Cavaliers vs Magic Series General Discussion Thread

Post #601 » by **eyriq** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:28 pm

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bigdogdylan5 · Post #602 » by **bigdogdylan5** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:33 pm

Knightro wrote:
eyriq wrote:I would bet money our starting backcourt is already on the roster.

If next year's starting backcourt is already on the roster, I anticipate the Magic having both a worse record and lower seed next year than they had this year.

I actually agree with that. Everyone will lose their mind and it will be like the world is crashing down. We drastically overachieved this year. But we might need to take a step back to leap again. Black and Jett need to get developed. The only other option I see is trading Black Jett and firsts for a guard who will cause us to have to trade both Isaac and Suggs before Paolo extension kicks in. I am not opposed to that but **** that guard better be worth it. Like top 20 player worth it.

JoshuaPotter · Post #603 » by **JoshuaPotter** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:40 pm

eyriq wrote:
Knightro wrote:
eyriq wrote:I would bet money our starting backcourt is already on the roster.

If next year's starting backcourt is already on the roster, I anticipate the Magic having both a worse record and lower seed next year than they had this year.
You'd have to break this down for me, I don't see how running it back = setback

IMHO whether or not we are better next year is based on a lot of factors.

- Injury of other East teams (Embid future)
- Free agency of several key players on the west
- Our own key rotational players staying healthy

There is just too much volatile nature to the NBA season going into next year to flat out say we will be better or worse.

WCJ / Isaac / Suggs / Harris are all identified as key players for our success and all have availability concerns.

Fultz / Ingles to a lesser extent are plagued by this. Fultz might be let go, so that frees up a roster spot to find someone.

Merely expecting Black - Howard to step into their true rookie roles next season will likely result in us losing more games. Frankly what upsets me about this, is this was the year to lose more games, but somehow we put ourselves into win now mode in spite of availability of players on the roster.

Again this is more of our management mis managing assets and choosing odd windows to compete with too many timelines for certain players.

JoshuaPotter · Post #604 » by **JoshuaPotter** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:41 pm

bigdogdylan5 wrote:
Knightro wrote:
eyriq wrote:I would bet money our starting backcourt is already on the roster.

If next year's starting backcourt is already on the roster, I anticipate the Magic having both a worse record and lower seed next year than they had this year.

I actually agree with that. Everyone will lose their mind and it will be like the world is crashing down. We drastically overachieved this year. But we might need to take a step back to leap again. Black and Jett need to get developed. The only other option I see is trading Black Jett and firsts for a guard who will cause us to have to trade both Isaac and Suggs before Paolo extension kicks in. I am not opposed to that but **** that guard better be worth it. Like top 20 player worth it.

I don't see us blowing up our entire defensive identity for a guard. That being said, yes stranger things have in fact happened.

GelbeWand09 · Post #605 » by **GelbeWand09** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:47 pm

Read on Twitter

basketballRob · Post #606 » by **basketballRob** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:50 pm

GelbeWand09 wrote:Because Rob doesnt think Franz can guard SG. + The stat that Franz played with the highest average defensive speed of all 19ppg+ players this season, which includes a lotta fast PG/SG.

Read on Twitter

I've been advocating to play the big lineup more with Franz at SG.

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JoshuaPotter · Post #607 » by **JoshuaPotter** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:56 pm

Frankly I have even seen Paolo do pretty good defense in this series.

GelbeWand09 · Post #608 » by **GelbeWand09** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:00 pm

JoshuaPotter wrote:Frankly I have even seen Paolo do pretty good defense in this series.

He is ok yea but he is our weaklink in the starting lineup and the Cavs targeted him pretty succesful on switches last game in the first half.

JoshuaPotter · Post #609 » by **JoshuaPotter** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:03 pm

GelbeWand09 wrote:
JoshuaPotter wrote:Frankly I have even seen Paolo do pretty good defense in this series.

He is ok yea but he is our weaklink in the starting lineup and the Cavs targeted him pretty succesful on switches last game in the first half.

In terms of weak links, ill take it. I didn't watch the last game though.

Again Paolo for not being our best defensive player isn't really "that bad" on defense.

bigdogdylan5 · Post #610 » by **bigdogdylan5** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:04 pm

JoshuaPotter wrote:
bigdogdylan5 wrote:
Knightro wrote:
If next year's starting backcourt is already on the roster, I anticipate the Magic having both a worse record and lower seed next year than they had this year.

I actually agree with that. Everyone will lose their mind and it will be like the world is crashing down. We drastically overachieved this year. But we might need to take a step back to leap again. Black and Jett need to get developed. The only other option I see is trading Black Jett and firsts for a guard who will cause us to have to trade both Isaac and Suggs before Paolo extension kicks in. I am not opposed to that but **** that guard better be worth it. Like top 20 player worth it.

I don't see us blowing up our entire defensive identity for a guard. That being said, yes stranger things have in fact happened.

The one thing you can count on is the magic will try and preserve their defense. They built this thing with a top 5 defense in mind. The front office will try and make incremental jumps. Next year can they get to top 15 in offense while staying top 5 defense by internal improvement and bench changes

Bigmagicfan82 · Post #611 » by **Bigmagicfan82** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:07 pm

I am listening to this sports show in Cleveland and they are giving some interesting stats about the Cavs in this series

1) The Cavs 3rd quarter offensive rating is 72.3. That is the lowest of any team in this post season by 20 points. (The Lakers were at 93). This is also the worst offense rating of any playoff team since 1997. Which is how far back the data goes.

2) During the regular season the Cavs 3rd quarter offensive rating was 21st in the league at 114.9. That means we are holding them 37% below their season average.

3) In the first 4 games of the series, the cavs are shooting...
a) 5 for 25 (20%) on corner 3's. In the regular season they shot 37.2% on corner 3's. That is a 17.2% drop.
b) 16 of 49 (33%) on wide open 3's. In the regular season they shot 43%. 10% drop.

4) For game 1 through 1st quarter of game 2 Donovan Mitchell shot 16 of 28 (57.14%). For the remainder of game two and games 3 and 4 he shot 15 of 43 (34.88%). That is a 22.26% decline.

Post #612 » by **Knightro** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:14 pm

eyriq wrote:You'd have to break this down for me, I don't see how running it back = setback

The Magic were the healthiest team in the Eastern Conference this season. They benefitted significantly from other teams in the East suffering significant injuries, both in terms of winning a lot of regular season games against teams missing star players and also from teams who finished barely behind them in the standings having long extended stretches without their top talent.

That is very unlikely to be sustainable.

Combined Games Missed by Top 3 Scorers
Celtics: 45 games
Knicks: 42 games
Bucks: 45 games
Cavs: 57 games
Magic: 19 games
Pacers: 41 games
Sixers: 67 games
Heat: 73 games
Bulls: 63 games
Hawks: 58 games

On top of that, I assume you're talking about replacing a very capable veteran in Gary Harris who has made 39% of his threes on 8.2 3PTA/100 while playing very respectable defense since joining the Magic with a 20 year old who barely cracked 1000 minutes as a rookie and was statistically a net negative.

Black was nearly twice as bad as Harris (-2.9 to -1.5) according to EPM. To assume there won't be a drop off making that switch seems like wishful thinking in a big way. Plus throw in the desire to have Jett, who basically didn't even play at all this season into the rotation too.

Those two guys are very likely going to be negatives next season because they're so young and so inexperienced. Most young guys are bad. The time to play them and work out some of those young guy problems was this year. Not next year when the expectation level is going to be a lot higher than it was this year.

basketballRob · Post #613 » by **basketballRob** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:19 pm

Phillip is on Locked-On Cavs, giving them plenty of bulletin board material. He said the Cavs gave up in the last 2 games when they got down.

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JoshuaPotter · Post #614 » by **JoshuaPotter** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:23 pm

Knightro wrote:
eyriq wrote:You'd have to break this down for me, I don't see how running it back = setback

The Magic were the healthiest team in the Eastern Conference this season. They benefitted significantly from other teams in the East suffering significant injuries, both in terms of winning a lot of regular season games against teams missing star players and also from teams who finished barely behind them in the standings having long extended stretches without their top talent.

That is very unlikely to be sustainable.

Combined Games Missed by Top 3 Scorers
Celtics: 45 games
Knicks: 42 games
Bucks: 45 games
Cavs: 57 games
Magic: 19 games
Pacers: 41 games
Sixers: 67 games
Heat: 73 games
Bulls: 63 games
Hawks: 58 games

On top of that, I assume you're talking about replacing a very capable veteran in Gary Harris who has made 39% of his threes on 8.2 3PTA/100 while playing very respectable defense since joining the Magic with a 20 year old who barely cracked 1000 minutes as a rookie and was statistically a net negative.

Black was nearly twice as bad as Harris (-2.9 to -1.5) according to EPM. To assume there won't be a drop off making that switch seems like wishful thinking in a big way. Plus throw in the desire to have Jett, who basically didn't even play at all this season into the rotation too.

Those two guys are very likely going to be negatives next season because they're so young and so inexperienced. Most young guys are bad. The time to play them and work out some of those young guy problems was this year. Not next year when the expectation level is going to be a lot higher than it was this year.

Ah but there is one gigantic flaw in your logic.....

We don't have a 3rd scorer.

I'll see myself out.

Skybox · Post #615 » by **Skybox** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:28 pm

basketballRob wrote:
GelbeWand09 wrote:Because Rob doesnt think Franz can guard SG. + The stat that Franz played with the highest average defensive speed of all 19ppg+ players this season, which includes a lotta fast PG/SG.

Read on Twitter
I've been advocating to play the big lineup more with Franz at SG.

Sent from my SM-G781U using RealGM Forums mobile app

I've been saying Franz is our best PG since his rookie year...he and Suggs should get serious minutes with a monster lineup. It's more than a novelty. I still want another significant scorer in a heavy usage 3 guard rotation (Monk?) but Franz can definitely spend some time there. Paolo & Isaac play like 3's much of the time...they're just super-sized. We've seen Isaac on Mitchell, Lillard, etc and not just some "caught on an island" PnR thing.

GelbeWand09 · Post #616 » by **GelbeWand09** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:29 pm

I hope Game 4 means Franz becomes more the focus on offense. I trust his drives much more than Paolo's against this Frontcourt. Franz usage so far is almost 3% down from regular season (22.7%), while Paolo's is 2% up (31.6%). Its almost 10% usage difference between them, instead of 4% in regular season. All this while Franz got a 61TS% & Paolo 51TS% but more worrisome are the 1.5 TO (6.5% TO ratio) to 4.8 TO (16.0% TO ratio), which leads to easy Cavs points.

Post #617 » by **eyriq** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:30 pm

Knightro wrote:
eyriq wrote:You'd have to break this down for me, I don't see how running it back = setback

The Magic were the healthiest team in the Eastern Conference this season. They benefitted significantly from other teams in the East suffering significant injuries, both in terms of winning a lot of regular season games against teams missing star players and also from teams who finished barely behind them in the standings having long extended stretches without their top talent.

That is very unlikely to be sustainable.

Combined Games Missed by Top 3 Scorers
Celtics: 45 games
Knicks: 42 games
Bucks: 45 games
Cavs: 57 games
Magic: 19 games
Pacers: 41 games
Sixers: 67 games
Heat: 73 games
Bulls: 63 games
Hawks: 58 games

On top of that, I assume you're talking about replacing a very capable veteran in Gary Harris who has made 39% of his threes on 8.2 3PTA/100 while playing very respectable defense since joining the Magic with a 20 year old who barely cracked 1000 minutes as a rookie and was statistically a net negative.

Black was nearly twice as bad as Harris (-2.9 to -1.5) according to EPM. To assume there won't be a drop off making that switch seems like wishful thinking in a big way. Plus throw in the desire to have Jett, who basically didn't even play at all this season into the rotation too.

Those two guys are very likely going to be negatives next season because they're so young and so inexperienced. Most young guys are bad. The time to play them and work out some of those young guy problems was this year. Not next year when the expectation level is going to be a lot higher than it was this year.

Injury luck or misfortune is out of our control outside of moving off of injury prone players.

A benefit of being young is that player development yields an outsized effect on team improvement. The development of Paolo, Franz, Suggs, AB, and Jett should weigh heavily on our ability to take a step forward next season. Taking a step back would be pretty bad.

Is a top 5 defense sustainable?
Can those lotto talents run a top 20 offense?

Improvement on offense will come due to the development of Paolo, Franz, Suggs, AB, and Jett.

Post #618 » by **Knightro** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:39 pm

Read on Twitter

I doubt he'll miss the game, but this is definitely something to keep an eye on.

JoshuaPotter · Post #619 » by **JoshuaPotter** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:42 pm

Knightro wrote:

Read on Twitter

I doubt he'll miss the game, but this is definitely something to keep an eye on.

Oh no, I hate that for him. Hope he feels better game time either way.

Edit : If anyone questions the physicality of this series. This is some good evidence right here. Refs are essentially letting the players play and its turned into football.

Post #620 » by **Knightro** » Tue Apr 30, 2024 4:47 pm

eyriq wrote:Injury luck or misfortune is out of our control outside of moving off of injury prone players.

A benefit of being young is that player development yields an outside effect on team improvement. The development of Paolo, Franz, Suggs, AB, and Jett should weigh heavily on our ability to take a step forward next season. Taking a step back would be pretty bad.

Is a top 5 defense sustainable?
Can those lotto talents run a top 20 offense?

Improvement on offense will come due to the development of Paolo, Franz, Suggs, AB, and Jett.

I have zero doubt in my mind the Magic will have a worse record next season than they had this season if they don't make additions to the roster.

Whether that's via free agency or via trade. They need to keep adding to the talent level on this roster if they want to keep progressing.

Just saying "ok Fultz and Harris are out, Black and Jett are in" and expecting the internal improvement from Paolo, Franz and Suggs to just carry them to 50+ wins ain't it.

Bank on that internal improvement *and* make additions. Do both. Maximize your situation.