Report from the Cavs game: His most high-energy game. Caffeinated. It started with aggressive box-outs on his first 3 defensive possessions, all on bigs. Then deflections and pokeaways for steals on his next 2. Then stepping in front of a pass for a clean steal. Then poking the dribble away from Mobley for another. An absolute flurry. The whole game, he was anticipating moves and passes, cutting off options with a quick first step, smothering the ball handler on screens, doubling more aggressively than I’ve ever seen him. He was hyper alert, and his feet were executing instantly. Grabbing high rebounds in traffic, fighting off Tyson in the post. Even in the 4th, he was helping all over the place, closing out, running circles around guys to steal the ball. And that glorious deflection of the 3 from behind. In a game where Ime played 10 guys before garbage time, he gave Reed 32 minutes, second most on the team. That doesn’t happen by accident. More evidence that Ime is rewarding Reed for defense above anything else. And having built the big lead, he gave Reed the green light to experiment offensively. (I assume if Reed was taking liberties Ime didn’t want, Ime would have pulled him.) We saw heat checks but also some drive and layup (blocked), drive and interior pass, drive and swing to the wing, plus the jukey runner. On one possession Reed stood at the top of the arc and they swung the ball back and forth through him till he found the right pass. For those of us who’ve been clamoring to give Reed in-game time to work on his game, this is exactly what the doctor ordered. So what accounts for this? Was Reed just gassed on the road trip and got his mojo back after some rest? Was it the emotional boost of playing at home? Was it pills? Whatever it was, do it again. When he plays with this kind of energy, we’re a different team.
