The Sports Mixer - Cavs are back!

Last night saw the return of the Cleveland Cavaliers to the floor to take on the Milwaukee Bucks in their opening preseason game.

Let me say that again as that's going to be a point emphasized over and over again: their FIRST preseason game.

I have to keep saying that to keep things in perspective as last night was a very, very encouraging opening display of basketball presented to use from the wine and gold.

From the moment Mike Brown was announced as the head coach in his second stint with the Cavs, people have been wondering how quickly this team would embrace his defensive priniciples, if they did at all. What was the offense going to look like? Was Anthony Bennett going to be ready to play?

Well, this corner very pleasantly surprised to see what was going on once I turned the TV on to watch the end of the second quarter into the second half, then watched the replay at midnight to see what I had missed prior to that point.

I saw players hustling on their rotations, bigs showing strong, pressure on the ball, and a swarming of defenders to the paint that I hadn't seen since, well, Brown was coaching here previously. Each player played as if defense was all that mattered to them, and when there were lapses, Brown took a timeout to explain what he saw go wrong. This happened frequently during the first half and was refreshing to see the coaching going on during the game.

As for the offense, it looked a lot better than I could've anticipated given that offense hasn't been worked on much at all. Kyrie Irving is of course gifted and does what he wants out there, but Dion Waiters continues to show an improved jumper (don't care what people say about him shooting jumpers; he looked confident shooting them), Tristan Thompson continues to expand his offensive game, and it was nice to see contributions from just about everyone who played.

Now, I'm not going to get into the specifics of each player and how they should be able ton contribute; this post is about seeing this young team openly embrace Brown's defensive ideas and execute them surprisingly well. I can honestly say I noticed more effort defensively tonight than I had seen the previous two years under Byron Scott.

Now, many will say it's the Bucks and they're going to be bad, but this effort was missing against all opponents. When the Cavs won, it was more because they were firing on all cyclinders offensively and did the bare minimum to stop the other team defensively. Last night, they played solid overall defense and weren't too shabby on offense.

It was a nice change.

Cavalier Caveats

• Brown took a beating the last time he coached here and I always thought it was unfair that he was the scapegoat when LeBron James decided to jump ship. Brown took a team back then similarly disinterested in defense and turned it into one of the top defensive teams in the league year after year. The rap is that he's not good with rookies and developing players, so this is going to be a big test for him. Will he get the most out of Irving, Waiters, and company? Or will they flounder under him.
  
• Anderson Varejao had to be ecstatic to see Brown back. It must also be nice to have one guy who's familiar with the defensive schemes in Varejao to lead the young players forward. That said, Irving is the biggest key to the defensive turnaround. If Irving buys into it and leads by example, this team could be back near the top again sooner than later.
  
• Bennett looked like a rookie last night early on. He was tentative and seemed unsure of things going on around him. But CJ Miles did something I highly respect him for. After Bennett nicked the iron on a free throw, Miles went over, spoke to Bennett for a moment, and seemed to ease the rookie's mind a bit as he nailed the next free throw and went on to have a decent night rebounding with 10 boards. He has room to grow and it will be interesting to see the growth in the coming months.
  
• Waiters needs to attack more. Two examples from last night demonstrated the good that happens when he does. The first actually ended in his shot being blocked at the rim, but because of the attention on him, it left Thompson with a wide open, and I mean WIDE open put back. The second resulted in a pretty vicious slam dunk. Waiters is strong and can score at will, but he needs to learn to finish better sometimes, but him attacking can almost always lead to good things, much like with Irving.
  
• I've always liked Thompson and am happy to see him continue to improve. Called a bust before he's had a chance to fully develop, I really hope he continues to improve his game. If he can continue to produce consistent double-doubles, this team will do all right going forward.