There were a lot of problems with the Cavaliers in their Game 1 loss to Chicago. Their defensive cross matching was odd. They ran too much isolation against a defense designed specifically to stop isolation. Kyrie Irving was fantastic on offense, but LeBron James was not aggressive enough.
The problem was LeBron wanted to facilitate, but nobody was knocking down shots when the ball moved. Mike Miller, James Jones, and Shawn Marion were awful.
That’s what Jenna Corrado and I discuss in this latest PBT Extra — what can David Blatt do about that. Except the shooting part isn’t on Blatt, it’s not his fault his third and fourth best players are out (and will be again for Game 2) while nobody else stepped up. Frankly, the isolation heavy offense isn’t on Blatt either; he wanted a system with more player movement, but the players rejected it.
It will be interesting to see how the Cavaliers respond in Game 2.