What do we like about these games at the start of the season, these games between teams that do not really have short-term goals, except to help their young people progress. And you know what ? In the aftermath of a fairly cataclysmic Christmas Day of boredom, let’s not be choosy and say it without trembling from the (double) chin: we took a huge kiff to watch this Pistons-Cavs.
We will probably not find them in the Playoffs this season, for Detroit you can already crack your PEL, but not as long as we drop the bottom of the class and even quite the contrary. This Pistons-Cavs was interesting in many ways, especially from a youth point of view, and if we would like to have focused these few lines around the first beautiful performance of Killian Hayes in the NBA, it is rather the Junior section. Cavs who smile at us this morning. Kiki? Once again inside, seeming to lack confidence after two balls lost very quickly at the start of the match. It takes time As Shakespeare said, the 2021 title will not escape the Pistons through his fault, eh, but we are still waiting to see the French free himself a little and put the bag on the floor for the next matches, otherwise a Delon Wright inspired this night will not be asked to scratch him a max of minutes that he deserves for the moment more than the Frenchman. Free himself on his shot, but also and above all in his ability to become one of the bosses of an NBA team, a role that seems for the moment devolved to three men in Detroit: Blake Griffin, quite irreproachable last night in his basketball and his attitude, Jerami Grant, paid accordingly and whose body / talent combo cannot be denied, and Derrick Rose, veteran coming off the bench with his heart on his hand and with envy full of pumps but … terribly recovered. his place of old – especially at the end of the game – by the kids of JB Bickerstaff.
These kids who are they? We counted them four in number last night, without denigrating the work of the rest of the Cavs squad in passing. Cedi Osman first, coming off the bench brilliantly and almost passing for a veteran in the middle of the Cadum babies, killing the game in the second overtime after 25 minutes already full. A role of offensive leader of the second unit which seems to correspond to the boy, first smile. Isaac Okoro? Boo, too bad, zero points. Except that when we watch the games we realize a lot of small things, and for example that the 19 year old kid is already the defensive leader of his team, by example and by voice, no ‘not hesitating to drive his teammates and leaping like a cat on any balloon lying around. So yes the debauchery of energy leaves traces in attack, yes Okoro still has to find his place in attack, but the base is already so solid…, second smile. Darius Garland? Street cred to the max, intergalactic flow, NBA champion with the Châteauroux Trashtalkers and quietly validating the Cavs’ project during the 2019 Draft. True boss, manager and spectacular at the same time, Garland holds the baton of a crazy orchestra and his own madness … put this in order, go figure, third smile. A fourth for the road? Come on, send that devil collin sexton like the other one would say. Already untenable at the opening against the Hornets, rather untenable all last season moreover, the Cavs combo once again teased us an incredible season 3 with a cannibal match. Ultra-efficient in attack, that’s not new, but above all more and more effective as the end of the match approached and there it is already starting to cause a little more, not to mention a presence more than positive in defense, Collin having added ten more rods to Derrick Rose this evening by ruining his kidneys and knees for a good fifteen minutes. And this, this, this is our fourth smile.
A real beautiful evening for Cavs fans, full of promise even if the fact that it is the Pistons in front, the fact that it is the start of the season, must be taken into account. What can we also take into account? Is that this happy troop will soon find Kevin Porter Jr. to level up a hell of a bunch of kids, that Kevin Love was back that night to take everyone under? It is a double OT victory against the probable last future of the East but, we repeat, “in the impression left”: it is a big yes for Cleveland.
