David Blatt has heard the screams about the Cavaliers' defense. And the screams are legit, because through six games, the Cavs' D warrants little more than an F.
Entering Friday's game at Boston (7:30 p.m., FOX Sports Ohio), the Cavs rank 29th in defensive field-goal percentage. That means it's incredibly easy to score against them -- as opponents are burying 48 percent of their shots.
That also means the Cavs (3-3) are basically winning by out-scoring people. With the likes of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, that is certainly doable, especially once everyone gets on the same page offensively.
But still, you gotta defend. And you gotta do it a lot better than the Cavs are doing it. But from the sounds of things, Blatt is not yet overly concerned.
"You don't have to win (games by the score of) 90-80," said the first-year coach. "That's nice, particularly if you like defense. It feels good because you know even if you have a bad offensive day, you'll be able to stop somebody. That's very important, particularly as you come close to money time and playoff time. But there are lots of ways to win a basketball game."
Blatt makes a valid point. The Cavs finished 12th in the league in defensive field-goal percentage last season under Mike Brown. And where did it get them?
Right. Nowhere. Or back in the NBA draft lottery, actually.
And that may be another reason why this year's version of the Cavs is likely to play some of its best D by challenging opponents to try to keep up on O.
"If we score the ball as well as we scored it the last game (118 points in a win over New Orleans) and we keep opponents around 42 percent, we have a good chance to win regardless of the overall score," Blatt said. "I don't know what over/under means. I don't care. I want to have more points than the other guy at the end of the day."
Regardless of how you go about it, that is the best plan of all.
Moustache-gate revisited
Blatt closed his meeting with reporters Wednesday by expressing disappointment that no one asked about "'stache-gate."
He was referring to the handshake involving Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love following Monday's win over the Pelicans -- which created quite a stir in the blogosphere (and even traditional media).
Some accused Love and Irving of concluding their handshake with a motion that indicated they were pretending to smoke marijuana. But not so, say the Cavs. Love and Irving were merely pretending to playfully twist the end of their mustaches.
"I guess Kevin's hand got a little wild," Irving said, somewhat playfully.
The flap over the incident will not keep the stars from performing their post-game handshake routine.
"We're going to do it more now," Irving said. "This is an awesome handshake we're not going to change. It's nothing illegal, nothing we're trying to get across. Just a simple twist of the mustache, just a simple handshake we have."
By the Numbers
LeBron James leads the Cavs in scoring 24.8 points and assists at 6.7 per game. Irving is next in both categories at 22.0 and 5.0, respectively.
Love comes in at 18.7 points and a team-high 10.2 rebounds. Anderson Varejao is the only other member of the team in double figures in scoring (10.7 ppg). Tristan Thompson is averaging 9.7 points and Dion Waiters, struggling to adapt to the new lineup, is down to 9.4 this season. Waiters is shooting just 35 percent from the field.
