Normally, the Cs are elite at closing out on shooters and contesting 3s. That's not only a fundamental, but its effort.
They were pretty awful at that last night. Lebron James does that to you. His timing and cadence on passes makes it very difficult for defenders to provide help on him and contest 3s on shooters. Its what makes James special and shooters around James so dangerous.
But a lot of that was lazy effort in the 2nd quarter that got their shooters going.
Also, I noticed Al Horford looked more rigid last night. Morris looked out of rhythm. Kyrie looked tired. I wonder if the trade deadline wore these guys down. Still, it wears all players down. No excuse for the Cs.
Still, there were positives. Offensively, we looked really, really good. We didn't see that early this year. They trusted each other. They moved the ball. They shot well overall.