Cavs and Pelicans: Pretenders or Contenders? | East Coast Bias | The Ringer

Cavs and Pelicans: Pretenders or Contenders? | East Coast Bias | The Ringer

Welcome back into East Coast bias Brian Baron for JJ with house and Rahe all right so picking up guys with some of these teams are they real contenders or not let’s go to the Eastern Conference to a team that is the number two seat the Cleveland Cavaliers who have been

Really good they had this incredible win against Dallas on Tuesday night you got Max streu hitting crazy shots hitting five threes I don’t know what Dallas was doing defensively at the end of that fourth quarter there but nonetheless this Cavaliers team it’s interesting to me the Moy and Allen pairing they have

Just a 113.5 offensive rating together which would be 20th in the NBA the defense is really good with those two guys on the court Mitchell’s been awesome for them and stru I mentioned how we hit all these shots on Tuesday night he’s only shooting 41.8% from the

Field which is 139th of 144 qualifiers and he’s 138th and 3 point percentage at 34.3% yet the offense has been good with him and the other thing that I would mention is okay so they spent all their money to get a wing I don’t think that streu can defend some of the Premier

Wings and he hasn’t shot the ball well which is obviously an issue for them Garland has not had the best season as he’s been banged up the mo Allen pairing is great as it looks at times I think it can be concerning in the postseason and

Then the other thing that I can’t get out of the back of my mind is the Knick Series last year they gave up 18.2 Second Chance points per game no team this year is north of 17 so I feel like you have real questions about does the even fit despite their record the

Toughness level of this team Donovan Mitchell as great as he’s playing and as great as his times been in Cleveland he could be out the door at the end of the season he may ask for a trade and you have another you have a coach that not exactly the most experienced in the

Eastern Conference compared to the rest of these guys when I look at it house I just don’t trust them I really don’t I look at other teams that could threaten to win the East we talked about Miami the Knicks if they’re healthy could certainly be one of those teams we talk

About the bucks and maybe I’m going to regret saying this I don’t take the Cavaliers seriously well I think you’re um in the right frame of mind BB and and the reason is twofold you mentioned the coach uh and that has been something that H has had a lot of us skeptical

About them and and you know per perhaps the only real um ceiling but they’re seven and 12 against Eastern Conference teams with winning records now they are on the brink of the 4020 rule if they win their next two games and they have uh Road games at Chicago and Detroit

They will get to 40 wins before the 20 losses so that means that they’re a a legit team and we when they’re um defensive rating is is as extraordinary as it is you have to take them seriously um they lose games when Donovan Mitchell can’t play they’re only they’re six and

Five with him uh you know um with when when he’s out um but you know the the the thing with with the Cavs is is is the trust factor and I just I just can’t get there dream I can’t get there with them so I can’t get there at all um and

This is so funny because I think they’re the antithesis of the Miami Heat how we say the Miami Heat the regular season record and with their their resume it just doesn’t it’s not going to show us what they’re going to do in the postseason you can say the same thing

About this Cleveland Cavaliers team and you look at the Cavaliers since the new year they’ve been rolling 20 and5 they have the highest net rating in the league plus 12.2 offensive rating of 120 defensive rating of 107 they’re rolling but how can you trust JB bicker staff

And look last year in the postseason they got out coached by playoff thibs and we know playoff thibs is typically not the guy like this is a regular season head coach so I I look at it like this you got the Cleveland Cavaliers they played two bigs last year you

Played two bigs and you still got outrebound so this is not a good defensive rebounding team and then when you go into you go under the hood what do they do in the half court they’re 18th and half court offensive rating however they’re second in points in

Transition so this is a team that they score a ton in transition but when the game slows down as it did in the playoffs last year against the Knicks this is not a offense that you can totally trust so I’m not trusting this team I’m not trusting the coach they are

27 to one to win the NBA title for a reason typically when you see a team with this record they’re not 27 to1 FanDuel has this thing priced properly what about the rest of the season would you take the bucks at plus 150 to win the division or do you think the Cavs

Will hold on that’s I mean that is actually a good bet because the buck the bucks right now as the time we’re recording recording this on Wednesday the Bucks are just one game behind so I do think the Bucks can catch them did I confess I already have that ticket I

Have Milwaukee winning that and and and not even as a a good a price I think I had it like plus 135 I might have to double down on the plus 150 now that game last night I mean uh uh the the game against uh Dallas if it comes down

To that I’m gonna have some issues I mean if if that ends up being the decider between those two teams it’s going to be you know an all-timer potentially but I do think the Bucks are are are you know kind of the the role that they’re on is real and I do think

That they’re going to catch the Cavs PB I like that plus 150 it seems like good value for a Buc team that it seems like they’re getting it together okay so let’s go to maybe the weirdest team in the NBA that’s good the New Orleans Pelicans so this is fascinating to me

Because their social media team is getting into it with analysts they’re putting out videos of analysts on their Twitter feed by the way I think New Orleans ended up losing the night they put that video out but nonetheless if you look at one of the amazing things

About this team is if you look at their most used lineup that’s played 350 minutes together valent chunis McCollum Ingram Zion and Herb Jones they have a negative net rating they’ve been outscored by 2.4 points per 100 possessions look across the league these contenders Denver’s best group 14.1 in

The positive the Wolves plus point plus 9.9 the bucks plus 15.3 the Celtics plus 13.8 their best or their most used lineup has been outscored on the season it’s incredible the Ingram Zion thing has never made total sense and they’ve actually been really good with both of

Them off the court which again is bizarre because those are two guys that have made all-star teams in the past things that concern me they’re 18th and made threes per game now they are eighth in free throws but 18th in made threes Is Not Great McCollum shot the ball well

For them he’s over 42% herb Jones has on low volume and Zion when they actually give him the ball he’s been really good in terms of this whole point ey on thing he’s an 81st percentile as a pick and roll ball handler but I just feel like

From a game to game basis you don’t really know what you’re going to get and I feel like that’s difficult Raheem when you go into a postseason series and they have a a very deep team they have a lot of options I just feel like maybe there

Needs to be like some consolidation with this team in the future because I don’t think they really have the identity that I don’t know if they want the identity they want is maybe the word the wrong way to say it but they don’t really have identity to me they’re really talented

But I don’t I don’t really know like if you ask me hey what what are the Pelicans known for I would I wouldn’t be able to tell you like a bunch of other teams I could like the Celtics they’re going to take a bunch of Threes right

Like I can tell you what a lot of other teams do I I don’t know what the Pelicans do I think you hit the the nail on the head when it comes to the Pelicans this is an inconsistent team who has no identity whose Stars don’t

Match up with one another I mean you have Zion Williamson who can score in the paint at will but can’t shoot from the outside and then you have Brandon Ingram who’s just a mid-range monster who doesn’t really shoot from the outside so like the stars just don’t fit

But it just feels like they’re so deep and they’re so stacked with talent that they get by on that so night to night you just never know what you’re gonna get I mean you look at the records against teams below 500 17 and N you look at the records against teams above

500 18 and 15 so this is a a a good solid team but I just don’t think that they have it all together to be able to do anything significant yeah this is a team it’s just a true uh Enigma uh and

It is you know we I at least me I had a bunch of future exposure to them last year that 2022 2023 season where they arrived uh on January the 1 with the best record in the Western Conference I had uh regular season wins for the for

The Pelicans I had all kinds of exposure w w with them and then they went on that that losing streak um and you know the the the the thing with them you guys both touched on it I don’t think they know who their best five is because we

You know it feels like a constant chemistry experiment ever since we got excited by them in the 2021 2022 playoffs against the Suns where they showed a toughness they had a like a gritty identity um now part of that is because you know we haven’t had extended

Health out of Zion uh and Brandon Ingram’s gotten banged a couple times but um you know the I don’t know what what to do with them I expect to find them in in the playin and it’s a it’s a flip of the coin as to whether or not

They they make it play I think they can beat all the teams that they will conf uh confront in the playin but I also could see him losing so I I don’t know they’re they’re just so bizarre you look at let’s say the End season tournament that game against the Lakers what was

That like it’s one of the biggest nights in in the history of your franchise and you just completely don’t show up so that’s who the Pelicans are you think they turning the corner you think they’re about to make this big leap and then they get blown out by the Lakers I

I just don’t know what to do with them yeah and one of the things that annoys me about them Raheem you alluded to it is Brandon Ingram only takes 4.3 threes per game I don’t understand players like that go behind the three-point line it’s a much more like I’ve never understood

That in the playoffs it’s great if you can hit those shots because sometimes we’ve seen it with Kawai in the past you’re going to have to hit difficult twos but during the regular season you should be taking more threes it never made sense to me when guys do stuff like

That and Brandon Ingram he’s just like this mid-range guy great well you know what the Suns and the bucks when they played in the finals a couple years ago they hit the same amount of Threes but the Bucks took way more and the Bucks won the series if Phoenix took more

Threes maybe they would have had a better chance at winning the NBA title but anyway it’s just math

The guys discuss the recent rise of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the New Orleans Pelicans on the latest ‘East Coast Bias’ and determine whether each team is a pretender or a contender.

Check out the Bill Simmons YouTube channel: youtube.com/billsimmons

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