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’ Need To Solve Bench Problem.

Since February 1st, the Cleveland Cavaliers have gone 10-4, but it seems like they are still in state of flux.

In this span, the Cavs have bought out Kevin Love and the remaining members of the second unit, save for Caris LeVert, have been wildly inconsistent.

J.B. Bickerstaff has said he is using his bench personnel based on game situations, meaning it depends on the opponent. We disagree with this, but as we all know, we are not, nor ever have been an NBA coach.

We know the players are grown men, but we still feel when players know how they will be used, they feel more comfortable and that leads to better performances.

We get the Cavs didn’t want to get into the luxury tax this season, and we understand why. They want to save that for next year, when they figure to make a deeper run in the playoffs.

That said, we continue to see a very top-heavy roster, one that will need to be tweaked going into next season if the Cavs want to contend for an Eastern Conference championship.

The front office and coaching staff have put a lot of faith in certain players and over the last month, those players haven’t justified that confidence, and right now, it’s a problem for the Cavs.

We know once the playoffs start, the rotation will be tightened, and Bickerstaff will likely use just eight guys. LeVert will no doubt be one, and Ricky Rubio will be the other. Who’s the third non-starter to get time?

Bickerstaff has established a defensive mindset for the team and that’s great. In the seasons between LeBron James leaving with Ty Lue as coach until Bickerstaff took over, there seemed to be no identity for the wine and gold. The current coach gave them one.

However, it seems like every roster move and decision about playing time is based on how a player defends, and that can be problematic because it puts the entire scoring burden on Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen.

If one of that quartet is having an off night, more often than not, it’s a huge problem for the Cavs.

Isaac Okoro is still starting and after a brief stretch in January and early February where his shot was falling, particularly from three-point range, he has returned to his usual performance. In his last 10 games, he’s scoring 6.4 points per game on 43% shooting from the floor and is 9 of 32 (28.1%) from long distance.

In Dean Wade’s last 14 games, he is averaging 2.6 points and 3.3 rebounds a game. He’s shooting 32.5% from the floor and 27% from three.

Cedi Osman was making 45.8% of his shots before the All-Star break, averaging 21 minutes per game. Since the break, his time has dropped to 17 minutes, missing one game entirely, and his shooting has dropped to 35%.

In our opinion, we don’t think the coach has ever been a real fan of Osman’s game, and we differ there. We think Osman should start because opposing defenses would have to guard him, and we feel he could be an effective slasher and passer.

We would still like to see Lamar Stevens get more time in the last 15 games to see if he can be a rotation piece, and he showed what he can do last night. Stevens is a solid defender and has a decent mid-range game. He doesn’t shoot a lot of threes, because he knows he’s not effective from out there.

At this point, we think he’s a better option than either Wade or Okoro.

The hardest thing for a coach to realize at times is when he is being stubborn. We hope Bickerstaff uses these last five weeks of the season to kind of hold tryouts for who should earn playing time in the playoffs.

Right now, no one is really stepping up on the offensive end of the floor.

Time For Cavs’ Bench To Step Up

On February 13th, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the San Antonio Spurs to extend their winning streak to seven games and raise their record to 38-22.

Since then, the Cavs have played six halves of basketball and of those six, one-third of them have bee ghastly.

The last game before the all-star break was against another Eastern Conference contender for a home court advantage spot in the first round of the playoffs in the Philadelphia 76ers, and the wine and gold were overmatched in the first half, trailing 63-38 at intermission.

The Sixers hit 8 of 15 three point shots, and the Cleveland bench plus Isaac Okoro shot 4 of 13 from the floor and hit a lone shot from behind the arc in seven attempts.

Cleveland rebounded to outscore the Sixers 74-55 in the second half, but Philly shot 5 of 12 in the second half from three-point range. The Cavaliers not named Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, and Evan Mobley scored six points on two of six shooting.

J.B. Bickerstaff’s squad played a more complete game at home against Denver in the first game after the break, but still dropped a game to the Western Conference leaders. But the Nuggets torched the Cavs from long range, hitting 17 of 36 threes, including 10 of 18 in the second half.

For the game, Cleveland hit just 6 of 26 long-range shots. The Cavs’ bench plus Okoro made just one three-point shots in nine attempts.

The Cavaliers went to Atlanta on Friday and laid another egg on the road, getting overmatched by the Hawks in the first half, heading into the locker room down 81-57. The bench bunch contributed just 10 points in the first half on 3 of 14 shooting and the Hawks made seven of their dozen three-point attempts.

For the game, Atlanta hit 15 of 28 from beyond the arc.

The Cavs have prided themselves on their defense over the past two years, but in the last three games, they’ve allowed 123 points per game and created a huge halftime hole for themselves in the two of those contests.

We have pointed out all season long that the Cavs’ recipe for victory is the “Big Four” to play well and have at least two players from the second unit have solid games. Over the last three games, they have gotten little from the substitutes.

Caris LeVert is the #1 reserve for Cleveland, but in the last three games, he has scored just 11 points total on 5 of 10 (1 for 6 from three) shooting. He has to score for the Cavs to be successful.

Dean Wade has five points taking just five shots. Okoro, who starts but isn’t one of the four principal players has 13 points on 4 of 12 shooting (2 of 7 from distance).

The best reserve has been Cedi Osman, who missed the Sixers’ game, but has averaged 7.5 points in the two others.

Somebody simply has to step up for Cleveland to win.

Another issue has been Mitchell’s long-distance shooting. Cleveland’s lone all-star shot 41% from distance through December but has hit just 33.5% since the calendar changed to 2023. We know he’s been bothered by a sore groin, but his three ball isn’t falling, he has to get to the basket more.

We understand how the regular season has very few games, but tonight’s is a big one for Bickerstaff’s club. They need a win and they’ve lost to the Raptors in all three games between the two teams.

The bench bunch has to get it going starting tonight. And the point guards need to get LeVert going early. The team needs his scoring and ability to create shots to be successful.

Instead Of A Deal, Maybe Go With Cedi?

The Cleveland Cavaliers sit fifth in the Eastern Conference with a 32-22 record, but the way they have played recently have uncovered some roster weaknesses.

We have been saying for a few months the Cavs aren’t very deep and outside of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, they aren’t very big either.

They start two small guards, both listed a 6’1″ and their starting power forward is 6’5″ Isaac Okoro, who at best is inconsistent on the offensive end of the floor.

It recently occurred to us that the J.B. Bickerstaff has a very good option to start at the three on the roster. And that man is veteran Cedi Osman.

Let’s first say, it’s not a perfect solution because thoughout his NBA career, Osman has been the poster person for inconsistency. He started the season with 62 points in the first four games of the season. In his next 11 contests, he scored 58 points. However, in that stretch, he did have two games where he played three and seven minutes in a game, respectively.

He’s had eight games where he’s played less than 10 minutes in a game and two others where he didn’t play at all, so the commonsense feeling would be the player isn’t one of the coach’s favorites. His minutes have dropped since Bickerstaff took over as head coach. Yes, the team is also better, but you have to wonder.

But think about it. Maybe it’s time to put Osman in the starting lineup and see what happens.

First, Osman would give the Cavs a bigger player at the small forward spot, he’s listed at 6’7″. He’s not as good defensively as Okoro, but he’s a solid defender. Remember, Tyronn Lue used to use Osman when he needed a defensive stop at times early in the Turkish player’s career.

He’s a very good passer too. We think the six-year veteran has been miscast by the organization as a three-point shooter, when at Cedi’s core, he’s a slasher/playmaker. That’s the role he plays on the Turkish National Team.

And even though we said his shot was inconsistent, he’s a career 35% shooter from behind the arc, and outside of a 31% season in 2020-21, his percentage from long distance has been between 34.8 and 38.3 percent. Our point is he is a much bigger threat from the perimeter than Okoro or Lamar Stevens.

Hopefully, when Kevin Love returns, his thumb will be better and he can provide offense off the bench, so between him, Caris LeVert and Ricky Rubio, there should be enough fire power on the second unit. And Okoro and Stephens are still there to provide a defensive boost.

Okoro is playing well as a starter, but opposing teams still ignore him when he’s outside. They couldn’t do that with Osman.

Besides, on the offensive end, what does Okoro do better than Cedi?

And moving Osman into the #3 spot might just eliminate a wing as need heading into the trading deadline, and the front office could focus on getting another big to help them.

Perhaps a move like this would shake the wine and gold out of the malaise they’ve been in since the calendar switched to 2023. It’s doubtful it could hurt.

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.

Cavs Need Help For Mitchell & Garland. Maybe It’s On The Roster

The Cleveland Cavaliers finished a six-game homestand at 4-2, and now face a stretch where they play eight of their next 11 away from Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. They enter this stretch 6-9 on the road.

They won the first four games at home in this stretch before losing the last two to Toronto and Brooklyn, both of whom shot over 50% from three-point range. That’s hard for a team to do in an empty gym. The Nets lead the NBA in long distance shooting, but the Raptors are second from the bottom.

Once again, the Cavs problem is not enough guys contributing offensively consistently. J.B. Bickerstaff has a core four of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen, but he needs more players picking up the slack offensively, especially against better defensive teams.

Cleveland is averaging a little over 84 shots per game, and of those, the combination of Mitchell and Garland are taking 37, slightly less than half. We have seen in the two losses at home, opposing teams are focusing their defense on Mitchell, making it as hard as possible for him to get going.

The coaching staff has to do some things beside the pick-and-roll to get the wine and gold’s leading scorer at 28.5 points per game going. There doesn’t seem to be much action running Mitchell or Garland off screens to get them open looks. We’d like to see some of that.

We would also like to see Mobley and Allen get the ball in the paint more often. Toronto plays a very physical style of defense (they’ve adopted the Pat Riley Knicks and Golden State style of fouling most times down the floor, and the referees can’t call them all), but they don’t really have a true rim protecting big man.

Why not give the two seven-footers on the roster the ball. The Cavs’ starting big men average just under 20 shots per game, and that’s way too low for us. Especially with Mobley shooting almost 56% and Allen converting 62% of his shots.

Plus, if you establish an inside game, it makes it easier for Mitchell and Garland on the perimeter.

What does make it tougher for these four on the offensive end is the total lack of respect defenses have for whomever is playing the #3 spot. Bickerstaff reiterated his “they have to make shots” mantra after Monday’s loss to the Nets, but it goes against the coaching credo of putting people in positions where they can succeed.

Isaac Okoro is hitting 25% of his three-point shots. Lamar Stephens is 13 for 39. Dean Wade is making 41% from behind the line, but is hurt, and when he plays, he has periods where it doesn’t appear he wants to shoot.

As a result, defenders are ignoring them and helping on Mitchell and Garland. Maybe Kevin Love should start there, but still keeping him around 20 minutes per game. We’ve heard people say Cedi Osman should start at small forward, but he’s inconsistent shooting as well.

Maybe the answer is not putting these guys in the corner behind the three-point line where they are rendered ineffective? We understand this is an analytical advancement, but we always ask, what’s better: A made two or a missed three?

Either way, hoping Stevens, Osman, or Okoro become better three-point shooters doesn’t seem like much of a plan. The coaching staff has to come up with an alternative.

Or make a trade…

Cavs’ Start Resulted In High Expectations.

The Cleveland Cavaliers got everyone’s expectations raised when after losing their opener against Toronto, they reeled off eight straight wins, including the first two games on a west coast trip.

Perhaps they’d have been better off going say 6-3 or 5-4 instead of 8-1.

We jest, of course, teams should get wins whenever they can, but we feel a lot of fans and media people alike put J.B. Bickerstaff’s squad into the championship contender category when really, they are a young team that still needs more parts to reach title contention.

Since that start, the Cavs have gone 9-9, including 1-7 on the road, the lone win an ugly game against the lowly Detroit Pistons. They have stayed in the upper tier of the Eastern Conference by dominating at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, where they have an 12-2 mark.

Injuries and the resulting lack of depth have shown us that while this is still a team that should finish in the top six of the East and thus avoid the play-in tournament, the Cavaliers still aren’t a finished product.

Although Darius Garland missed much of the 8-1 skein after being hit in the eye, since that start, a number of other injuries have cropped up. Jarrett Allen missed some games, so did Caris LeVert, and now, Donovan Mitchell has missed two straight.

The season is a little over a third over, and only Evan Mobley, Isaac Okoro, and Cedi Osman have played in every game to date.

We felt the bench was a question mark coming into the year, but with Kevin Love’s fractured thumb and back issues, the second unit lost its primary scoring option. LeVert moved to the bench to help provide some points, but Mitchell’s injury put him back in the starting role.

There were some who thought Okoro and Dean Wade would be huge factors for the Cavs, and although Okoro is still a solid defender, offensively he is ignored by opponents, shooting just 40.2% from the floor in total, and making 10 of 43 three point shots.

Wade played in just 51 games a year ago and has already missed nine this season. And he’s not consistent when he does play either.

Cleveland still could use a legitimate shooter off the bench, which again points to what a huge disappointment Dylan Windler has been. The 26th overall pick three years ago with a pedigree as a shooter, the Belmont product has appeared in just 81 games total, and hit only 41.2 % of his shots, and has made just 32% of his three-pointers.

To be fair, his problem is he simply cannot stay healthy. He hasn’t played at all this season, either.

The point is the Cavs simply need more to be a legitimate contender. They have an excellent starting five, and they currently have an MVP candidate in Mitchell. But they lack depth.

Besides a shooter, they could also use another reserve big man, one who is a better quicker than Robin Lopez.

Ricky Rubio will be back in several weeks, and if he is close to the form he played at last season, the guard position will be in good hands.

The Cavaliers has probably somewhere between the team that started 8-1 and the team that has treaded around the .500 mark since. Watch the box scores, when they get production from two reserves, they usually win. When only one contributes, like Friday night’s loss, they lose.

They are still a work in progress. The red-hot start got people too excited.

Wine And Gold Bench Not Getting It Done

The Cleveland Cavaliers had a red-hot start to the season. After losing their opener to Toronto, they reeled off eight straight wins, several of them without All-Star guard Darius Garland, who was poked in the eye in the first game of the season.

Everything was clicking for J.B. Bickerstaff’s crew, Cedi Osman got off to a great start shooting the three ball, Dean Wade scored a career high 22 points in a comeback win over New York. And they beat Boston on the road in overtime with Donovan Mitchell and Caris LeVert both scoring 41 points.

But on the west coast trip, the Cavs were going for win #9 and led the Clippers in the fourth quarter, but lost, starting a five-game losing streak that ended Friday night in a double overtime win over Charlotte.

Sometimes it’s difficult to get a victory after a long losing streak, and hopefully now that the wine and gold got back in the win column, they can right the ship. But some holes did spring up during the losing skein.

Jarrett Allen missed a couple of games with an ankle problem, and that exposed a size problem. Allen and Evan Mobley are a big reason Cleveland succeeds defensively (they are still 4th in defensive efficiency), but they are the only rim protectors on the roster.

With Allen in there, Mobley can get out an defend on the perimeter where his length bothers smaller players, as it did at the end of the first overtime Friday night against Terry Rozier.

The only other experienced interior big man is Robin Lopez, signed in the off-season as a free agent. Lopez is a seven footer, but is slow, and not really a shot blocker. And quite frankly, we don’t think he can be out there for 25 minutes a game if something happened to Allen or Mobley and they couldn’t play for a stretch of games.

Since the winning streak ended, the bench hasn’t provided much, meaning Bickerstaff has a very top-heavy roster.

They have four all-star caliber players in Mitchell, Garland, Allen, and Mobley, and two solid veterans in Kevin Love, who could be out for a while with a hairline fracture of his thumb, and LeVert, meaning the depth folks thought the Cavaliers had is no longer there.

As noted earlier, Osman and Wade had great starts to the season, but the former hasn’t been good lately and Wade has been hurt but followed up the 22 point game with a scoreless one. No doubt, Bickerstaff needs both to step up and provide production each and every night.

After not getting much time early in the season, Lamar Stevens has taken advantage of the injuries and has started to get minutes again, getting at least 29 in last three contests, averaging 9.3 points in those games. He’s solid and deserves to keep getting minutes, probably at the expense of Isaac Okoro who is really struggling, especially on the offensive end.

Raul Neto got playing time while Garland was out, but since the Cavs went west, he’s been AWOL.

That leaves Bickerstaff with six solid players, guys he can depend on every night. That’s not enough, particularly for a time with playoff aspirations.

The first thing that needs to happen is someone, notably Osman and Wade, need to step up, but it doesn’t have to be one of those two, they are just the most likely candidates. It could be Okoro too, but he seems to have lost confidence in his offensive game right now.

Maybe it’s a slump for the bench crew, or perhaps we were all just fooled by the eight-game winning streak. But if this team wants to avoid the play in tournament, they need depth that Bickerstaff can rely on.

Time for some players to step up

Cavs’ Bench Needs To Shake The Doldrums

The Cleveland Cavaliers had a promising start to their trip to the west, winning in Detroit (yes, it’s west) without Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell and beating the Lakers.

They had fourth quarter leads in every other game, but lost the last three, and come home tonight to face Minnesota.

The Cavs have played eight of their first twelve games away from Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, and now five of the next six are in town, which helps immensely as the wine and gold have won all four games held there.

An old NBA adage tells us bench players play better at home and that was certainly true for J.B. Bickerstaff’s squad on the trek, as really only Kevin Love gave him quality minutes consistently.

Of course, Love’s a veteran, a guy who has started most of his career, so it’s not surprising he plays well no matter where the game is, he’s averaging 12 points and 7.7 rebounds a game.

Cedi Osman averaged 15.5 points per game on red hot shooting (52% from the floor, 9 of 19 from three) in the first four games. Since then, he’s made just 14 of 39 (36%) and just 8 of 26 three-point shots, scoring in double figures just once, the blowout win in the Motor City.

Dean Wade started while Garland was out with his eye injury and scored 22 points, a career high, in the win against the Knicks at home. He missed the last game of the trip, but in the four games he played, he scored 11 points, including a zero against Detroit.

And then there is Isaac Okoro, who’s confidence looks shattered right now, missing two-point blank layups against Golden State Friday night. He’s made just 9 of 32 shots from the floor, missing all 12 three point shots. He even put up a six trillion (playing six minutes without any other entry in the box score) vs. the Kings.

In the last four games of the roadie (he did have 9 points vs. the Pistons), he scored seven points on 1 of 8 shooting in 47 minutes, grabbing four rebounds and dishing out two assists.

When three of your four primary substitutes are playing like that, it’s difficult to win.

At what point does a concern become a problem though.

As we said earlier, five of Cleveland’s next six contests are at home, so the second unit has an opportunity to straighten out the issue. But if they don’t start playing well, what are the options?

One would seem to be putting Wade back in the starting lineup and bringing LeVert off the bench. Not that the latter has done anything wrong, it would simply be putting another scorer with that group. Doing this would also give the starters a bit more size.

As for Okoro, we don’t know what the solution is. Defensively, he is still excellent, contributing greatly to the win against New York with his effort on that end of the floor.

On offense, he appears lost right now. As mentioned earlier, he’s lost whatever confidence he ever had offensively. At times when he is passed the ball, it looks like he can’t get rid of it fast enough. Defenses are ignoring him, and it puts a burden on the offense when you are basically playing 4 on 5.

We’d also like to see more of a 10 man rotation to limit minutes on the starters, particularly Mitchell, who currently leads the NBA in that category. Raul Neto has done a solid job when used, so why not use him?

We understand it’s still early, but we are sure Bickerstaff hasn’t liked the last three games. Home cooking will help, but so will better effort by bench.

Who Plays Small Forward? Cavs Have To Have An Answer

The Cleveland Cavaliers have started training camp for the 2022-23 season and they know who four starters will be: Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell will be the guards, Evan Mobley will be the power forward, and Jarrett Allen be man the pivot.

The question is who will start at small forward or the #3 spot. Most fans have their favorite to play there, but really, there is more to it than just numbers.

The player that J.B. Bickerstaff chooses has to fit with the others. He has to be an offensive threat, otherwise the opponents will double team someone, which will limit the effectiveness of that player and possibly the entire offense.

And while he needs to be an offensive threat, he has to understand he will be the fifth option on that side of the court, knowing he needs to be a facilitator to get the ball to the others.

Lastly, Bickerstaff has to worry about the second unit too. He needs to create balance so when three bench players are on the floor, the Cavs aren’t worrying how they are going to score.

We believe the contenders are Isaac Okoro, Caris LeVert, Cedi Osman, Dean Wade, and Lamar Stevens

The favorite to land the spot is third year player Okoro, mostly because he was the 5th overall pick in the 2020 draft. Okoro improved his three point shooting from 29% as a rookie to 35% last season, but last season, opposing teams were leaving him open, and he still seemed hesitant to shoot.

For us, he needs to demonstrate he can knockdown shots without hesitation and make defenses pay attention to him. If he can do that, he might be the guy.

LeVert is the most accomplished scorer of the group, scoring at 14.6 points per game in his career. He’s a good passer and is certainly someone the defense would need to pay attention to. That’s probably why he’s a better fit with the second unit, using he and Kevin Love as the primary weapons among that group.

We are fans of Osman, so we are a little biased here. We think Osman has been miscast as spot up three-point shooter, and although he has a career mark of 35%, he’s inconsistent. He’s really a slasher/distributor, that’s what he does internationally, and is a solid defender.

Doing those things, he might be a great fit with Mitchell, Garland, Allen, and Mobley. He is willing to shoot though, and has size too, at 6’7″ (compared to Okoro at 6’5″ and LeVert at 6’6″).

Wade is 6’9″, so he would fit more into Bickerstaff’s love of size, and he’s a good shooter (36% from three), but he seems hesitant to shoot at times and thus far in his career, it feels like he goes through stretches where he disappears on the floor. It’s hard to justify increased minutes if that happens.

Stevens would be a good choice too. He gives you the same defense as Okoro but with a better offensive game. We often think Stevens would get more time than Okoro if the latter wasn’t the fifth overall pick.

What we like about Stevens is he knows his game, and he can be effective in the mid-range game, so defenses have to respect that.

The performance of these five players is something to watch when the exhibition games commence. But don’t just look at their numbers, look at what the play on the court looks like with the other starters.