1. Taking Care Of The Basketball- Early on in Sunday’s contest, the Cavs were giving the ball away nearly every other possession. The turnovers didn’t really lead to Indiana scoring a lot of points from it, but it derailed Cleveland’s offense before it could get going.
“Careless turnovers. Obviously, we missed some shots as well. But I think when we had some momentum going we had a big turnover that was uncharacteristic of us,” Rodney Hood told media members during Monday’s practice. “They force a lot of turnovers as well so it’s some of them as well. But I think we can control some of them.”
“Those are just so many extra possessions that we can get going making shots that we don’t get a chance to. Then it makes the game hard when you gotta sprint back in transition and try to guard those guys in transition. So we’ll do a better job of that, but I think it was just careless turnovers.”
Hood is exactly right in his analysis of the issue. The Pacers only scored nine points off the takeaways but it stopped any flow the Cavaliers tried establishing. That was especially true when the team sliced the deficit to seven points early in the fourth quarter. An Indiana timeout seemed to calm down the young team and found Cleveland once again falling into their bad habits.
The Cavaliers finished with sixteen turnovers, just five fewer turnovers than assists. If the team wants to get back into the series, this might be the most glaring issue stopping them from doing so.
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