Cavs Need To Get Healthy And Right The Ship. Quickly

The last month for the Cleveland Cavaliers has been a conundrum. They’ve been missing several key players, including their best, Donovan Mitchell, who has played in just five of the 17 games following the All-Star break.

Evan Mobley and Max Strus are two other starters who have not been available for the bulk of the second half schedule because of injuries.

In that time period, Cleveland has defeated the league’s best team, Boston, the third seed in the West, Minnesota, and had impressive road wins against New Orleans and Indiana.

But they’ve also lost home games to a battered Miami Heat team and Brooklyn.

There are only 12 games remaining in the regular season, and the wine and gold have a west coast trip before the season comes to a close. And they are in real danger of losing home court advantage for the first round of the playoffs, as both the Knicks and Magic are just one game behind in the loss column.

What all this means is coach J.B. Bickerstaff needs to find a winning formula and quickly. Yes, the Cavs have a very good record on the road at 21-13, but we don’t think they want to have their first-round playoff match up without the majority of the games at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

First and foremost, they need to get Mitchell healthy. He is their unquestioned leader, and when Darius Garland and Mobley were injured in December and each missed about a month, the ball was put in his hands and he thrived.

Averaging 27.4 points and 6.1 assists per night, along with five rebounds, his ability to score inside, driving to the bucket is sorely missed. And remember, he’s still shooting 37.3% from behind the arc.

Jarrett Allen has held his own, scoring 16.3 points and grabbing 10.8 boards on a nightly basis, as well as being a solid defender, and Caris LeVert has stepped up his game too.

LeVert gets criticized by many of the younger fans because he doesn’t make threes (which is really a stupid criticism) has also stepped up particularly the play making that Mitchell provided. He is dishing out 7.9 assists since the All-Star game, although his scoring and shooting is down.

To us, he has sacrificed his scoring to do what is best for the team, and perhaps that is the first step for many of the other Cavs in order to right the ship.

Cleveland did sign veteran Marcus Morris Jr. to a ten day contract, and at 6’8″, Morris provides some size in the front court and he can knock down shots.

Bickerstaff isn’t blameless either. We do believe he made the decision to have LeVert handle the playmaking duties over the turnover prone Garland, but we don’t understand his substitution patterns at times.

He went through a stretch where he ignored Sam Merrill, who despite a slump in early March where he hit just 4 of 29 threes, has knocked down 17 of his last 37 (46%). Friday night, he didn’t use Craig Porter Jr., even though Garland wasn’t playing particularly well.

And he played a sore kneed Mitchell 44 minutes in an overtime, and that’s when Mitchell went back out of the lineup.

We hate to say it, but how the Cavaliers perform from here on out and during the playoffs will likely determine if Bickerstaff returns as head coach next season.

Also, we also believe if Mitchell signs an extension with the Cavs, a roster shake up will occur, and Garland will likely be traded.

The Cavs do need toughness, but part of that starts with adding size, something outside of Allen and Mobley, the wine and gold desperately need.

A Tough Stretch For Cavs Should “Let Us Know”

Since blowing out the Toronto Raptors on February 10th, the Cleveland Cavaliers have gone through a bit of a rough patch. It’s understandable because the wine and gold have been on fire since the calendar turned to 2024, winning 17 of 19 games through that contest in the Canada.

In the week leading up to the All-Star weekend festivities (we will ignore that abomination of a game), and after, the Cavs have a 4-4 record with one of those victories coming Tuesday when Max Strus hit a 59-foot shot to win the game against Dallas.

The wins came at home vs. Chicago in which the struggled, the Strus contest, and Ws against the hapless Pistons and Wizards.

They haven’t looked like the same team that rolled for the first six weeks of the new year.

Starting today, they will be tested in March with home games against the Knicks, who muscled them out of the playoffs last season and the Celtics, who are the best team in the East. It should give J.B. Bickerstaff a measuring stick of where his team is right now.

Following those games is a road game in Atlanta, then a three game homestand in which the team with the best record in the West, Minnesota comes in and so does the talent-rich Phoenix Suns.

The middle of the month has a road stretch, featuring two games vs. Miami (one is the only home game) and other road tilts at New Orleans, Minnesota, and Indiana. Overall, they have 11 road games out of 14 played, while the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse is hosting the Mid-American Conference tournament and the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

Hopefully, the Cavs will find the formula that allowed them to be dominant from the time Darius Garland and Evan Mobley were injured to the week before the All-Star break.

Perhaps, the Cavaliers and the coaching staff were a bit in their own heads. The squad was sizzling putting the ball in Donovan Mitchell’s hands, and he played at an MVP level.

The Cavs talked about the different style of play adopted when Garland and Mobley were out. They pointed to the three-point shooting, but really that improvement came from increased playing time from Sam Merrill, who is still knocking them down at a 43.5% clip.

That’s way it was weird that Merrill received three DNP-CDs (did not play-coach’s decision) in a recent seven game period in which Cleveland went 4-3.

Dean Wade, who played 20 minutes or more in 11 out of 12 games in an 11-1 stretch throughout January, suddenly had his time reduced. He played less than 10 minutes in two games since play resumed.

We aren’t huge Wade supporters, but as we believe Charles Barkley once said, if it ain’t broke, don’t break it. It seems like Bickerstaff has decided to do just that.

Now, can he put it back together again? The obvious solution is that Merrill and Wade earned their time on the floor, and the adjustments should have been made by doing some slight trimming to some of the players getting heavier workloads.

After all, that would have them be fresher for the tough stretch coming up and then the playoffs.

Many of the national basketball media are having doubts about the Cavs making a deep run in the post-season. Playing well in a tough March slate could change some minds among folks who know the game.

Garland Is Very Good, But Maybe Not A Good Fit

After the Cleveland Cavaliers win over the Washington Wizards on Sunday, Donovan Mitchell took the opportunity to back his teammate Darius Garland against some criticism on social media.

Mitchell was being a good teammate, no question about that, although most of the criticism that comes on social media should probably be ignored by NBA players. Ours included.

There is a difference though in criticizing Garland’s play and thinking the Cavaliers might just be better exchanging him for another player.

Garland is a very good player. He’s made an all-star team and has been a starter since his rookie season, and the last three of those five years, the Cavs have been a pretty good team.

In 2021-22, he scored 21.7 points and dished out 8.6 assists, shooting 46.2% from the floor, 38.3% from three. Last season, playing his first season with Mitchell as a backcourt mate, he scored 21.6 points and had 7.8 assists. He also raised his percentage from behind the arc to 41%.

He’s always been a bit turnover prone, averaging 3.6 in his all-star year, but did improve to 2.9 a year ago. Remember, he does have the ball in his hand a lot. Our biggest issue is when he penetrates, he loses the ball too easily as it is knocked out of his hands.

However, in spite of the statistical success Garland and Mitchell had a year ago, the Cavs were handled quite easily in their playoff series against the Knicks losing in five games.

We thought it would be a very difficult matchup for Cleveland because of the physicality the Knicks bring every night, and also because we have our doubts about trying to win with two starting guards that are under 6’3″.

This season, it’s been a bit of a struggle for Garland. His scoring has dropped to 18.2 points and his three-point shooting has dipped to 34% thus far.

Early in the year, when Garland missed four games, the Cavs struggled, going 1-3. When he broke his jaw in December, he missed 19 more contests, but this time the wine and gold went 15-4.

The ball was put in Mitchell’s hands and the team and offense flourished. To be fair, when Garland returned, the Cavs kept rolling, winning the first seven games he appeared in and nine of twelve overall.

Again, we want to remind you that there is no question here that Garland is a very good NBA player. But in basketball, it’s not just talent that succeeds, it is how the players fit and play off each other.

And there is also the nasty part…the defensive end.

One of the issues with the smallish backcourt is defense. There is no question it is tougher to guard someone two or three inches taller than you, especially if you have a slight build, which Garland has.

Last year, coach J.B. Bickerstaff tried to have Garland check Knicks’ guard Jalen Brunson in the playoffs. It was a mismatch. Brunson just overpowered him, and he’s listed as just one inch taller.

Put all those things in the mix and it may be Garland isn’t a good fit in Cleveland if Donovan Mitchell decides to sign a contract extension.

The big word in that last sentence? “If”.

The NBA MVP “Ladder” And Should Mitchell Be On It

One of the dumber things we see in sports is the “MVP Ladder” listed weekly by one of the NBA’s sponsors. It starts in the second week of the season, for goodness sakes. Why not wait until say, the All-Star break to start talking about the award.

We feel like in the NBA the media tries to give the award early and then spend the rest of the season justifying it. And usually, it’s because it is a specific player’s “turn”. For example, Jayson Tatum’s name always comes up early in seasons, but by the end of the year, others have passed him up.

What’s worse is other sports have started the same nonsense. But we digress.

We bring it up because the Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell has started to come up in conversations about the league MVP. Charles Barkley even said Mitchell should be discussed for the honor.

Mitchell is having an incredible year. In scoring, he is even with last year’s career high of 28.3 points per game, but it’s the other numbers that are more impressive.

He’s dishing out assists at a career high pace, with 6.3 per contest, beating his previous best by one assist. His turnovers are consistent with the rest of his career.

His rebounding has also increased over his career best, as he is grabbing 5.4 boards per night. And his shooting percentage has increased since arriving in Cleveland, as he shot 44.1% with Utah, and in his two years here, that is up to 48.4% last year and 47.5% this season.

Most importantly, when Darius Garland was injured, and J.B. Bickerstaff essentially put the ball in Mitchell’s hands, the Cavs have won 22 of 27 games, roaring to the 2nd seed in the Eastern Conference standings.

He has boosted his numbers since the day Garland went out to 29 points and 7.3 assists per contest. And it is not like he has been on the floor too much. After the first two games in this stretch, he’s played over 40 minutes just once, partially because of all the blowouts the team has played.

There have been games were he flat out carried the wine and gold. He had 45 points and 12 rebounds in the Paris game against the Nets. We woke the team out of a malaise against Detroit on January 31st, scoring 45 with 8 assists and 6 rebounds.

He’s likely also headed for his second all-NBA appearance in two years with Cleveland, which would make him only the third Cavalier to receive that honor more than once. The other two are LeBron James, who was named ten times (8 first team, 2 second team) and Mark Price, who received the honors four times (1 first team, 3 third team)

Mitchell made the second team last season.

He finished sixth in the MVP voting last season after leading the Cavs to a 50 win season, and they are on pace to surpass that mark in 2023-24.

Mitchell isn’t likely to win the award. Since the turn of the century, the only guards under 6’5″ to win it are Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Steph Curry, and Russell Westbrook. But if the Cavs can finish second in the East, perhaps he can get to the top five.

Either way, he’s having a heck of a season. People who know the game know it, even if the national love isn’t there.

How Do Garland And Mobley Fit Back In?

On December 15th, the Cleveland Cavaliers announced that two of their starters, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley were going to miss some time. Garland broke his jaw and would miss about four weeks (it has gone longer than that) and Mobley needed a procedure on his knee and would miss about six weeks.

At first thought, it appeared this would ruin the season for the wine and gold, perhaps causing them to miss the playoffs. Instead, the Cavs have flourished, winning 13 of 17 since the injuries.

They have taken advantage of a bit of a soft schedule. They’ve played only two games against the “elite” teams in the NBA, and both were against Milwaukee, who played without Giannis Antetokounmpo in the first one, a Cavs’ win. Only six of the contests have been on the road, not counting the game in Paris.

Cleveland has lost just two of those road games.

By the way, that’s not a criticism of this 13-4 stretch. If you are scheduled to play a bunch of mediocre teams, we would rather have you defeat those teams than lose. The Cavs simply took care of business.

They’ve changed their style of play, shooting more three-point shots, shooting 42.5 per game compared to 33.1 per night before Garland and Mobley were injured. The organization is trumpeting a new style, but really, it’s the emergence of Sam Merrill, who has become a rotation mainstay, averaging 13.5 points per game.

Merrill is taking 8.7 three-pointers per contest and is knocking them down at a 43.4% clip.

We also don’t want to forget the defense has picked up greatly since the two starters went out, surprising because Mobley is one of the league’s best defenders. Perhaps the players and coaching staff turned up the defense because of the offense they figured to miss in having two of their three top scorers out of the lineup.

A big question for us is what happens when Garland and Mobley return. With the heater the Cavs are on, we feel like it is up to them to fit in with the new, successful style of play, that is as long as it is working.

For Mobley, that would seem to involve staggering time with Jarrett Allen and not having them on the court as much. And once J.B. Bickerstaff starts substituting in a given game, he kind of does that anyway.

And if you have a lead late, you want both Allen and Mobley on the court because of their ability to defend, even out on the floor.

Also, Tristan Thompson’s suspension does open some minutes in the frontcourt.

Garland would seem to have to make a bigger adjustment. First, he has played 20 games this season and had five or more turnovers in seven of them. By contrast, Donovan Mitchell, who has become the primary ball handler with Garland out, has played in 32 games and has had five or more turnovers just five times.

We would say the ball should be in Mitchell’s hands and Garland should play off him. And Merrill should not lose any playing time due to Garland’s return. He’s earned playing time even with the roster being complete.

How Bickerstaff handles this could be his defining moment as coach. Cleveland’s next three games are against three very good teams, two vs. Milwaukee and then a home game against the 28-14 Clippers.

If this new style and new rotation continues to work, the proverbial ball is in the court of the players returning to the lineup. They have to go with the winning flow.

And don’t forget the trade deadline is two weeks from today.

Questions And More Questions About Cavs’ Future

As soon as the Cleveland Cavaliers announced Darius Garland and Evan Mobley would miss extended time due to injury, and rumors started popping up about a possible trade for Donovan Mitchell.

Our guess is these people feel the Cavs would not be a playoff team without two of their starters, so they would be better off cashing in on Mitchell, who can decline a player option for the 2025-26 season and become a free agent.

This of course means the wine and gold only have Mitchell for the remainder of this season and next, because he certainly won’t take the option and remain in “Cleveland” any longer than he has to.

To his credit, Mitchell has said all the right things and at least publicly hasn’t talked about wanting out of Cleveland, but no doubt, the front office has to be monitoring the situation. They certainly will not let Mitchell walk away without compensation, so if the all-star guard doesn’t give them assurances he would like to stay, Koby Altman has to listen to offers.

However, things have changed from a year ago. After 28 games last season, Cleveland was 17-11 and sitting in the #3 spot in the Eastern Conference standings. They were the up-and-coming team, adding an all-NBA talent in Mitchell, allowing the least points in the league, and a challenger for the best record in the conference.

They’ve only one a game less this year.

This season, the hot young squad is Orlando, sitting with a 16-9 record and in the 4th spot in the East. The Cavs have been up and down all season, beset with injuries to pretty much everyone on their roster, and due to that, generally has sat between 6th and 9th in the conference.

And Indiana’s run to the In Season Tournament title game have basketball talking about them as well.

So, if the Cavs can’t keep winning without their pair of injured starters, and they’ve received no commitment from Mitchell that he is willing to sign an extension, then you have to think it is time to sell high on the four-time All Star.

On the other hand, if Cleveland continues to win without Garland and Mobley, that has to open some eyes, no?

We have long found flaws with the smallish backcourt of Mitchell and Garland, who in terms of style of game are very similar. Max Strus has moved to the #2 guard spot right now, giving coach J.B. Bickerstaff a little more size on the perimeter, which should help defensively.

If the team can remain afloat or even flourish without Garland and Mobley, doesn’t reflect well on the coaching staff? Also, would it be a referendum on the Garland/Mitchell combination?

Our guess is that it will be tough to string together victories with a roster missing two of their top six players, but it could also be a Browns’ moment for the team as well. An opportunity to show the “grit” that Bickerstaff talks about.

If they can’t keep their heads above water with the injuries, it could mean a roster overhaul at the trade deadline, probably involving Mitchell, the organization’s most valuable trade chip.

The next six weeks could be hugely important for the future of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The high hopes this season brought for the franchise could be dashed pretty quickly.

Cavs Now At A Crossroad

After a four-game trip that started well in Miami, the Cleveland Cavaliers dropped the final three games and now seem to be at a crossroads. Their record has dropped to just two games over .500 at 14-12, and Friday, they received bad news.

Two of their starters, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, will be out for extended periods due to injury, Garland with a broken jaw, and Mobley is having arthroscopic surgery on his knee. Garland will miss approximately three to four weeks, and Mobley six to eight weeks.

As we said last week, the Cavs’ season has been weird, filled with several injuries, and with extended absences of two starters, the depth will really be tested.

We have complained about the make-up of the Cleveland roster for a while now, so coach J.B. Bickerstaff will have his hands full trying to keep his team in playoff contention, because injuries or not, missing the post-season after last season’s 51-win campaign, would be a disappointment.

We would assume that the loss of Garland means the ball will be put in Donovan Mitchell’s hands, and he is averaging 5.1 assists per night, and frankly, has been better with the ball than Garland in terms of turnovers this season, averaging one less per game.

That would move Max Strus to the two guard, giving the wine and gold a more traditional sized backcourt. However, moving Strus creates an opening at the small forward spot, and therein lies the roster construction problem.

Bickerstaff likes to bring Caris LeVert off the bench, so the candidates to start at small forward would seem to be Isaac Okoro or Georges Niang. Dean Wade might have been a choice as well, but he’s probably the starter in Mobley’s spot.

You would think a player who was the fifth overall pick should be the starter, but Okoro still is not a viable option offensively, so it is difficult to give him extended minutes because opponents don’t feel the need to guard him.

So, we would probably go with Niang, because it would seem to spread the floor for Mitchell. Having Strus, Niang, and Wade on the court together could give Cleveland the ultimate floor spacing.

There is a flaw to this though, and that is Wade is nowhere near the rebounder that Mobley is. On a per 36 minute basis, Wade gets 7.5 rebounds, compared to Mobley’s 11.2.

Wade needs to show up once and for all. The organization has a much higher opinion of him than we do, and now would be a good time to see why.

We have talked about the lack of big man depth for the Cavaliers for some time now, and here we are again. For some reason, Bickerstaff seems reticent to use Tristan Thompson on a regular basis, even though the veteran is just 32-years-old.

We know Thompson is offensively challenged, but he can still defend on rebound (he gets 11.3 boards per 36 minutes). He going to have to be out there every night now, we would think.

Garland’s injury would seem to force rookie Craig Porter Jr. on the court. He’s been impressive in limited appearances, and this should give him an opportunity to see if he can adjust since defenses will see him more often.

And as for the big men, maybe we will see Damian Jones and/or Isaiah Mobley get an opportunity to see some minutes.

The Cavaliers have a top heavy roster, with five very good players (Mitchell, Garland, Jarrett Allen, Mobley, and LeVert). Now, two of those guys will be missing for a while, and they will need more from the everyone. That doesn’t mean hoisting up more shots either.

They just need everyone to do a little more. For example, Mitchell to be more of a distributor, Allen, a couple more buckets per game, etc.

If players don’t step up, the Cavs might have too deep of a hole to dig out of when Garland and Mobley get back.

Cavs’ Start To Season? Weird.

As we hit the quarter pole in the NBA season, and the much awaited in-season tournament championship game (sarcasm intended), we find the Cleveland Cavaliers a bit of a weird team.

Part of it is the injuries that have plagued J.B. Bickerstaff’s squad all season. Cleveland has just two players, newcomers Max Strus and Georges Niang, who have played all 22 games thus far and only Strus has started all of them.

The Cavs currently sit at 13-9 on the year, good enough to be 6th in the Eastern Conference standings, but they have also won 9 of their last 12 games, so they are trending in a positive direction.

The have already lost six home games in 2023-24, more than any other team in the East that is above .500, and their 7-3 road record is tied with Minnesota and Oklahoma City for the best in the NBA.

Among those seven wins are quality victories at New York (6-3 at home), Philadelphia (8-3), and Miami, always a tough place to win for Cleveland.

That mark will be put to the test starting Monday when the Cavaliers travel to Orlando and then Boston for a pair of contests Tuesday and Thursday. Those teams currently have the best records in the East.

Cleveland started the season trying to push the pace, as most teams say they want to do, but have slowed things down a bit, and this has allowed them to play better on the defensive end of the floor, which has been their calling card.

They are playing faster than last season, when they ranked last in pace, as they are currently 18th. Defensively, they have dropped from first last year, to 8th right now, probably due to the faster pace, but really, anything in the top ten is very respectable.

Koby Altman tried to improve the wine and gold’s long distance shooting from a year ago by bringing in Strus and Niang, but Cleveland has actually dropped in three-point shooting percentage from 36.7% to 34.8%. They have taken about the same number per game, right around 32 per contest.

Niang, in particular, was off to a dreadful start from long distance, but over his last 10 games has knocked down 21 of 48 from beyond the arc, a 43.8% clip more in line with his career mark of 40%.

Darius Garland’s numbers in this area are way below his norm, making just 32.5% from three, and his lifetime mark is over 38%.

Donovan Mitchell is also down from a year ago at 35.7% compared to a 38.6% mark in his first year in Cleveland. We would like to see Mitchell attack more, particularly late in games.

You have to figure both of them will get it going from outside and then we can see the offensive potential of this group.

We would still like to see Altman find another solid big man at or before the trading deadline. Tristan Thompson has been better than expected when he’s played, but we don’t know if he can perform that well on a nightly basis.

He has provided solid to very good defense and rebounding when he has played but has played more than 10 minutes in just nine games so far.

We would also like to see Bickerstaff find more minutes for Craig Porter Jr. The rookie usually does well when called upon, but at times, he seems to be forgotten by the coaching staff. If he can be a solid backup at guard, that will help the depth greatly.

There is an adage that the NBA season doesn’t start until Christmas, which is only two weeks away. Quite frankly, we felt this current stretch would be tough for the Cavs, but they won the first two.

The Eastern Conference is tougher this year with the emergence of Orlando and Indiana, so the season will be a challenge for the Cavaliers. Let’s hope their best basketball is ahead of them.

Garland’s Play Is Becoming Cavs Problem

The Cleveland Cavaliers are going through a bit of a malaise to start the NBA season, highlighted by a terrible loss at home against Portland on Thursday night.

In that contest, they had a 16-point lead in the first half and wound up losing by 12 points to a team that has lost 12 of their first 18 games.

Coach J.B. Bickerstaff was upset after the game and rightly so, leading to conversation that his job could be in jeopardy. We have been critical of the coach, who has done a great job turning around a team that went 19-46 in the pandemic shortened season of 2019-20 (Bickerstaff was 5-6) and 22-50 in his first full season.

Bickerstaff set a defensive mindset with the wine and gold, but his substitution pattern has been questioned and his offensive sets seem to be very simplistic. The former could be a result of the roster construction which we will address later.

No one wants to have a hard conversation about this, but it is fair to ask if the backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland is working. Mitchell got the brunt of the criticism for the playoff loss because he is the team’s star and an all-NBA selection a year ago, but to us, Garland played worse in the first round series loss to New York.

Outside of the game two win and the third quarter in game four, Garland was pedestrian. Mitchell was still the leading scorer in the series at 23.2 points (down from 28.6 in the regular season), and shot 43.3% from the floor. He was way off from distance, making just 28.9% compared to his regular season number of 38.6%.

However, it was Mitchell who led the Cavs in assists in that series with 36 and had 19 turnovers. On the other hand, Garland shot 43.8% and had just 25 helpers with 18 turnovers. That type of carelessness with the basketball has carried over to this season.

This season, Garland has 88 assists and a whopping 64 turnovers in 15 games. The latter total is tied for the 7th highest total in the league, although all the players with more have played less games than the 14 Garland has participated in.

Also, all but Jayson Tatum, Stephen Curry, and rookie Victor Wembanyama have more assists.

Garland is too sloppy with the basketball, getting stripped a lot when he drives to the basket, and too often putting getting in positions where he has left his feet and has to make a difficult pass in a tight spot.

Add that to the defensive issues that come with having two starting guards who are both 6’1″, and you have to wonder if Cleveland can have long term success with Mitchell and Garland going forward.

There are several mitigating circumstances though. Our preference would be to put the ball in Mitchell’s hands and let him be the scorer/distributor, but you would have to get a long-term commitment from him, which would allow you to make a move with Garland.

Garland’s shooting has also dropped with season, dropping from 41% from beyond the arc last season to 33.3% this season. Along with several other Cavaliers, he has battled injury issues all season, but even his free throw shooting is down from his norms.

Koby Altman made a bold move getting Mitchell a year ago to give the team some star power, but that created the roster construction problem we discussed earlier, the smallish backcourt.

We wonder if Cleveland would be better off with a more traditional guard tandem with a #2 guard that is around 6’4″ or 6’5″, perhaps like Max Strus.

And Mitchell would have to change his game from being a scorer to a playmaker who can also score. It would make him a more well-rounded player.

Because Garland was drafted by the Cavs and has developed here, it seems like many fans are reluctant to be critical of him. On the other hand, Mitchell is the hired gun, and so it is okay to blame him when the team doesn’t play well.

Helping Mobley And Questioning The Cavs’ Pace

It’s still early in the NBA season for sure. Common wisdom says the season doesn’t really begin until the Christmas Day games are played. We aren’t worried about the Cleveland Cavaliers at this point, but we do wonder about some things.

As pretty much every coach does, J.B. Bickerstaff said he wanted the Cavs to play with more pace this season. They were last in that category a year ago and they have moved up to 11th in 2023-24.

However, that increased pace has come with a price. The wine and gold led the NBA in defensive efficiency last season and have dropped to 11th this season. To be fair, the Cavaliers have played the league’s best offense in Indiana twice and have also played high octane Oklahoma City twice.

We understand Koby Altman wanted to improve the three point shooting this season, signing Max Strus and Georges Niang. However, can the Cavs play a style that spreads the floor while still playing their defensive anchors, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley.

Many teams have shifted to an offense with one man inside and the other four players spread out around the perimeter. With Allen and Mobley, the Cavs cannot do that.

That’s okay. It’s not necessary to play like everyone else. There are many ways to win in the NBA.

The key in our opinion is Mobley. We have heard fans and media alike complain the third-year player has not taken “the leap”. To date, he is averaging 16.1 points per game, down a bit from the 16.2 a year ago. His rebounding, assists, and blocks are all up.

Our response when we are asked about the big man is usually what are the Cavs doing to help him put up better numbers. We feel a more productive Mobley makes the wine and gold a better team.

Bickerstaff and his staff have to make it a point to get Mobley involved in the offense more, and the easiest way to do that is to get him the ball at the high post, where with his height and court vision, he can be effective. Think about him as sort of a Nikola Jokic type, without the dribbling up the court.

From there, he could play the high/low game that has been effective with Jarrett Allen on the blocks, attack the basket, or if a double team comes, he can find the open man. The underrated part of Mobley’s game is his passing in our opinion.

What is needed though is some sacrifice from Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell to get Mobley some touches at the elbow. For Mitchell, he can pass the ball and then get it back off a cut.

That would require more of a half court approach, and that would mean slowing the pace a bit, which is turn probably helps the defense. Again, it’s early and with the injuries that cost Allen and Garland time in the season’s first two weeks, perhaps Cleveland just needs to find a rhythm.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just a matter of getting done with this trip and having a stretch of seven of eight games at home. However, it does appear quickening the pace has hurt the Cavs’ defense.

It’s a season of adjustments, and maybe Bickerstaff has to pull back on the throttle a bit to find the team’s comfort zone.