CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers played their least inspired game of the season in their 126-113 loss to the Toronto Raptors. They were awful on defense, couldn’t make any outside shots, and their two All-Star caliber centers contributed less than 10 points each. This all added up to another dropped game in what has been an up-and-down beginning of the season.
This rocky start might not be adversity, but it’s at least more than they faced at the start of last regular season. The Cavs won their
first 15 games and had mostly smooth sailing through their 64-win regular season. The process of going through that didn’t prepare them for when they were punched in the face by the Indiana Pacers and had their good injury luck turn against them last May. They wilted under the pressure of their first real adversity.
Whether or not going through regular-season hardships like this is necessary to winning a championship can be debated. The Oklahoma City Thunder didn’t need any, as they won 68 games and the NBA Finals last season. At the same time, Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle often credited his team’s poor start and their need to come back from double-digit deficits as a reason Indiana was so prepared for playoff success.
There’s no one road to playoff success. Based on how things are going, the Cavs’ potential path will likely look much more like Indiana’s from last year than it will Oklahoma City’s. And according to Donovan Mitchell, that’s what this team needs.
“I hate to sound like a sicko, but this is great,” Mitchell said. “Last year, you started 15-0, blowing teams out, you never really got mentally tested. … In those 13 games (to start the season), you’ve had 13 different scenarios. We’ve had blowouts. We’ve had come-from-behind wins. We’ve had [games where we had] given up a lead and still won. … There’s different things and we’re learning so much.”
One of the things this team needs to figure out is how to best use Evan Mobley offensively. He started the season with an incredibly high usage. That didn’t yield great results on the court, which resulted in head coach Kenny Atkinson having a conversation with Mobley, saying that he wanted his star forward to find a better balance and get back to his strengths.
Mobley had arguably his most encouraging offensive games of the season the day after that chat. He scored 19 second-half points against the Raptors while going 6-7 in the restricted area on Halloween. Mobley was still the focal point of the offense, but he was getting the ball in places he could attack.
That wasn’t the case on Thursday. Mobley was an afterthought on offense, wasn’t getting the ball in places he could attack, and wasn’t exerting much effort to get the ball. This led to him scoring just seven points on as many shot attempts.
Atkinson said afterward that the “ball finds energy” when asked about Mobley’s lack of shot attempts. While that’s true and Mobley deserves blame for that, it doesn’t seem like he knows where he should be or what he should be doing on the offensive end.
That’s an issue.
This will be a process for Mobley. He’s not going to transform into the offensive superstar he has the potential to be overnight (if he ever does at all). The road, however, hasn’t been as straightforward as it seemed like it would be based on last season’s leap. That, however, isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the long run.
“A lot was put on him expectation-wise and rightfully so,” Mitchell said of Mobley. “He’s done the work. He’s been there, but it’s never going to be perfect, right? There’s going to be nights where tonight, he struggled, but he’s also the same guy last time, he had 29 [points] and figured it out.
“So, let’s understand that there’s going to be ebbs and flows. There’s going to be days where we have to get on him. There’s going to be days he’s going to have to figure it out. But like I said, it’s all part of the process.”
The defense is in a bad place right now. They posted their worst single-game defensive rating of the season due to their inability to stop drives to the basket or contest the three-point shot. Right now, there doesn’t seem to be a clean strategy or guiding principle on that end of the floor. Or at the very least, when the execution is as bad as it was on Thursday, those principles aren’t apparent.
Despite what the team says, this is an offense-first group. That’s fine, but they need to be much better than what they’ve shown defensively this season if they want to allow that offense to lead them to success this spring.
Craig Porter Jr. is turning into a capable backup point guard. He’s looking like the player he was during the brief 15-game stretch of his rookie season, where he was an impactful role player every night. Former head coach J.B. Bickerstaff constantly said at the time that the next test for Porter would be whether or not he could adjust to teams once he was on their scouting report. It took just over two years, but Porter seems to have finally done so.
Atkinson challenged Porter over the summer on what he needed to do to reach the next level. That included getting in better condition so that he could be a high-energy reserve who can guard 94 feet and improving his jump shot. He’s done both and is reaping the rewards.
His offensive skills are able to show through because Porter is now a three-point threat. He’s gone from someone who could make threes — he shot 43.8% from beyond the arc last season on less than one attempt per game — to someone who’s actually willing to take them when the defense goes under on screens or he’s simply left open. That’s made all the difference.
Larry Nance Jr. shouldn’t be getting minutes over Thomas Bryant at this point. Nance’s struggles continued on Thursday. He was out of position on defense, had some ill-advised turnovers, and wasn’t able to make a positive impact on either side of the ball. This hasn’t been an isolated incident. It isn’t just that his outside shot isn’t falling, Nance has just simply been bad.
Bryant isn’t a perfect player, but it’s tough to argue after his performance on Wednesday against the Miami Heat that he couldn’t be more helpful than Nance at this point. That’s why he, and to a lesser extent Nae’Qwan Tomlin, got Nance’s second-half minutes.
Nae’Qwan Tomlin once again showed that his skill can translate to an NBA court. He did a great job of fitting in perfectly to his role and what he needed to do to be successful while playing with All-NBA players like Mitchell and Mobley. That’s exactly what you want to see from someone in his position, as he registered 18 points and five offensive rebounds.
“He’s starting to figure it out,” Mitchell said. “It’s all the little things. It’s the cuts when I’m driving and he gets the dump-offs. … Teams are going to load up on me. What are you going to do? Are you going to stand there? No, you’re going to make the right play.”
Skill hasn’t necessarily been the concern for Tomlin. He has the handle and shot to be an NBA player. The question has been whether he could fit onto a team with more talented players. He’s shown that he can the last two games. We’ll see if that can continue.
Even though there isn’t a reason to panic, the Cavs are very much a work in progress. The offense is out of sync, they haven’t found the most efficient way to use their All-NBA second team forward, and their defense looks much worse than their overall rating would indicate. There’s time to fix all of these issues. Whether or not they do will go a long way in determining whether this rough patch at the start of the season ends up being a useful experience in the long run.
“These are great tests for us and great battles,” Mitchell said. “And I’m not, we’re not worried as a group. We have things to fix, don’t get it twisted. But this is a good place and a good thing for us to learn.”
