Gonna Be A Tough Series For Cavs Against The Knicks

The NBA playoffs start this Saturday and the Cleveland Cavaliers will be hosting the New York Knicks Saturday night at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

Many fans are using the Cavs’ 51 regular season victories and the home court advantage in the series to proclaim a win in the best-of-seven series and an advancement to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

We have our doubts.

This doesn’t mean we think the wine and gold will lose to the Knicks, but it will be a very difficult series for J.B. Bickerstaff and his squad.

In the regular season, teams play the way they play. The league schedule is such that there is very little practice time, so coaches set a style of play and a plan and the players execute. In the playoffs, coaches take advantage of things their opponents do not do well, and they exploit weaknesses.

This isn’t to say the Knicks have no areas where Cleveland can attack them, nor are we proclaiming Tom Thibodeau a genius. Yes, Thibodeau has more playoff experience than Bickerstaff, coaching in 61 post-season games.

His record is just 25-36. The last time he won a series was in 2015-16 when his Bulls were eliminated by the Cavaliers. His last two times in the playoffs have resulted in first round losses in five games.

Our worry is the lack of depth for the Cavaliers will hurt them against the Knicks, who are much deeper. Earlier in the season, we felt if the Cavs got production from one or two of the non-core players on the roster, they had a very good chance to win.

And we include Caris LeVert in the core player category.

This means Bickerstaff needs solid games from one of these guys on the nightly basis: Isaac Okoro, Cedi Osman, Ricky Rubio, or Lamar Stevens.

Okoro has missed the past few weeks with a knee issue and no doubt his defense will be needed, particularly against Knicks’ guard Jalen Brunson. Okoro missed the last regular season game vs. New York, and Brunson went off for 48 points.

We are also concerned about the decline in rebounding for Cleveland over the last two months. The Cavs outrebounded their opponent for four of the first five months of the season (January was the exception), but March and April (18 games) have been a different story.

Opponents are grabbing five more caroms per game since the beginning of March. You can be a very good defensive team, but your job isn’t done until you corral the missed shot. Lately, this has been an issue for Cleveland. It’s one of the reasons we have advocated getting another player with size who can play.

And we do remember Jarrett Allen did miss some time during this period, which didn’t help. By the way, the Knicks are third in the league in offensive rebounds this season.

No doubt, the Knicks are going to try to devote attention to Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, the Cavs’ primary scorers. Hopefully, Cleveland uses Evan Mobley to ease the pressure. The second-year player increased his scoring from 15.7 points per game before the All-Star Game to 17.5 after. His rebounds and assists increased too.

We will learn a lot about not only the players, but the coaching staff in this series. That’s one of the reasons we wanted the Cavs to get in a seven game series last year. We would already know.

This series will go at least six or seven, the people who think it will be a five gamer and likely viewing with rose colored lenses.

Playoff basketball is back in Cleveland. That’s the best news of all.

Cavs Still Have Work To Do In Last Week Of Season

We have reached the last week of the NBA regular season and the Cleveland Cavaliers have just four games remaining.

Their “magic number” to clinch home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs is two, and the four games they have left are against the teams currently in 12th, 13th, and 14th place in the Eastern Conference.

The Knicks are in the fifth position and they play a pair against Indiana (the Cavs’ opponent tonight), the Wizards (11th place), but they have a tough one at New Orleans, who is fighting for their playoff position in the west.

We aren’t putting too much stock Friday night’s loss to New York at home, as we are hoping J.B. Bickerstaff wasn’t about to show Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks’ coach, how he was going to defend G Jalen Brunson.

That’s the only explanation we can come up with because Brunson lit up Cleveland for 48 points.

Bickerstaff went with Donovan Mitchell on Brunson and really didn’t waver from that, but again, in a seven game situation we are sure the Cavs would blitz the Knicks’ point guard and force the ball out of his hands.

Of course, two of the Cavs’ better defenders, Jarrett Allen and Isaac Okoro, did not play but both will be ready when the playoffs start in two weeks. Still, because the Cavs are a team that hangs its hat on the defensive end of the floor, it was a bit startling to see Brunson get 48 points, even though he did take 32 shots.

New York didn’t have Julius Randle, out at least two weeks with an ankle sprain, and we bring this up because we would love to see the Cavs clinch the fourth spot sooner than later because then Bickerstaff can start giving some of his regulars some time off.

We have been saying this for some time, but the Cavaliers are not a particularly deep team and we can see by having Allen and Okoro out forces Bickerstaff to use players he probably wouldn’t want to use in a post-season situation.

And the less playing time the top players for Cleveland get going forward, it would seem to minimize an injury risk.

Our guess is the coaching staff will lean heavily on his four core players (Mitchell, Darius Garland, Allen, and Evan Mobley) a lot in the playoffs, playing each of them 35-40 minutes per night.

Behind this quartet, we would expect Caris LeVert to get the next most court time, likely between 30-35 minutes.

If he goes with the higher amount, that would be 195 minutes out of a possible 240, leaving 45 minutes remaining. Okoro likely gets the majority of the time, around 25-30, probably depending what he is doing on the offensive end.

We would expect Ricky Rubio and Cedi Osman to get what is remaining. Meaning he the Cavs will play eight, which is what most figured all along.

But there still is work to do. The Cavaliers need to win two more games, or less if the Knicks stumble. And they need to get everyone healthy and have them stay that way.

Cavs’ Needed To Make The Playoffs This Year. They Did!

Before the NBA season started, we felt the goal of the Cleveland Cavaliers should be to avoid the “play-in tournament” nonsense that the NBA put in place and get to a seven-game series.

Sunday night’s win over the hapless Houston Rockets clinched that for JB Bickerstaff’s squad. The wine and gold have won 48 games so far, and should hit the 50 win plateau in 2022-23.

How many times in franchise history have they reached that mark without LeBron James on the roster? Well remember, the Cavs did have a pretty good team in the late 80’s and early 90’s, getting 57 wins in 1988-89 and ’91-’92, and had 54 victories in ’92-’93.

It hasn’t happened often.

When Koby Altman pulled the trigger for Donovan Mitchell last summer, we were skeptical. The Cavs’ identity was the big front line last season, and trading Lauri Markkanen took away the unique style Cleveland was playing.

Also, the trade did not address the Cavaliers’ lack of size in the backcourt. They were still starting two small guards.

Watching Mitchell play night in and night out changed our mind. He will make either the second or third team All-NBA this year, and there were games this season where he willed Cleveland to victory.

He’s averaging 4.5 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game in addition to his 27.4 points. And he and Darius Garland have meshed very well. The latter is scored the same as a year ago (21.7 last year, 21.6 this season) and his assists aren’t too far off, down from 8.6 to 7.8.

Mitchell was reportedly a defensive issue in Utah, but he has bought in to Bickerstaff’s defensive mantra and gives effort each and every night.

If anyone questions the deal because of what was given up, we would say if you can get a top 15 player in the league, it would seem to be worth the price.

It will help this young group of Cavaliers, only Mitchell (26), Caris LeVert (28), and Cedi Osman (27) are over 25 among the top eight players in terms of minutes played, to get in a seven-game series to see the intensity of the games, and to make adjustments on a nightly basis.

And that goes for Bickerstaff as well.

Mitchell has played in 39 playoff games in his career, more than Jarrett Allen, LeVert (each with 9), Garland (0), Evan Mobley (0), and Osman (14) combined. No doubt, he will be leaned on heavily to guide the inexperienced guys through the grind.

It could mean a lot for the careers of Garland and Mobley in particular to be exposed to basketball’s post-season.

If the standing hold and the first-round opponent are the New York Knicks, we anticipate it will be a very tough series, and that’s a good thing. There shouldn’t be any more games against the Rockets, Hornets, or Pistons when you get to this point.

The Cavs’ style of play, defense first, controlling the pace should play well in the playoffs. However, teams will focus on Mitchell, so others are going to have to take advantage. And we would love to see Mitchell not settle for the long jump shots and attack the basket more.

He seems unstoppable at times doing that.

It’s been a long time (1997-98) since a Cavaliers’ team without James made the playoffs, so that is not anything to dismiss. They should celebrate the accomplishment. That they didn’t is a good sign for this group.

Can’t See The Wisdom In Love Buyout

We don’t like giving up on athletes who can still play.

That’s why we are having a hard time wrapping our head around the Cleveland Cavaliers’ decision to reach a buyout agreement with Kevin Love.

We do understand that Love is a defensive liability, he can no longer guard quicker guards on the perimeter. Look at the top scorers in the NBA. Nobody can guard them because mostly, you aren’t allowed to play defense in the league anymore.

Damian Lillard is averaging 31.4 points, Ja Morant 27.3, Donovan Mitchell, Kyrie Irving, and Trae Young are all averaging over 26.5 per contest. These are all talented players, but under today’s rules, they are very difficult for anybody to guard on the perimeter.

The consensus among people we know and we read is that Love can still play in the league and at a solid level. And we have an issue that J.B. Bickerstaff basically made him an outsider.

Just a little over a month ago, on New Year’s Eve and on January 2nd, in back-to-back victories over the Bulls, Love had games of 20 points and nine rebounds and followed it up with 12 points and 17 boards. We don’t think the veteran lost it in a six-week period.

That’s not a criticism of Bickerstaff either. Every coach does some things that we would do differently, it doesn’t mean we want that guy fired.

Bickerstaff is a defense-first coach. When he took over, we felt the Cavaliers as an organization didn’t have an identity, the coach established that defense was going to be the trademark of the wine and gold.

And certainly, Dean Wade gives the Cavs better perimeter defense than Love. We have said before that we believe Wade is underrated for his ability to guard and overrated for his shooting.

In the 14 games Wade has played since he returned from his shoulder injury, he’s averaging 4.4 points and 3.3 rebounds per game, shooting 44% from the floor and 35% from three. Love is shooting 35% from three, despite a hand injury that occurred early in the season.

When Love was benched on January 26th, we thought it was to give his thumb, which he fractured in mid-November, an extended rest to finally heal, and for him to get his shot back on track. In January, his three-point shooting had dropped to 22.9%.

We don’t like the “per 36 minutes” statistic, but Love was still rebounding, with the second-best rate on the team, behind only Evan Mobley.

Maybe Bickerstaff could have cut Love’s minutes a bit and still kept him in the rotation, maybe giving him less minutes in the second half of games when defense is at a premium.

Again, going back to the first line in the piece, we hate giving up players who can still contribute if you don’t have to.

Also, Love’s defensive issues are due to the seemingly idiotic way the NBA plays the pick and roll these days, switching on everything. In our opinion, that’s allowing the offense to dictate your defense. It simply makes no sense. Every team wants their guard against an opposing big man, or to put it more simply a quicker player vs. someone who can move as well.

It’s also troublesome that the two teams who are most interested in securing Love’s services are teams very near the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference standings: Philadelphia and Miami.

That should tell the Cavs’ front office this wasn’t handled correctly.

LeVert Is A Very Important Piece For Cavs

Basketball is a different sport. It’s the only sport where you have to transition from offense to defense or vice versa on a moment’s notice. It’s also a sport where you can execute a play perfectly, and the shooter misses a shot or you can do everything wrong, and a player puts a ridiculous shot in the hoop.

It’s also a sport where too many people look at numbers and think about how the player with those statistics can fit in with their team.

That was the case when the Cavaliers traded for Kevin Love prior to the 2014-15 season. Many people assumed Love would put up the same 26 points and 12.5 rebounds he did for the Timberwolves, but Love was the primary offensive option on Minnesota, and he would be the third scoring option in Cleveland, after LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.

Love scored ten points less per game in his first season here and grabbed three less boards. But the Cavs went to the NBA Finals, the first of four consecutive trips.

We believe that is why fans were so critical of Love in his early tenure with the wine and gold. They expected more than the player could have produced considering he was no longer the best player on the team.

For the most part, Love understood and did his job, and was rewarded when the Cavs won a title.

We think the same is true for Caris LeVert, another player we don’t think Cavalier fans appreciate enough. When LeVert came over from Indiana last season, he was scoring 18.9 points per game and was the primary perimeter scorer (the Pacers also had Domantis Sabonis at the time) for the Pacers.

He was hurt shortly after he arrived in town and averaged 13.6 points a game with the wine and gold. Our guess is people expected him to score the same 19 points he did in Indiana, but the Pacers didn’t have a player like Darius Garland.

His role changed again when the Cavs acquired Donovan Mitchell. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff started him a small forward to start the year, but they agreed he would be better coming off the bench.

He’s not a great three-point shooter, which seems to be the fixation of all fans these days, but he still is very important for the Cavs because he is one of the few players, and the only member of the second unit, that can create his own shot. And believe us, that’s very important come playoff time.

Besides LeVert, the only players on the Cleveland roster who can create their own are Mitchell and Garland.

He’s also shooting the three ball at a career best 37.6% and he’s not just a scorer, averaging four rebounds and four assists per game. And he’s the tallest guard (6’6″) on the roster.

In short, even though his numbers aren’t where they were in Indiana (again, circumstances), he provides the Cavs with a unique set of tools. Meaning he is very important to the team.

We’ve been saying since the beginning of the year the Cavaliers have six proven players, and Caris LeVert is one of those six. Be careful about wanting to move him.

The problem all along were the expectations of what LeVert could be vs. the player he is. And he is a very good player.

A Week Before Trade Deadline, Will Cavs Shore Up Holes?

The NBA trading deadline is a week from today and no team may be more in need of making a move than the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Of course, Koby Altman pushed most of his chips to the center of the table this summer getting Donovan Mitchell from Utah, and Mitchell has been sensational, averaging 27.6 points per game, and providing leadership for the young Cavs.

As we have said before, over the past couple of months, the wine and gold have been a bit stagnant, they didn’t win back-to-back games in the month of January. There is no question some veteran NBA teams kind of go through the motions prior to Christmas, but they start getting a little more serious when the calendar changes to the new year.

However, the Cavaliers are not a veteran team, they still need to establish themselves as one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference. We said before the season started that making the “play-in” tournament was not good enough in 2022-23.

If the organizational goal is to finish in the top six in the East, guaranteeing a seven-game series, then Altman needs to make a move. We said before the season started that the top-heavy roster had four real good players (Mitchell, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, and Evan Mobley).

They have three solid bench players in Kevin Love, Caris LeVert, and Ricky Rubio. Love has struggled since injuring his thumb and Rubio is just coming off knee surgery. As for the rest of the bench, it is filled with one dimensional players.

Isaac Okoro is a very good defender with limited offensive skills. Lamar Stevens is a good defender and knows his offensive limitations and usually plays accordingly. Dean Wade is a better defender than he gets credit for and isn’t as good of an offensive player for the reputation he has gained around town.

Right now, we think Cedi Osman should be the starting three and give him an extended shot. Osman has the size to play the spot (Okoro and Stephens are undersized), is a very good passer, and although he is streaky, he can drive to the basket.

And he’s willing to shoot, something Wade is reticent to do at times.

And the only one of these players who is truly young is Okoro, who is 22. The others are 25 and older, which would seem to mean they are what they are.

So overall, this roster just isn’t deep enough to be a serious playoff contender. We would guess that Altman and Mike Gansey know this as well. The question is can the Cavs make a move prior to the trade deadline that will bring another solid, dependable player for Bickerstaff to use.

It’s a delicate balance because the Cavs are still a very young team, but they would most definitely benefit from getting in a seven game playoff series, even if they don’t survive it. Getting Mitchell would seem to be the sign the real playoffs are the goal this season.

The Cavs fast start drew notice around the league, and the better teams in the league are preparing better to play them. The front office has a week to adjust back by adding more talent to the roster.

Cavs Treading Water. Size And Shooting Need To Be Better

Former NFL coach Bill Parcells is famous for winning Super Bowls with the New York Giants and for saying “you are what your record says you are”, meaning teams and fans alike shouldn’t sit around talking about games they could’ve won with the right breaks.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are 30-21, sitting in the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference standings. However, they started the season 8-1, so in their last 42 games, a little over half the season, they are 22-20, roughly a .500 basketball team.

Now, we cannot erase that early season hot streak, but it did set the expectations high for some in both the local and national media.

Coach J.B. Bickerstaff has established a defensive mind set for the wine and gold, and even in today’s high scoring NBA, Cleveland’s 107.1 points allowed is the best in the league.

GM Koby Altman made a big swing in the off-season, trading for all-star Donovan Mitchell, and the former Louisville standout has been tremendous. He deservingly will start in the All-Star Game next month and should finish in the top ten in the league’s MVP voting.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised with the club’s record over the last 42 games, because this roster is far from complete.

After last season’s big lineup of Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley, and Lauri Markkanen, the Cavs have little size on the roster this season. Markkanen went in the Mitchell trade and flourished, and we understand, he had to be moved to complete the deal, but Altman didn’t replace him.

The only big man the Cavaliers signed in the off-season was veteran Robin Lopez, who can no longer be a regular contributor at 34 years old. He doesn’t have the lateral quickness to get minutes in today’s game.

Kevin Love is really the only solid reserve big man, and despite his shooting slump, probably due to a fractured thumb suffered earlier in the year, still grabs seven a night in 20 minutes of play. Dean Wade is 6’9″, and is a solid defender, but he’s more of a three-point specialist, and gets only 3.7 caroms in more minutes per game as Love.

Cleveland still plays with a very small backcourt, both Mitchell and Darius Garland are listed at 6’1″, although Mitchell plays bigger. The players who play the small forward spot, besides Wade, are all 6’5″ (Isaac Okoro), 6’6″ (Caris LeVert and Lamar Stephens), or 6’7″ (Cedi Osman)

In Friday’s loss at Oklahoma City, yes, Cleveland had Allen and Mobley, the two best bigs on the court, but had little size available after that.

Rumors have the Cavs interested in Portland’s Josh Hart, a good player, but only 6’5″ and not a particularly great three- point shooter.

For Cleveland to head back in the right direction, we believe they need to add some size. For all the talk about “3 and D” guys, the Cavaliers need another big man to provide size when Allen or Mobley aren’t on the floor.

And they still need a wing with some size beside Osman, who has proven by now to be a streaky player. Of all the players Bickerstaff uses at the “3”, only Wade has a good three-point shooting percentage (41.8%), but he’s streaky as well. He’s 14 of 22 in his three best games this season, and 14 of 45 (31.1%) in every other contest.

We aren’t saying we wouldn’t have made the Mitchell deal, when you have a chance to get a top 10 or 15 player in the league, you do it. But it seems like Altman ignored the reason for the team’s success last season, and that is size.

If the Cavaliers can swing a deal at the deadline, that should be their focus. They continue to have a top-heavy roster, four stars and very little else.

Avoiding the play-in tournament may have to be the goal, not getting a first round home series.

Things That Worry Us About The Cavs

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost Wednesday in a close game against Memphis without Donovan Mitchell and then lost at home to Golden State, who didn’t play their starters, on Friday. Both losses really bothered us, but for different reasons.

The first loss was because of their awful final possession, down by one, with 16 seconds left. J.B. Bickerstaff had a timeout remaining, but eschewed using it, choosing to let the players make a play. Bad decision.

Darius Garland just dribbled, waiting for an opportunity to penetrate, and wound up taking a three-pointer that was blocked. To us, it was the perfect time to run some action to get someone open, perhaps an off the ball screen.

To be fair, many teams in the NBA would’ve made the same choice, but that doesn’t make it the right choice.

And Friday night, the Cavs just didn’t show up, apparently deciding before the game that they would win, and then not putting forth the effort to do so. They are outrebounded by 10 in the game. Bickerstaff was correct to be upset afterwards.

We are a bit concerned because this is when the Cavaliers kind of fell apart a year ago, although injuries were a factor. They beat Indiana on February 11th last season to raise their record to 35-21. They went 9-17 the rest of the year.

This season, Cleveland has gone 6-8 over their last 14 contests, and just this past week played two games vs. teams without multiple starters (New Orleans and Golden State) and didn’t get off to good starts. They had a strong fourth quarter to beat the Pelicans.

And although the Grizzlies game wound up close, Memphis did have a 20-0 run in the second quarter.

The Cavaliers have a good team, they probably aren’t ready to win the NBA title, but they could be good enough to get home court advantage in the first round. They might have one of the best starting lineups in the league, starting three players who have made All-Star teams (Mitchell, Garland, and Jarrett Allen) as well as Evan Mobley, a defensive force (so is Allen) in just his second year.

Their bench is somewhat inconsistent, but they still have Caris LeVert, who is a good player, veteran Kevin Love, who although he has been in a shooting slump, is still a very good rebounder, and Cedi Osman has his moments. Lamar Stevens is a solid defender, and Ricky Rubio has just come back from knee surgery.

But they have become very guard reliant, which is odd because of the presence of Allen and Mobley. The teams’ leaders in shot attempts are Mitchell (20.2), Garland (16.7) and LeVert (11.0), all of whom are primarily guards.

Mobley is next at 10.6 followed by Allen at 8.9. The two starting big men, along with reserves Kevin Love, Cedi Osman, and Lamar Stevens take about as many shots combined as the trio of guards.

So, we very much liked last night when Mobley took 27 shots, making 19 in scoring a career-high 38 points. We’d like to see more of this.

This isn’t to minimize how great Mitchell has been this year, but it might open things up more for the guards, if the Cavs worked the ball inside more often for the bigs. After all, Mobley does shoot 55.7% from the floor, and Allen knocks down 63% of his attempts.

Hopefully, the Cavs get things straightened out sooner than later. Bickerstaff likes to talk about the grit of his squad, but they haven’t shown much of it in the past few weeks. It needs to come back before the same swoon that took place last year occurs again.

The On-Going Okoro Discussion

There is probably no more debated player on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ roster than Isaac Okoro. The “media influencers” who work for the Cavs are consistently telling us whenever he performs well.

It reminds us of when Danny Ferry was here, and the franchise’s PR department was fully invested in telling everyone they did not make a colossal mistake.

We are not putting Okoro in that class, but the fact remains the organization overdrafted him when he was selected fifth overall in the 2020 draft. He was a defensive player, and not a shot blocker or rim protector, and those players tend not to be picked that high.

Why? Because wings have to be able to produce offensively, and Okoro may get to be that player at some point, but his rookie contract will likely be up before that happens, and the Cavs’ front office will have to make a decision on whether or not to give him an extension, one that would be tough to justify committing big dollars.

The hype surrounding the third-year player now is his three-point shooting, which since the calendar changed to 2023, has been good, as he has made 11 of 20 from distance. However, that’s what is called a small sample size, as it includes just eight games.

Overall, for the season, Okoro is making 31.5% of his threes, which is fourth worst on the roster, ahead of only Lamar Stevens (who has taken 50, compared to 89 for Okoro), and big men Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

And in this recent stretch, the former Auburn Tiger has made more than one long distance shot in a game just twice, making four of six in the blowout win over the Suns and two of three in Saturday’s loss to Minnesota.

We would all like Okoro to become Cleveland’s version of P.J. Tucker, a very good defender who is lethal with the corner three. Tucker, though, knocks down 38% of his long-distance shots. And for the mathematically challenged, 38% is much better than 30.6%.

Plus, it still seems to us like Okoro is a reluctant shooter, meaning he doesn’t have much confidence in his shot. That’s why defenses still have decided to ignore him when he is standing beyond the arc.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Okoro developed a reliable mid-range game, but from three to ten feet, he’s made just 9 of 27 shots from the floor, and from 16 feet to the three-point line, he’s taken just one shot.

Overall, he’s taken 103 jump shots on the season, making just 32 (31.1%). Let us ask this question…if you were the opposing team, wouldn’t you leave him open?

This is not to say Okoro doesn’t have ability. He is a very good defender, and that is valuable in today’s NBA. But it is tough to put him out there for long stretches because he becomes a burden offensively. What we mean is because opponents don’t need to guard him, they can help on Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, and the big guys inside.

The way to combat that is good ball movement because a passed ball moves faster than a dribbled ball. Unfortunately, the Cavs seem to forget that sometimes.

It’s also why the wine and gold could use another shooter at the trade deadline if they can get one. And it would not be a shock if Okoro was included in the deal.

Talking About Mitchell’s Amazing Performance

In the Cleveland Cavaliers’ first season, Walt Wesley scored 50 points in a game against the Cincinnati Royals on February 19, 1971. That record held for 34 years, until LeBron James put up 56 vs. Toronto in March 2005.

The 50 point barrier has only been accomplished 15 times in franchise history and only five players have done it. James did it 10 times, Kyrie Irving did it twice, and the 57 points he put up on March 12, 2015 established the club record, which was tied by James two years later.

Earlier this season, Darius Garland became the fourth player in Cleveland history to hit the 50 mark when he put in 51 against Minnesota.

It doesn’t happen often for a player wearing wine and gold.

And then we have what happened on Monday night.

Donovan Mitchell had a night for the ages, shattering the team record with a 71 point effort, tied with David Robinson for the eighth most in any game by an individual. There are only three players in NBA history to have recorded more points in a single game, and their names are Wilt Chamberlain (of course), Kobe Bryant, and David Thompson.

Yes, the game went into overtime, but Mitchell had 58 at the end of regulation, which would have broken the Cavalier team record anyway.

The Cavs were without two starters, Garland and Evan Mobley, so they needed someone to step up and provide scoring. Garland is after all, a 20 point per game scorer. In the first half, no one stepped up and the wine and gold were down by 18 at halftime, 65-47.

Mitchell started getting in going late in the second quarter. He had five points until he hit a three with 6:53 remaining in the second quarter and scored eight more before the end of the half.

Again, for the entire game, no one outside of Jarrett Allen, who was nine of ten from the floor, and Raul Neto, who took just three shots, hit more than half their attempts for Cleveland.

So, Mitchell took over, which is what stars do. He basically willed the Cavs to a win. And it wasn’t as though he was playing selfishly either. He dished out 11 assists. He also took just 34 shots to get the 71 points, as he went to the foul line 25 times, making 20. That helped.

He scored 24 points in the third quarter to cut the Cavs’ deficit to five heading into the 4th quarter. He added 18 more to force overtime. He needed to score that many points to get a win for Cleveland. That’s what made it even more special.

He took only two more shots in the same game as Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan, who scored 44 points taking 32 shots. And on the same night, Golden State’s Klay Thompson hoisted 39 shots, scoring 54 points and doled out just three helpers.

We were in attendance on March 28, 1990 when Michael Jordan scored 69 points against the Cavs, and he took 37 shots in that one, and he went to the line 23 times. After the game, Lenny Wilkens remarked that since Jordan fired the ball 37 times, he should’ve scored 69.

That game also went overtime.

By the way, in Bryant’s 81 point night in 2006? He shot 46 times in 42 minutes. Mitchell played 50 minutes in his history making night.

What an incredible game. They don’t come about that often. It was almost 17 years since Bryant’s outburst. We are sure everyone will remember it for years to come.