – J. Allen – D. Garland – I. Okoro – E. Mobley was +7 in 398 minutes, which was very good, and C. LeVert – D. Mitchell – J. Allen – D. Garland – E. Mobley was +15 in 231 minutes, which was elite.
Once we’re healthy and passing the 200 or 300 minute mark, we should know more.
Everything is perfect with starting two non shooting rim runner bigs, it worked great in last season playoffs series so there’s no reason to think it won’t work this year. Strus instead of Levert will make all the difference.