Cue the Germans!
Ho ho ho, welcome to the Fear the Fro podcast, Max Struce. Holy shit, what an evening. Was
there a more satisfying regular season game than this? Certainly not for Max Struce. There
is no other place to begin but the marquee free agent acquisition of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Now much maligned as he may have been over the course of these several months with the Cleveland
Cavaliers due to his shooting splits he showcased tonight. Exactly. What it is about Max Struce
that makes him so magnificent as a contributing member of this Cavalier squad. Take away the
final stat line, the 21-4-4. What is really more majestic here is the manner in which it
came tonight. Max Struce in the first half was imposing his will on the defensive end. Multiple
times he sent guys packing. But beyond that, the fourth quarter rolls around. and Max Struess
is a house on fire. Five three-pointers, five of his 70% three-point shooting, seven makes
tonight. However, four of those came in a 67-second span in which Max Struess humiliated on repeat,
Tim Hardaway Jr., Luca Doncic. Tim Hardaway Jr. than Tim Hardaway Jr. again. This is what
I would recommend to all of you. You don't even get to see the true majesty of it. It's not
just that Max Struse hits the full court game winner on Luka Doncic. What happened after
Kyrie Irving committed that inbound violation? The Cavalier broadcast clipped the play that
they ran. You saw Max elevate and hit the shot on the Cavs broadcast but really all you got
out of that was knowing that Luca was pissed about something because he was clearly scapegoating
some teammates. MVP am I right? If you go back and watch the Mavericks version of the broadcast
what you'll see is Max come running across the paint and Jared Allen giving Luca a screen
that gave Max just enough time to catch the ball, release it and nail that corner three.
And that stretch of four triples obviously that is the story of the game. But this fourth quarter
was one which took what would have been a crushing collapse by the Cavaliers after blowing open
the game in the first half, the second quarter specifically. The Cavaliers at one point with
three minutes left in the second quarter, they had hit seven of nine three-pointers that they
put up. Blew it open, 15-point lead. It would get whittled down due to 14 points in the final
three minutes of the first half by Luka, including four triples. But how satisfying is it to look?
At the end of that first half, when Luca poured in 14 points and 3 minutes, not knowing that
the end outcome was to be that Max Struus would outdo him, pouring in 15 points, all of which
came from behind the line and one of which came from behind halfcourt. Anything you can do.
Doc, you want to take it? We can play VATTER. See, for once, his excuses are coming in handy.
Now brace yourselves, Cavs fans. In any game that ends... this incredibly for us or terribly
for them, you're going to get a lot of excuses. And I've already seen it from Mavericks fans
saying, oh, it should have been a jump ball when they tackled Darius Garland or, or that
was a foul by Max Truss when Kyrie Irving hooked his arm or, oh, Jared Allen, that should have
been an and one from PJ Washington, which I guess would have given them time to collect
themselves. So they didn't just give Max Truss an unimpeded run-up into his three quarter
court bomb. Now the reality is, if you continue to allow Tim Hardaway Jr. to pick up a guy
who has made his last two, his last three, his last four three-point attempts in a row, Not
two, not three, not four. I don't have much sympathy for you. Jason Kidd was watching a
double-digit lead get cut down to four points in a matter of seconds and he just sat there
saying, I don't give a shit. Now when the whole run kicked off from Max Truce, It came off
a situation where he set a top of the circle screen for Donovan Mitchell, who came over,
and Tim Hardaway Jr. decided to try to go over top of the screen. In the process, he stumbled,
but to me, the clear call there was, Luca should have rotated to stay along with Strews. Instead,
nobody did, and he had enough time to get a shot off while Tim Hardaway Jr. just blll
But I'm not Steve Jones, so what the fuck do I know? The second one, clearly that was a
situation where the Cavaliers had a chance to run a play. Max came running across the paint.
Allen set that screen, so good execution. Don Cich blamed his teammates, of course. That's
what happens. And then the next two after that, a drop pass from Darius Garland that Tim Hardaway
Jr. couldn't close on. Donovan Mitchell assisted on three of the four three-pointers for Max
Struce in that stretch. but Tim Hardaway Jr. just not a strong enough defender to make the
looks be difficult enough, and sometimes when you're hot, you're hot. However, having him
in there late in the game seems questionable, giving the information I'm about to provide
you. Over the course of this entire season, there is one member of the Mavericks rotation
that has a positive plus minus playing alongside Tim Hardaway Jr., and that is the newly acquired
Daniel Gafford. He's nearly a plus 10, except everybody else who matters. It's the opposite.
Kyrie is a plus 8 without Hardaway Jr. Luke is a plus 12 without him. PJ Washington newly
acquired plus 11 and Josh Green a plus 12 without him. Nobody seems to play better when that
man is on the floor except for Max Strews tonight. So here's a fun stat to share with you. Now
there have been seven men in the NBA who have gone at least five for five from outside the
arc in a quarter of basketball. three sets of teammates. We have Keegan Murray and Malik
Monk, both have done it for the Kings. We have Boyan Bogdanovich and Jalen Brunson, both have
done it for the Knicks. And we have Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, both have done it for the
Warriors. But none of those men have gone a perfect five for five or better from outside
the arc in the fourth quarter. Max Truce is the only man to achieve that feat. Now every
single time that has happened, unsurprisingly, given the statistical improbability of doing
that, Those teams have won those games. A perfect 7-0. Now the last time somebody did what Max
did in the fourth quarter of a game, prior to this season, was December of 2022 in a game
where DeAngelo Russell hit six three-pointers in a victory over the Utah Jazz. Let's hear
from Max Struess himself, shall we? This a post-game interview clip. I think this might be McNuggets.
I don't know for sure, but I got the recording from Spencer Davies. on the Cavs Insider YouTube
page. You should all follow that. Sometimes he even beats the Cavs posting of interview
clips. 59 foot buzzer beat his second longest. I heard it was 60. Why you cut me short, man?
60 foot buzzer beat his second longest in NBA history right there? Yeah, that's what they
just told me back there. So pretty cool. But if it ain't first, you're last, in the great
words of Ricky Bobby. Who was first place if Max is second since 1979, 1980? That would
be Devonte Graham, who hit one from just a foot longer, 61 feet. Tim McMahon has a post saying
it's 59 feet. Max seems to believe that somebody told him it was 60 regardless. Another interesting
nugget revealed in that post game interview is that he hit an even longer buzzer beater
with his Division 2 school, Lewis, before he went on to play at DePaul. So Max Truce, no
stranger to that type of situation. However, it probably only emerged tonight due to Donovan
Mitchell being out of the game. One other thing. If we're going to nitpick how that final possession
played out. I don't know that the Mavericks anticipated scoring with any time left on the
clock, but I thought they should have pressed up on the inbounds. It did not seem particularly
difficult for Evan Mobley to be able to toss that ball to Struz who could load up in motion
and get a fairly clean look off. The odds of it going in are minimal, but I did not like
how they defended that at all. And they set up Luka Doncic to be on that poster, to be
in that moment of history. forever after what should be a game where he's celebrated. Losing
a game where your team has less turnovers than the star player of the other squad. Only five
Maverick turnovers. Donovan Mitchell alone had seven turnovers. Only seven teams this season
have lost a game where they've had five or fewer turnovers. It just doesn't happen. And if I
tell you that Luca and Kyrie are going to combine for 75 points and their splits are going to
be 50, 60, 3, 100 and... 59-55-100. Who loses that game? It just doesn't happen. So there's
things to nitpick, but tonight is not going to be that night. Tonight is going to be the
night that we acknowledge that despite allowing Luca to score 45 points, something he's done
13 times during his NBA career, we are one of just two of those 13 games which resulted in
a loss. The other being the LA Clippers. We got a much needed win. Hopefully one that propels
us to victory tomorrow on vibes alone and Mike Mascalla got bought out tonight. Who knows,
maybe a buyout target for the Cavaliers. I could get on board with that. I wanna play you JB
celebrating Max Struce's performance in his post game presser, some comments from the coach.
What he did tonight was absolutely ridiculous. Come back in that fourth quarter for us to
be down the way we were. But that's who Max is. And it's as simple sometimes as chasing
down a loose ball or, you know, making an extra rotation. Like, Max never quits. And, you know,
we were down, and he had the same mentality. He wasn't going to quit. And he just kept making
play after play after play on both ends. Now, you deserve to hear the calls from the Mavericks
announcers. I'm going to give you those now. Cleba closes out, but Struce still drills the
three. They just got an inbounds violation. I left that in there. And now off the inbound.
Strews again.
It's a bad call. You got to be ready though to defend. Struce looking to go three for three
on threes. Big time shot making. Mitchell in the open court. Now to Garland. Struce wants
it. He's got it. What is happening?
Now one play that was incredibly pivotal that didn't involve making a 3 pointer came with
roughly a minute left in the 4th quarter as Darius Garland failed to score at the rim and
fell to the floor by the stanchion looking hurt which took him out of the play. It gave the
Mavericks a 5 on 4 advantage with a trailing by 2 points and Kyrie Irving pressing looking
to score. Max Truss managed to get in front of him to cut off his angle and in trying to
draw a defensive foul. Kyrie Irving used his inside arm to hook Max. Max smartly just put
his arms up so that the referees could see what was happening and he was whistled for a second
turnover. Now Kyrie Irving was incredible. In the third quarter he scored 12, in the fourth
quarter he scored 10. He got 22 of his 30 points in the second half. But two critical turnovers
late in the fourth quarter. One on the inbound violation which you could say is Tim Hardaway
Jr.'s fault or you could Regardless, nobody but Kyrie is to blame for the offensive foul
late in the game. And now he falls to 5 and 6 since departing the Cavaliers against his
former team. He split the series with the Celtics, he split the series with the Brooklyn Nets,
and this was his first outing as a member of the Dallas Mavericks and the Cavaliers come
away victorious. Which I am pretty happy about. I've always been somewhat conflicted on the
subject of Kyrie Irm. It should be pointed out, he and Luca both stuck around to sign autographs
after what must have been a crushing loss. So credit to them. It does soften my cold dead
heart a little bit. And in terms of just fandom in general, without him we don't win a title.
And in that way, it's the same way that I didn't understand how people could be upset with LeBron
after he came back and we won a title for what he did when he departed the first time. I do
have a friend I work with who still just doesn't like him. because of the decision. And I could
never grasp how he couldn't get past that after he returned here to play for Dan Gilbert and
help us win a title. I just wanna say time out. Time out, time out!
That, by the way, is Donovan as Darius Garland was being tackled and he was trying to get
a timeout called. He succeeded, by the way. So that effort was not for nothing. But back
to Kyrie. He's a part of one of the happiest memories of my life. And that will always be
with me. The fact that he left on bad terms, that always rubbed me raw. But regardless of
that, I would say that he's probably the third greatest cab of all time. I would put Mark
Price above him. Longer tenure. Didn't leave under auspicious. circumstances and was just
as impactful in building a team which very well could have won a title if not for Michael Jordan.
So to me, Mark Price is still the second greatest cavalier of all time. I realize for some people
they would make the argument, well Kyrie's clearly a better player and I think that's true. But
to me, greatest in a franchise's history means with that team. Not their greatest career or
the greatest talent, but the greatest contributions to a team. I think Kyrie also there's something
to be said for the fact that he was the beneficiary of LeBron being there. Before LeBron arrived,
we achieved no team success with Kyrie there. So I'm not going to hold it against Mark Price
that he didn't have the benefit of playing against or alongside rather perhaps the greatest to
ever do it. But this isn't about slandering Kyrie. I'm happy we got the victory over him.
I'm happy we got the victory over Luca. And ultimately on a night where the Knicks fall.
The Cavaliers need every win they can because Milwaukee seems to be pulling it together and
it is critical to stay in that 2-3 slot. Whether we're second, whether we're third, a four game
cushion over the Knicks is valuable. What happens with the Sixers is worth monitoring. Joel Embiid
could be back by late March, which would get him a little bit of a ramp up even before the
playoffs. And after losing two games to the Sixers in recent memory without Joel Embiid,
I don't want anything to do with them. Now, despite most of this game being about Max Truce,
we do need to spend some time on some other positive developments. George Yang is starting
to turn things around. Now, I've been conflicted about JB's apparent preference of George Yang
over Dean Waite. It kind of seems like from the point that Evan Mobley came back, while
Dean was good enough to fill in as the starter when Mobley was out, with Mobley back, I think
he sees a bit of redundancy in them, that Evan is just a more elite version of what Dean's
very good at. So Dean has been not only removed from the starter spot, but also kind of positioned
below George Yang. And I know he does come into the game before him sometimes, but the way
that JB is using the rotation right now, he's essentially getting three, three and a half
minutes in the middle of the first, and then just being sent to the pine when George comes
in, never to be seen from again. The minutes feel kind of tokenish and almost meaningless.
And I assume... He's playing him because he doesn't want to take him totally out of the
rotation, but it doesn't feel like his results on the court even give him a longer leash.
It feels like JB is pretty much locked in to this minute structure that he has and whether
Dean is contributing or not contributing, I'm not confident that he's going to remain on
the court in favor of George Nyang. Now, to George's credit, a man who started 1 for 15
from outside the arc to begin the month has largely turned it around in these last few
games. And not just with the 3 point shooting. He's 8 for 14 over these last 4 games. But
over the last 3 games, he's added 4, 5 rebounds, he's doing his part to help on the glass and
while he'll never be a lockdown defender, the Cavaliers have started after this game where
they knocked down 23s on 40 attempts. The one thing you can guarantee about George Yang is
if you give him a look he's going to put it up. And he hit some pivotal buckets in that
second quarter. when the Cavaliers blew it open and expanded the lead to 15 points despite
the fact that dwindled as time went along. Now a ton of discussion has been committed to rotations
and why JB has yet to go back to the injury lineup. We don't even see Wade Acoro and Struce
play alongside one another. We see some Wade Acoro and Laverte but those 3 guys who sat
in the starting lineup together we really don't see them. log minutes collectively. They've
only logged 31, 32 minutes since Darius Garland's return. So, minable time on the court together.
And Spencer Davies put that question to JB in pregame availability before the Mavericks game
tonight. Yeah, I mean, again, it's one of those things that you're kind of juggling because
of, obviously started with minute restrictions and how you're working through those things.
And then, you know, working a 10 man rotation, you know, makes it a little bit difficult as
well. But you know, we'll get there and it's one of those things where, you know, we're
not jumping the gun, you know, like we understand what's in front of us, how we're gonna improve,
how we're gonna get there, but we also do a lot of studying on our lineups and those types
of things to get those combinations the way that we want them. And again, we'll get there
with time. I would be curious to hear what he's told the guys in terms of how he deploys them.
I would love to hear from Dean in terms of... you know, what has he told him about what his
role is moving forward? Because in a way it does kind of just feel like he's a cushion
between when he wants to get Yang out on the court so that he gets time to play with both
Donovan and Jared and then also Mobley and Garland. It feels like he just buys those first few
minutes and then Dean gets a quick hook. But another storyline that has existed over the
course of the last week has of course been Darius Garland taking a lot of bullets. Amongst Cavs
fans for his failure to return to the form that we've come to expect and Donovan Mitchell hearing
it, seeing it on social media spoke out in defense of his friend. He had this to say. The kid
has done a lot here, so much. For it to be devalued all for a few games is complete bullshit. It's
not fair to him. He's done so much for us as a team. Before I got here, while I've been
here, he's going to get back to his form. The kid is 24 years old. It's not always easy to
figure out a fit. He's done a phenomenal job of it and will continue to get back to it.
Come play off time, he'll be right there with us. We have his back. So it's obvious Donovan
sees that Darius has now become the target amongst Cavs fans. And you know, to start the season,
it was Allen, then it became Bickerstaff, then it became Evan Mobley. Now we're on Darius.
And that's not to say that the criticisms aren't valid. Absolutely they are. I'm not discarding
anything that's happened. The offense has gotten worse since he's returned. We're putting up
less three-pointers. We score less points as a whole. Really the only area analytically
that has improved is our defensive rating and that's largely because Evan Mobley has gotten
back into the fold. I agree that the offense hasn't looked as fluid, as explosive out of
the gates. We haven't put up as many three-pointers as when Darius and Evan were out. Contextually,
we just have to acknowledge a couple things. When we plop Dean and Okoro, Merrill, into
big minute rolls, we ask them to essentially do one thing. Take the shots that were open
without discretion and move the ball if they're not there. We don't ask them to have a floor
game. We don't ask them to run pick and roll. We don't ask them to lob alley oops. Those
are all things in Darius's bag. We're taking a much more complex. much more developed player
and trying to plug him into a hole that was being filled by a fairly one or two dimensional
type guy. I'm not trying to discount a coro there but offensively still the majority of
his damage comes in transition or taking spot up threes. I mean he's only taken two mid-range
shots now. He's made two mid-range shots the whole season one of them coming tonight. So
I just don't know. What we get out of dwelling on the fact that Darius isn't playing like
the Darius we know. It's obvious. He was 2 of 10 tonight. But we can't sit here and play
both sides of the fence. Do you want him to fall in line in the offense that was so effective
in his absence? Or do you want him to play for the 21 and 8 that you were used to before?
I realize you probably want both. But here's what I would say. It may not be possible in
a situation where we want to take the ball out of his hands more, where we want him to pass
it faster, or shoot it faster, or dribble less. There may be some compromise on that front.
There certainly will be a learning curve. If what you really want, because what I hear from
people is that they want us to play like we did during that injury stretch. I think that's
what we all want. But it seems like those same people aren't willing to ride out the growing
pains that it may take. to change the way an all-star level talent like Darius Garland has
played for the majority of his career. The man deserves a little grace. And not because you
owe him anything or because you owe Donovan anything. Nobody comes to the internet for
positivity. And if there's any remaining professional athlete who thinks Twitter is redeemable, well
then my pussy is in the bio. People will frame it as this whole like optimism versus pessimism
thing. There's plenty of pessimism deep inside my soul every day when I wake up and I say,
what are we here for really? I sit in front of this computer. I'm talking to no one. Does
my life even have meaning? Is anybody listening? But I do my absolute best not to let it seep
into my fandom because that's supposed to provide me joy, not make me want to kill myself. What
Max did tonight was transcendent. It was maybe a once in a lifetime experience. And if your
enjoyment of that was diminished, by the fact that Darius Garland was 2 for 10, well then
you may be a lost cause. It's possible. I said before Evan and Darius come back, all I want
is a huge sample of data where the core four is healthy and playing together, playoffs included.
I want them to be healthy throughout this whole stretch and through an entire playoff series.
And then we'll have a huge sample of data to make meaningful conclusions about, okay, is
this team making any progress? Are we better suited? Playing with less overall talent perhaps,
but in a system that maximizes their strengths, like what we did during that injury stretch
there. All those things are valid. I haven't closed my mind off to any of them. What I do
think is that being able to assemble this much talent on the roster is damn near impossible
in the modern NBA. So again, I reiterate, I wanna give it every opportunity to work. And
the fact that we're doing it, from the number 2 seed right now is incredible in and of itself.
I don't think that should be taken for granted. So in any case, this was an unbelievable night.
Max Druse, one of the best games I've ever witnessed and I'm grateful for all of you who have chosen
to share it with me, Bob Schmidt, voice of Fox Sports Radio on the Fear the Fro podcast. If
you want to be a part of the podcast, go to CavsPod.com, click talk to Bob, submit your
comments. your questions, the things you disagree with, maybe you hate Darius Garland, you can
tell me there, maybe you love Max Struce, you can tell me there. And if you haven't left
a rating or a view, please, if you're so inclined, those things are huge in terms of putting this
podcast in front of more people's eyes, in front of more people's ears. This is the Fear the
Feral Podcast. We'll be back with more Cavalier Talk next time.
Laverne, lot of them over here. This has been Fear the Fro. If you like the show, subscribe
and rate wherever you listen. Our guy, Bob Schmidt, always gets a reaction out of it. Join us next
time for more Cavs and NBA coverage.