The Cleveland Cavaliers need to do THESE THINGS in G3 to beat the Pacers and make it a 2-1 series

The Cleveland Cavaliers need to do THESE THINGS in G3 to beat the Pacers and make it a 2-1 series

We’re going to get to some of the keys to a victory in Game 3 tonight after a reminder that you can turn your Fire TV into an Xbox. You can turn any TV into a gaming and entertainment hub by using Fire TV Stick 4K devices. No consoles required. Just grab and pair your controller. Subscribe or sign into Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with EA Play included and you’re ready to get in on the action. You can dive into hundreds of premium titles as easily as you stream your favorite shows. It is gaming made simple and it’s all on your Fire TV. Head to amazon.com/firetvlocked on to get started. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and compatible controller is required. It’s available on select devices including Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and the Fire TV Cube. Dustin, if the Cavs are going to win game three tonight, what has to go right for Cleveland other than the injured guys playing? Let’s just take that out of the equation as the obvious, but what else has to go right for Cleveland if they’re going to win this game and make it 2-1 series? Oh boy. I mean, obviously they’re going to have to shoot well from three. Uh that’s been a problem for not just the Cavs, but the the Celtics, too, in their series against the New York Knicks. It’s like, man, we’re so used to watching these teams, you know, just keep chucking up the threes, and it’s like, man, I felt like in in that game against the Pacers, boy, you’re up 20 points. Yeah, the threes aren’t falling. Like, why not take a couple of twos? Jay said it best. They were just kind of holding on, trying to hold on to Donovan like a Tesla running out of gas trying to trying to drive to Florida. You know what I mean? Like you’re like we’re gonna we’re in Savannah. I don’t know if we can make it when under them electrical stops. So the point in saying that if they’re not shooting better threes tonight, take the twos. Like score. You’ve got to And if by the way, if we don’t have all those guys that we just listed on the screen Yeah. to play tonight, the scoring is going to be at a premium. So those buckets, whether it be if you make threes, great, but if you’re not making them, take the deuces, man. Take the easy twos. And Donovan even is he’s struggling with his three-point shot because of the cap. So don’t shoot him. Terrible shooting. Terrible shooting. He’s been great inside the three-point line. He’s making everything. And Mikey, you know this cuz you’re the basketball guru. How many of those threes that you chuck up, you’re just trying to lead to a fast break the other way because it’s a bad shot or it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a you know, turns a long rebound to a breakaway. It’s like, man, I would like to see the Cavs run some better offense and and not be chucking up the threes. That’s my take. I missed the pass. I was Can I say one thing on that, Dustin? You sure can. In game two in particular with Mobly, Hunter, and Garland out. They would love to try and run some more offense, but at that point, you’re running it for like Dean Wade to catch. But what about what about when you’re up 20? Now, I listen, they had I don’t agree with how they closed the game. Let me preface. I just I think part of the reason they relied on Donovan so much. And he had a 50 usage rate in that game, by the way, guys. The highest of his career. Only two other players all season in the NBA, not just Cleveland. All season in the NBA. Had a usage rate over 50 in a game. Wow. In a playoff scenario, he took 21 free throws. He was incredible. And a 50 usage rates, it’s no wonder he was kind of tired out and worn down by the end of the game. He could barely get himself off the floor. He was cramping. Yeah. So because of the limited options, especially offensive creators, if Darius, Evan, DeAndre aren’t there, it falls so heavily on Donovan. But that’s where I think Kenny and Johnny Bryant, Deari Carol, that coaching staff has to devise ways and run certain sets to either just a kill a little clock or find Sam Merrill or Strus or any of the guys that you trust even a little bit cuz they there are guys that played in game two that they don’t trust offensively. I’m not going to name names. We all know who we’re talking about. Um, we know exactly. I like playing two on five. I like names. Let me ask you this. Is Tyer one of them all of a sudden? Those guys. Say it again. Is Ty Jerome one of them all of a sudden? No, they I still think they trust Ty. He just had an all time bad. I don’t know how you trust him tonight. Bull Bull brought up a point and I’ I was at home watching and I said, "You know what? You dead on, Bull." Thank you. How the hell is the rest of these guys getting any sort of uh leeway talking about they tired? Yeah. None of these bench dudes should be tired. They don’t play. And you know, as a bench dude, what do they say? It’s your job to make sure that you’re in shape and when your number’s called, you’re ready to go. You can’t. Nobody has an excuse except for Donovan Mitchell to be talking about he’s tired. He’s not even saying he’s playing injury. So, my thing is, you say, how do they win this game? You go, there’s there’s small little points and you pointed it out. There was a point where Ty Jerome does not does not block out Tyrese Hallebertton and you say Ty Jerome you you got to make sure he don’t get that on on that free throw. You got to block him out. There was a point where Jared Allen tipped the basketball and went backwards a little bit right here. Uh-uh. No, no, no, no. He’s supposed to I don’t know what Ty Jerome is is fading backwards forward. He got a body into him. Keep pushing him under the rim. So for me it has to this has to be a street fight right here. It looks like everybody in the white is trying to be cool. It looks like everybody in yellow is desperate. Look at the desperation of what they’re doing. Look at the desperation. You see guys trying to be cool and look around. This has to be a street fight. If Dean Wade can’t hit shots, you got to tell Dean Wade, you you might you better play defense till you die on the court. Can’t nobody score today. That’s right. We need some If you can’t score, you better play some deli level defense. Isaac Kakoro, if you can’t hit a corner three, guess what? You better be they better pick you up off the court. I don’t want to hear like like you said I talked about the other day outside of Donovan Mitchell. I don’t want to hear about guys being gassed. No, they’ve played they this was only their sixth game of the postseason. They barely played. Donovan’s doing everything. Nobody else should be tired. They’re they’re all standing around watching Donovan take shot after shot after shot. Can I give you an example from game one of a hustle play that we need to see a lot of? Okay, this is the first quarter of game one. I I spot shot on Isaac Aoro. Watch the effort defensively from Isaac Coro on this play. This is what we need for 48 minutes from everyone else. Yep. Gets a finger on it to an air ball. That’s a 30ft close out in the span of a second and a half in the first quarter. Obviously, you wish he had a little more gas late, but that’s the kind of effort hustled plays like that is what we’re going to have to see from everyone not named Donovan. Yeah. and Donovan too, but especially from the other guys. Yeah. To be able to pull out a road win tonight against the Indiana Pacers. Mike, can I ask you a question? Um, CBS Sports just moved an article that the three guys are are are questionable. Is that a new report this morning? I don’t know how they update the the uh injury list. There’s a a shootaround injury update. Then there’s the pregame injury update. So, there’ll be two injury updates today. Yeah, cuz CBS Sports just moved one and it said it said Garland Hunter and Moy are all questionable and they’ve been questionable for but Mitchell was not was not on the list. But there are some quotes in there from Kenny Atkinson, too. Yeah, we we we talked about how Kenny I don’t know if those are fresh quotes or not. I imagine it is. CBS Sports just put it out there. It was ju it was just moved two minutes ago. I don’t think Kenny talked this morning. So, think think about this. If ever if Evan Moby is playing and I I’ll run this by you. If ever Moby is playing in game two, right, and that out of bounds play happens with Stroous, who’s taking the ball out? Probably Stress taking it out, but you’re not throwing it to Tai Jerome. Now you’re throwing to Evan Mobley with the sevenfooter and you can throw it right to the spot where you you eloquently pointed out they’re throwing to a spot here. It’s different from Evan Mobley being at that spot. It don’t he don’t got to move much. It’s the fact that those little plays where you got guys that are substituted here or there can make a difference. in three, four plays down the stretch, you look at it, no ball handler. Half the reason they couldn’t get the ball in in court because Donovan Mitchell, they had two guys on him and it seemed like Ty Jerome couldn’t dribble like to save his life. Darius Garland is there, you could bring the ball up. It’s a lot of different things the Cavs look totally different. If they can win this game, you can flip the series and make the Indiana Pacers actually have to be on the defensive force. Cuz right now, their confidence has got to be skyhigh through the roof. And here’s what’s really weird about this too for me. I don’t care if they’re up 10 points with a minute 20 to go. That’s not safe. No, not right now. It’s not safe. And you would not have said that before this series. Well, I was I was nervous after the close out against Milwaukee because I I had I’ll admit I didn’t see the Pacers much outside of when they played the Cavs this year. And yeah, but Jay, if but the Miami series, if the Cavs were healthy, we would have never had that. No, I know. However, the reason I said that it was going to take six games and not five was because the way Indiana played Milwaukee when that series was in the balance. They did the same thing against Milwaukee in game seven. That close out was insane. Yeah. And I kept saying I was facing Yes. I was facetiming with Cory at the time and I said when it when they were up like eight points with whatever with uh a minute to go, I said, "Cory, this isn’t over. This isn’t safe. No lead with this team is safe." And so really tonight and now they’ll have the home court behind them. They did that with no home court. Yeah. So I I mean if it’s 10 with a buck 20 to go, it ain’t over. No. Rick Carlile, he’s a good coach, man. He made some He has won the matchup this series so far. Rick Carlile has out coached Kenny Aerson from the way he has pressure from the way by the way the weight of the Pacers in these quarters. The Pacers are ending quarters. Cavs will be up 11. Yeah, Pacers will come down all of a sudden, move the ball down, rotate, rotate, three, end of the quarter. You You got to finish quarter stronger than that. Even that Evan Turner three, Miles Turner hit a three. Quiet the whole play. The the next day, the next game, somebody else hit a three at the end of the uh end of the quarter. You got to finish these quarters stronger. And when that happened, Jay, I was looking at it and I said, "Oh, this league’s not enough." No, you got to be about 15 16 on these dudes. It’s not enough. You look around. New York has done it to Boston a couple of times. You got to put people away. All of that being said, imagine how the face of everything changes if you can steal it tonight. Yeah. You win tonight. If you’re down 2-1 and you can quiet the noise with a home with a win on their home floor, everything changes, bro. We got to come back 22. Yeah, we got We do. 3-1 3-1. We know what that means. 3-1 is pretty. But if you win tonight and the three guys play and they look at least relatively healthy, we’ll be feeling totally differently going into game four. Okay. But at least if you can get tonight. Yeah. And you let’s say you don’t get game four. Yeah. You’re coming back home. Got a shot. You got a shot. I wouldn’t count them either. If the guy if they win tonight and they’re relatively healthy guys, I would not completely rule them out coming back down three. Are we forgetting that this team we were surprised every time that they lost this year? Like lost a regular season game. So the point is they can win three in a row, right? Like they got to win tonight though. They got to be healthy. That’s it. And we’re making our picks in the WKYC show coming up. So make sure you guys download the WKYC app. If you’re in the greater Cleveland area, you can watch us on WKYC Plus. If you’re in Cleveland, watch us on channel 3. We’ll make our official picks for tonight’s game

Cleveland Cavaliers (64-18, first in the Eastern Conference) vs. Indiana Pacers (50-32, fourth in the Eastern Conference)

Indianapolis; Friday, 7:30 p.m. EDT

Cavaliers -2.5; over/under is 229.5

EASTERN CONFERENCE SECOND ROUND: Pacers lead series 2-0

BOTTOM LINE: The Indiana Pacers host the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference second round with a 2-0 lead in the series. The Pacers won the last meeting 120-119 on Tuesday, led by 23 points from Myles Turner. Donovan Mitchell led the Cavaliers with 48.

The Pacers are 29-22 in Eastern Conference games. Indiana is 22-15 against opponents over .500.

The Cavaliers are 12-4 against Central Division opponents. Cleveland is 5-4 in games decided by less than 4 points.

The Pacers make 48.8% of their shots from the field this season, which is 3.4 percentage points higher than the Cavaliers have allowed to their opponents (45.4%). The Cavaliers score 6.8 more points per game (121.9) than the Pacers allow (115.1).

TOP PERFORMERS: Tyrese Haliburton is averaging 18.6 points and 9.2 assists for the Pacers. Aaron Nesmith is averaging 14.6 points over the last 10 games.

Darius Garland is shooting 47.2% and averaging 20.6 points for the Cavaliers. Max Strus is averaging 2.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Pacers: 8-2, averaging 118.5 points, 44.5 rebounds, 28.7 assists, 7.4 steals and 7.0 blocks per game while shooting 48.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 114.1 points per game. | https://www.espn.com/nba/preview/_/gameId/401769741

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