Time For A Big Swing For Altman

The NBA Draft is coming up this week and shortly after the free agency period starts, meaning this is the time to rebuild or retool your basketball team if you are an NBA executive. So, the question should be what is Cavaliers’ president of basketball operations Koby Altman going to do, if anything?

Most people don’t think Altman will do more than a tweak or two, which we feel would be a big problem. That’s because we think differently than him, or so it would seem.

Our guess is Altman thinks his squad is on the right path. They’ve advanced one round further than the past two seasons, and at least his coach thinks (and we’ll bet he was expressing the view of the front office) the wine and gold should have won the Eastern Conference Finals. At least that’s what the analytics showed.

For us, that’s a mistake. That’s believing what the numbers says instead of what your eyes are telling you. The reality is the Cavs had a chance to win the first game, and frankly if they had, it would have been a little different.

Kenny Atkinson’s crew blew a huge fourth quarter lead, and pretty much the series was decided then.

We believe Altman should do a deep dive on his roster and figure out who can play in the playoffs and who is a regular season performer, because in watching this team over these last four post-season runs, the games are vastly different.

Cleveland needs more size, and not just height, we are talking about bulk as well. That’s why we like Jaylon Tyson, who the coaching staff (or the front office) ran away from after trading for James Harden. Look at the Cavs’ big men, both Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen play with force. That doesn’t make them bad players,, they just don’t bring a lot of physicality to the game.

And again, we will bring up the wings Atkinson has at his disposal. They aren’t tall, they aren’t very quick, and offensively, they are streaky at best. And how many can create their own shot?

There is simply too much duplicate players on the roster, and that has to change. Another fear is Altman has grown too attached to the players he has brought in, a common mistake for a guy responsible for acquiring talent.

For example, the number crunchers love Dean Wade and are quick to provide all kinds of numbers to show how good of a player he is. We see a very good perimeter defender that pretty much refuses to participate on the offensive side of the floor, which is not what basketball is.

So, why not try to do better.

Probably the only way to do a reset on the roster is to move either Donovan Mitchell or Evan Mobley, and most likely the latter because of the contract situation. Does Altman have the stomach to do that? No doubt it’s a high-risk move.

Standing pat likely gets the Cavaliers back to the second round of the Eastern Conference, where they’ve been the last three seasons. But if you want to win the NBA title, you can’t be timid. And after four years where you have been blown out in the round the team is eliminated in, It’s no time for the status quo.

We will see in the next two weeks, where the organization’s mind set is.

Numbers Don’t Always Tell The Story

Analytics. It certainly has been a buzz word in sports for a while now, but it seems to be in the news again after Cavs’ coach Kenny Atkinson made his comment after game three of the Eastern Conference Finals when he said if you look at shot quality, his team should be up two games to one.

That may stick with Atkinson for a long time and frankly why he said it is a mystery to us.

Look, this isn’t a piece to poop on analytics. Keeping track of certain things is very valuable and for a franchise to ignore the number would be foolish. However, in Atkinson’s case, the better way to evaluate those games were our eyes, and that metric tells us the Cavaliers got their butts kicked by the New York Knicks.

You have to use both to have success, which makes sense to us, but there are people and organizations that are slaves to the numbers.

Heck, we heard a former player on the Guardians’ telecast say that batting average kind of measures how lucky a hitter is. We guess players like George Brett and Wade Boggs just had a lot of good fortune. Every year.

We heard a perfect example of how analytics should be used pertaining to the Cleveland Guardians. The exit velocity shows Jose Ramirez is hitting the ball as hard as ever despite his numbers not being up to his normal statistics.

Since Ramirez has put up excellent numbers for a long period of time, seeing he is still hitting bullets should allay any fear that he is starting to decline at 33 years old. Conversely, last year people kept pointing out Nolan Jones’ exit velocity as justification that he should play despite a .211 batting average (yeah, we know) and a 600 OPS.

What’s the difference? Outside of Jones’ first year with Colorado, there is no evidence he is a good major league hitter. HIs OPS in the other three seasons are under 700. Past performance indicates that Ramirez should be just fine.

Jones’ history indicates his exit velocity doesn’t indicate any success at the big-league level.

In basketball, we keep seeing people assessing a player’s effectiveness by using +/-, which measures the scoring in the game at the time a player was on the floor. Again, with all of these numbers there is some use, but it should not be the sole judge of a player’s worth.

The darling of this statistic for Cavs’ influencers is Dean Wade. Wade is a very good defensive player, especially on the perimeter. He most definitely has a place in the NBA. However, Wade chooses to be a non-participant on the offensive end. When we were younger, we said players like him had an allergy to the ball, because they get rid of it so fast once they get it.

Apparently, Wade had the highest plus/minus of any Cleveland player in the post-season. Sorry, if you think that makes him super valuable, we wholeheartedly disagree.

In our coaching days, we used to tell players the last thing we looked at to determine who had a good game was the scoresheet. By watching the game, we knew who impacted the game positively. That hasn’t changed.

Numbers and statistics can tell part of the story, but there are things missed by analyzing them.

Should Cavs Look At A Major Move?

If the Cleveland Cavaliers’ front office believes all of the analytics that Kenny Atkinson spoke about following Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals (we still can’t believe he said that out loud), then it is probably true the wine and gold won’t do more than a tweak to the roster going into next season.

And as we have addressed before, that’s a big mistake.

We are sure the front office believes it is making progress because they went a step further in the playoffs, going from a first round loss to a pair of second round defeats, and finally getting to the conference finals.

That’s one way to look at it.

The other is to recognize none of the series in which the Cavs lost over the last four seasons have been particularly close. The first three went five games before the sweep at the hands of the Knicks this year.

By the way, the last four seasons are the Donovan Mitchell era, which brings us to our point.

First, Mitchell is a phenomenal player. Since he has been a Cavalier, he’s made first team all-NBA (only the third Cleveland player in history to do so–Mark Price and LeBron James) and was second team once. He’s averaged at least 24 points per game every season in Cleveland.

And by all accounts has been a great spokesman for both the Cavaliers and the northeast Ohio area, going to high school games around town.

He’s also going to be 30 years old, 6’2″, and his contract runs out in two more years. The Cavs are expected to offer him a four-year deal worth $272 million this summer. That’s an average of $68 million per year, and they would be paying him that amount at 34 years old.

We would think very seriously about doing that. Not because Mitchell doesn’t deserve it, he’s arguably the second-best player ever to wear a Cleveland uniform. However, you have to wonder what kind of player he’s going to be in the last two seasons of that deal.

In our opinion, bigger players age better than smaller ones. Yes, we know about Stephen Curry and James Harden is still put up a bunch of points. Should the Cavs explore trades for Mitchell this off-season?

We know where the Cavs are in the NBA hierarchy, they were one of the last four teams standing this year, so moving on from Mitchell would be a step back in all likelihood. But it just might be the right way to go. Take a step back and not bottom out for another run at a title in a couple of years.

Another direction is what many talk about, going all in by dealing for someone like Giannis Antetokounmpo, dealing say Evan Mobley (as people have discussed), thus making Mitchell the second-best player on the team. That probably gives you a two-year window for a championship, and after you get it, you likely would have to rebuild.

Even doing that, the front office has other work to do. They need more versatile, longer players. They also need more depth at power forward and center.

Jaylon Tyson needs a bigger role. He seemed to get lost after the trade that brought James Harden to Cleveland. We also believe another young player who got lost in the last two months, Nae’Qwan Tomlin can be a contributor next season.

He’s 6’8″ and should fit in as a wing, especially if he can improve his shooting. And it doesn’t have to be three-point shooting, which frankly, we’d be fine if he never took another one of those. He’ll be 26 next season, and we believe he can be a wild card for Kenny Atkinson.

But the big decision is Mitchell. Most people believe it’s a no brainer. We think the front office should take a good long look.

Some Thoughts On The Cavs Following The Sweep

So, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ season came to a thud in the Eastern Conference finals, getting swept by the New York Knicks, including home losses by 13 and 37 points.

There were a lot of crazy things said toward the end of the series angering both fans and the media, both local and national, so there was a lot of speculation that Kenny Atkinson would lose his coaching gig as a result.

To be honest, we are glad Dan Gilbert and the front office took a deep breath and looked at the big picture and decided to keep Atkinson in place, and he kept president of basketball operations Koby Altman as well.

The Cavs did win 116 regular season games over the past two seasons under Atkinson’s guidance, and they did advance to the conference finals for the first time since 2018. We cannot erase that accomplishment.

However, the things we have talked about concerning the roster over the past several seasons came to bear in these playoffs, even though they won two series.

We are hoping both Altman and Atkinson are staying because there is an understanding that the current roster is not geared to winning in the playoffs and in Altman’s case, he knows the league continues to evolve and he needs to get more size both in the post and on the wings.

Today’s NBA requires more players who can play on both ends of the floor, can create their own shots and guards and small forwards are getting taller every year.

If that’s the understanding, the roster will have to go through a series of changes.

Atkinson took heat during the season for his four guard lineup, and we agree the coach could have done a better job spacing out minutes for his big men, but the reality is out of the top nine players on the roster, six of them are guards, and we are talking about the roster after the trading deadline.

To be fair, Altman did bring in Thomas Bryant and Larry Nance Jr. in the off-season, but the coaching staff didn’t believe they were playable during the post-season. Bryant played just 41 minutes in the 18 playoff games and Nance just five. We felt both could have helped more during the regular season.

There is no argument about getting bigger, versatile players who can create their own shot. The Cleveland roster has too many players who are one-dimensional. Dean Wade is a very good wing defender that apparently refuses to play offense. Sam Merrill is a three-point shooter and though he’s a better defensive player than given credit for, if his shot isn’t falling, why should he get minutes?

Toronto’s length gave the Cavs troubles. The Knicks’ versatility was a problem. That’s what Altman and the front office have to combat this summer. They definitely need another big man to back up Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, assuming no trades involving them, and some bigger wing players.

We thought De’Andre Hunter would be the latter, but he just didn’t work out.

They also need some tougher players, not physically, but mentally. Players who can handle the playoff atmosphere. There were far too many games in the playoffs where there didn’t seem to be a match of the opponent’s intensity.

The defense also has to improve. We have asked over the last half of the season who is responsible for coaching the defense, and we still don’t know. What we do know is it wasn’t very good. The Cavs allow a very high percentage of three point makes, and a lot of that is there are a lot of wide-open looks from long distance.

So, the management stayed the same, but you would think there has to be better results in the 2026-27 season or there could be a complete cleaning of the people running the wine and gold.

One should hope for a busy summer for the Cavaliers.

Can Cavs Rebound After Devastating Loss

Our first thought after Tuesday night’s Game 1 collapse by the Cleveland Cavaliers was how do they come back from that? With a 22-point lead over the New York Knicks with just under eight minutes to go in regulation, two things came into play: First, Cleveland had no answer for Jalen Brunson, and two, they couldn’t make a shot.

Brunson scored 15 points in the fourth, making 7 of 9 shots as the Knicks hit 59% from the floor, and perhaps even worse, made just 5 of 17 from the floor, and no player in a Cleveland uniform made more than one shot from the field.

The problem for us was the lack of adjustments. If James Harden is making shots, then he is worth having on the floor, because he was who the Knicks were targeting on the defensive end. But he wasn’t, making just one of six, in addition to dribbling the clock down so the Cavs took a lot of bad shots down the stretch.

And we know Kenny Atkinson trusts Harden because of what he has done in the league and his veteran status. But when New York made it a single digit game, he needed to be on the bench, in favor of either Max Strus, Dean Wade, or even Keon Ellis.

Harden isn’t the Cavs’ best player so there isn’t a need to defer to him. The Cavaliers needed to win the game. Simple as that. And besides, it’s not as though Harden wouldn’t start tonight.

And Atkinson should be called out for doubling Brunson when the score got closer under three minutes to go. After Evan Mobley hit a three, the Cavs still had a 97-89 lead with 3:09 remaining. After OG Anunoby split free throws, followed by a weird loose ball foul on Sam Merrill, New York’s next four field goal attempt were threes.

The first make was with Cleveland up by seven. You should be defending the three, not allowing an open look. They missed with the Cavs up six, but on the next possession, they allowed another three point make and then another up three.

Defend the long range shot and if the Knicks are going to score, give them twos.

We also don’t want to hear the fatigue excuse. Cleveland was dominating this game, and there were plenty of opportunities to get some rest for the primary players. Jaylon Tyson didn’t even play. Ellis played just five minutes.

If the Cavs were tired from back-to-back seven game series, they should have gone into the contest with a plan to dust some guys off the bench and give them some court time.

We do want to single out Mobley, who has showed he can raise his game. He was outstanding with 15 points, 14 rebounds, and three blocks. And even Dean Wade decided to shoot the ball, hitting 3 of 5 threes and scoring in double figures for the first time since game six of the first round.

But the big question continues to be, can the Cavs come back from a devastating defeat. Yes, they did win game seven against the Raptors after the RJ Barrett shot to win the game. And they came back after getting blown out on their own floor in game six against Detroit.

This could be different. They dominated the Knicks for 40 minutes. Unfortunately, this isn’t college and the pro game is 48 minutes. Can they pick themselves off the mat again?

Don’t Know What To Expect From Cavs Tonight. That’s An Issue

The Cleveland Cavaliers seized home court advantage in the conference semi-finals against Detroit with a stirring overtime victory in Motown. All they had to do was win at home and they would advance to the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Knicks.

But the Jekyll and Hyde nature of this team came out and they were dominated in game six at Rocket Arena. Now, either they win tonight or they clean out their lockers tomorrow.

Perhaps the tone was set in the first quarter when the Cavs forced three consecutive missed shots and Detroit kept the possession alive with three offensive rebounds, and after the third Cade Cunningham hit a three.

The Pistons had 13 offensive rebounds and Cleveland had just 24 on the defensive end. Add in the Cavs’ 39% shooting from the floor and you can see why Kenny Atkinson’s squad lost by 21 points.

There is an old saying in the NBA that role players play better at home because they are more comfortable, but Cleveland got little off their bench, getting just 5 of 19 shooting from Max Strus, Dennis Schroder, and Sam Merrill, while Duncan Robinson, Marcus Sasser, and Paul Reid scored 40 points.

And remember, Sasser and Reid didn’t play much early in the series, so kudos to JB Bickerstaff for trying something different. Atkinson has gone away from Jaylon Tyson and Keon Ellis.

So, Atkinson isn’t using anyone taller that 6’5″ off his bench right now. The fact that Bickerstaff has been able to move off Isaiah Stewart and go to Reid talks about roster construction. Atkinson’s third big man, Thomas Bryant has been of no use in the series.

But the thing that sticks out about the Cavaliers’ team is simply the sense of urgency. We have heard people blaming the coach for this, but really, it’s not up to Kenny Atkinson to let the players know a potential series clinching game is important. If they don’t understand that, it’s a big problem.

However, with James Harden and Donovan Mitchell, the Cleveland offense comes down to one-on-one play, with the guards breaking down their defender off the dribble. And if both aren’t playing well, the Cavs are in trouble.

Mitchell shot 6 of 20 Friday night and has shot just 28.3% from three in the series, compared to the 36% in the regular season. Harden had eight turnovers. Detroit’s Ausar Thompson has been a defensive menace, but the Cavs don’t seem to realize he is shooting gaps looking for deflections and steals and are still throwing lazy passes on the perimeter.

And one reason Thompson can be disruptive is because Cleveland gave someone 22 minutes who has absolutely no interest in playing offense. We know. We know Dean Wade is a tremendous perimeter defender, but Thompson has managed to put up 39 shots in the series. Wade has taken just 14.

That’s unacceptable.

So, which Cavaliers’ team will show up tonight? We wish we knew. Before the playoffs started, we made the observation that we wouldn’t be surprised if the Cavs lost in the first round, nor would we be shocked if they went to the NBA Finals.

We’ve seen nothing to make us change that opinion. After 13 playoff games, that’s not optimal.

When Will Cavs Play A Complete Game?

This playoff season for the Cleveland Cavaliers is becoming very frustrating to watch. Outside of Game 1 of the first round series against the Toronto Raptors, Kenny Atkinson’s squad hasn’t played a complete good game.

They won Game 2 despite not playing well and were victorious in Game 5 because Dennis Schroder willed them to a triumph in the fourth quarter and won Game 7 because Jarrett Allen had an epic third quarter. They simply have not played well, not at the level a team wanting to make a deep run in the playoffs should be.

Another maddening trend is the falling behind early. In Tuesday night’s loss in Game 1 against Detroit, they fell behind by 16 after the first quarter, trailing 37-21.

Despite all that and a slew of turnovers, James Harden being the main culprit in that area, the Cavaliers fought back and tied the game with 5:28 remaining. They had a chance to take the lead after Cade Cunningham missed a three, but Harden’s floater was blocked by Jalen Duren at 5:01 left.

By the way, we read a lot of criticism of Harden, some of it justified, but to us, without the trade, Toronto wins the series. The small backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland get eaten up by the Raptors’ length.

After Harden’s shot was blocked, Cunningham drove to the basket twice in a row and found Duren for a pair of dunks, and then after Evan Mobley missed an ill-advised three, he dunked again and with three minutes left, the Cavs were down six.

We don’t like to blame coaches too much, but there are definitely things to question. Atkinson allowed Jarrett Allen to pick up his third foul in the first quarter, so he played just six minutes in the first half. However, he only played 12 minutes in the second half and fouls weren’t an issue then.

The Cavs need Allen available because at least in Game 1, Evan Mobley seemed to be not strong enough to guard Duren. Again, the lack of size, in this case, bulk is a problem.

We understand Dean Wade is an excellent defender and a darling of the +/- crowd, but we are sorry, but when he’s on the court, Cleveland is playing with four offensive players. He played 27 minutes and took three shots, a tip in, and two threes. As for being a “connector”, he had just one assist.

In 200 minutes of play in this post-season, Wade has taken 42 shots, 29 of them threes, and has just five assists. It’s not that he can’t shoot, it’s that he refuses. And that puts a burden on Donovan Mitchell and Harden, who face double teams because opponents know Wade is not an offensive threat.

By contrast, Jaylon Tyson, who is also a solid defender, who can also pass and score, has played just 127 minutes, taken as many shots as Wade, and has 16 assists.

It’s only one game, that’s what we keep telling ourselves, but this is the playoffs, and a team can’t expect to win playing in spurts. They must be able to play well for an extended period.

Just when are the Cavaliers going to play with some force and urgency? That’s the big question going forward. They have to win one game in Detroit. Tonight, would be a good time to do so.

A Game 7 Win And A Date With The Pistons

The nice thing about the NBA playoffs is that after every series, you start with a clean slate. So, that the Cleveland Cavaliers had a tougher time than expected with the Toronto Raptors means nothing when they start the Eastern Conference semifinals tonight against the Detroit Pistons.

As for game seven, the Cavs found themselves down 47-38 with 2:58 left in the second quarter. Max Strus drilled a three, got a steal which led to two free throws from James Harden. After an offensive foul drawn by Strus, Harden knocked down another three, and after another turnover, Jaylon Tyson hit another three and the home team went into the locker room tied.

The third quarter was the Jarrett Allen takeover. Allen scored 14 points and grabbed 10 boards in those 12 minutes, and Donovan Mitchell added nine more as Cleveland outscored the Raptors 38-19 and basically put the game away.

You can’t minimize what Strus, Tyson, and to a lesser extent Sam Merrill did in that quarter although Allen was clearly the star.

Strus did a little bit of everything, the all-around game the Cavs need, scoring 12 points with 8 rebounds and five assists. And we are a fan of Tyson (and would like to see him get more time) for the same reason. He had 7 points, 9 boards, and 4 assists.

And we would be remiss if we didn’t mention Evan Mobley’s aggressiveness in the first half. He wound up in foul trouble, but he had 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists in 27 minutes. At times, his passiveness drives us crazy, but he came out to make an impact.

So, now it is on to the top seed in the East, the Pistons, who also needed seven games, and had to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the series, to defeat the Orlando Magic.

Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris took almost half of the Pistons shots in the first round series win and were the only Detroit players to average more than 11 points per game. By contrast, Mitchell and Harden, who took the most field goal attempts for the Cavs, combined to take 41% of them and Cleveland had four scorers who average more than 11 points per game, and Strus scored 10.3.

The Pistons did not shoot the three ball well in round one, knocking down just 32.7% of them, and Cunningham and Duncan Robinson made 40 of the 68 conversions. We would point out though that Toronto didn’t shoot the three well in the regular season, but the overhelping Cavs defense provides opponents with some wide-open looks, so Detroit may do better in the series.

Another challenge will be the physicality the Pistons play with, particularly their big men, Jalen Duran and Isaiah Stewart. Duran had 28 offensive rebounds in the Orlando series and Ausar Thompson had 25 more. The Cavaliers outrebounded Toronto for the series, but that was a result of the 60-33 advantage in the deciding game.

They will have to keep Detroit off the offensive glass.

Hopefully, the Cavaliers learned a lesson Sunday night and will come out with more intensity and physicality, especially on the defensive end in this series. And they don’t have homecourt advantage, meaning they will have to win at least one in the Motor City.

For all of the complaints we had about the Cavs’ play in round one, that all gets erased. It’s a new series and a new set of challenges.

A Game Seven For The Cavs And Perhaps A Mandate?

We will repeat, before the NBA playoffs started, we were asked about the chances of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and we replied that we could see them getting to the NBA Finals and we could also see them losing in the first round.

Today, one of those things could come true.

In we were scoring this series as a prize fight, we would score it as the Cavs winning the first round (Game 1), and every other game would either be even or in favor of the Raptors. No, Kenny Atkinson’s crew hasn’t played well in this series.

We figured Cleveland had the two best players in the series in Donovan Mitchell and James Harden, but we were wrong. Scottie Barnes has been that, averaging 24.2 points, 9 assists, and 5.7 rebounds per game. He has been to the line 47 times in the series, compared to just 14 for Mitchell, and that is not a complaint about the officiating. Barnes has been the most aggressive player on the floor.

And remember, Immanuel Quickley, Toronto’s starting point guard, has not even played in the series, and Brandon Ingram, who we felt would be another problem for the Cavs, missed the second half of game five and all of game six.

There is a game seven today, because the Raptors have exposed what is wrong about the Cleveland roster.

We have complained for several years about the lack of bigger wings, and certainly Atkinson has no one to really combat the 6’8″ Barnes, and really 6’6″ R.J. Barrett and 6’7″ rookie Collin Murray-Boyles have also given the Cavs fits. Although part of that could be giving their most physical wing, Jaylon Tyson, who is 6’6″, just 15 minutes per night.

Atkinson is giving one-dimensional Sam Merrill and Max Strus more time than Tyson, and frankly, we don’t understand it. Strus started out strong in the first three games but has made just 2 of his last 11 long range shots. For the record, Tyson has outrebounded and out-assisted Merrill in the series, despite playing less minutes.

And we didn’t mention all three are getting more minutes than Dennis Schroder, who saved the wine and gold in game five with a tremendous second half performance.

The other problem with the roster assembled by Koby Altman is there are too many one-dimensional players. The Raptors have much more versatility.

Dean Wade, who is 5th in minutes in the series, is a great defender, particularly on the perimeter, but an unwilling and inconsistent shooter on offense. Sometimes it appears he can’t wait to get the basketball out of his hands.

Merrill works hard defensively, but let’s face it, if he’s not making shots, he’s a liability on the floor. Strus always brings hard-nosed play and toughness, but he’s not reliable in his shooting.

And none of them have the ability to create shots for themselves, outside of Schroder, who attacks relentlessly.

Compare that to Toronto. Heck, Jamal Shead is scoring just 8.2 points per game, and shooting just 37% from the field, but he’s made an impact with his defense. Ja’Kobe Walter, who averaged just 7.4 points per game in the regular season, is scoring 10.8 per game in the series.

There is simply more energy off the Raptors’ bench.

Part of this is the style of offense used by Cleveland since the Harden trade, which features more isolation and one-on-one play. Toronto is basically double teaming the ball, figuring no one else can make a play. And it’s working.

Can the Cavaliers win today and advance? Sure. But, the next round, be it against Detroit or Orlando will likely present the same challenges.

And by the way, we didn’t even talk about the lack of toughness…

Raptors Bringing Physicality. Can Cavs Answer It?

To quote the great Jim Nantz, “it’s a tradition like any other”. Nantz, of course, is talking about The Masters, but we could use the same line to describe the performance of the Cleveland Cavaliers in their series against the Toronto Raptors.

It started with the first-round loss to the New York Knicks four years ago, when the Knicks started playing a physical brand, some might say, playoff brand of basketball and the wine and gold just never matched it.

Opponents play with force, a physicality, and the Cavaliers simply don’t match it. And that’s what has happened up north, and the two teams come back to Cleveland with the series tied at two games apiece.

To be it simply, Scottie Barnes bullied the Cavs in the two games in Toronto and Kenny Atkinson’s crew hasn’t answered back. Following Friday’s game three loss, Atkinson switched Dean Wade on to Barnes, moving Evan Mobley to Brandon Ingram, and to some extent it worked, they held the Raptors to 93 points, and the two Toronto forwards shot 12 of 37 from the floor.

But Barnes got to the line 14 times, had nine rebounds and six assists. Wade and Mobley were just 7 of 16 from the floor, and the latter had nine rebounds.

Barnes is attacking and the Cavaliers haven’t seemed to have challenged him all that much. Conversely, especially in game four, the outside shot wasn’t falling for Cleveland, yet they kept hoisting the three, taking 40 of their 87 shots from beyond the arc. They made just 10.

The Cavs looked to take control of the game in the middle of the second, third, and fourth quarters, only to see the Raptors close each time. In the second quarter, Cleveland led by seven (33-26) with 1:40 remaining, only to see Toronto close the half on a 12-3 run.

In that quarter, Dennis Schroder and James Harden started taking the ball to the basket and combined for 11 of the team’s 19 points, going 5 of 9 from the field. The rest of the team went 3 for 14.

Cleveland led 56-48 with 3:53 remaining in quarter three only to see the Raptors go on a 12-2 spurt to lead after three 60-58.

And of course, in the fourth quarter they had an eight-point lead at 84-76 with 4:55 on the clock, but the Raptors closed the game on a 17-5 run.

We hate to blame a coach, but we have to wonder what Sam Merrill is giving the Cavs, especially if he isn’t making shots. He did make 3 of 7 on Sunday, but prior was 3 for 10 in the series. And in game four, didn’t have a rebound or an assist.

In the playoffs, we think you need more all-around players. We felt down the stretch the Cavs needed someone else who could take the ball to the basket. Jaylon Tyson is willing to do that and he’s also a stronger rebounder and defender than Merrill.

This is the playoffs. The physical play is enhanced. As for the rotations, the coaching staff needs to go with the hot hand(s). Thomas Bryant needs to play if for no other reason than he’s a big body. Atkinson seems to have gone away from Keon Ellis, who hasn’t done much, but Schroder should get more time. There is no reason he should have played less than Merrill.

We understand Harden is taking a lot of heat nationally, but to us, it’s clear Mobley has to step up from both a physical standpoint and be more aggressive offensively. And Wade needs to shoot if Toronto is ignoring him.

They are doubling the guards and several times Wade took the ball into the paint from the wing, then turned around and passed the ball back outside. He has to be more aggressive offensively.

The Cavaliers can still win this series and really must win the series. They didn’t get Harden to lose in round one. But they have to be more physical.

What we don’t know is are they capable of doing that.