Iwasawitness wrote:Magicman125 wrote:Iwasawitness wrote:
At the beginning of this game I would have agreed with this, but…
Cleveland winning this game pretty much changed everything. This was Orlando’s opportunity to steal home court and Cleveland still managed to defend it.
Games like these are soul crushing in the playoffs. It’s one thing to lose a game down to the wire. It’s another to do it when the opposing team is losing one of their starters. Jarrett Allen has arguably been the best player core Cleveland throughout this entire series. A lot of people, myself included, expected Cleveland to lose this game due to his absence. That ended up not happening.
The big thing though is now Morris has just earned his spot in Cleveland’s playoff rotation (unless this is a one time thing, in which case JBB would need to be fired as soon as this season ends). I don’t think people realize how big of a deal this is. The Magic were killing Cleveland in those lineups involving Niang. Morris doesn’t have the same weaknesses as him and offers more advantages on top of being very experienced in the postseason. He isn’t afraid of the moment and he was the first cavaliers player off the bench in this series to score in double figures. I’ve been preaching all series why Morris needs playing time and the results speak for themselves.
I’ll be interested to see what Cleveland does with Morris in game 6. If Allen is still out for that game, I would put him in the starting lineup. Even if he isn’t, he needs to be closing out the game like he did last night until Allen is back in. I’m just glad we have a big who can spread the floor and play great defense off the bench. What a god send.
With all of this in mind, I would not be surprised if Cleveland ended up winning game 6.
While I agree that Jarrett Allen has been your best player and winning without him is probably confidence-instilling for your squad, I think your offense got opened up a lot more due to having Morris in the game. As a big who can hit a three and still play decent defense on our front court. The smaller starting lineup, while giving up a lot to Banchero, also helped you all play faster and it opened up things for Strus and Garland to get theirs (though I blame Cole Anthony's defense for like 8 of those Strus points).
Magic will still be incredibly tough for you to beat on their home floor and then this game showed that they absolutely can win in a game 7 if they can force one. Really feels like a coin flip to me if it gets to that point, they just need to be able to take this punch to the gut and come back focused and take care of business at home, like they did in games 3 and 4 and the majority of the regular season in their building. Regardless, we'll see how the young guys handle a do-or-die situation and they'll be all the better for it win or lose.
If Allen is back in game 7, I have a hard time seeing Orlando winning that. Orlando is just so young and inexperienced and even at this point, it’s continued to show. It’s clear that Mobley defending Paolo changes everything, and if Strus is able to maintain some level of consistency… I think it’s game over for Orlando. You’ve mentioned Morris, but taking Niang out of the equation has now robbed Orlando of the lineup they’ve been taking advantage of the most against Cleveland.
So much of what I’m saying could be wrong. It will all depend on how game 6 plays out, which I still have Orlando winning. But I’m so curious as to how these new adjustments will play out for Cleveland.
I'm just happy to be here lol. All I wanted was for Orlando to win more than one playoff game to officially surpass the Vuc teams from 4 and 5 years ago with the new core. This is all gravy.
I believe in my team to win game 6, and think they're capable of taking game 7, but it's a big big ask for sure.
