CLEVELAND — For the first time in five games, the Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t bailed out by their offense as they fell to the Miami Heat 120-103.
“If you want to win in the league, you have to commit to defense,” Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said before the game. “Point blank, you’re not going to win in the playoffs if you can’t defend. … You need that mentality first. Personnel definitely contributes to that. And schemes are a third.”
Right now, the Cavs are missing parts of all three of those ingredients,
leading to another poor defensive performance.
Let’s break those elements down in the order Spoelstra laid out.
The defensive mentality just isn’t there for the Cavs. Good defenses aren’t just sometimes making the correct rotations; they do so every time to the point that there’s a sadistic joy in how they’re able to constantly beat their opponent to the spot they want to be, no matter how much effort it takes.
That just isn’t a priority for the Cavs right now. They’ll have a possession where there’s some extra effort, or an individual player might be hustling, but all five guys aren’t on a string like they need to be great.
You can hide bad defensive players. You just can’t hide ones that aren’t competing on that end. The Cavs have too many guys that fall into that latter bucket to be effective right now.
Second, the Cavs don’t have the personnel to be a dominant defense without Jarrett Allen (knee) and Dean Wade (ankle). There isn’t enough resistance at the point of attack to be good. That’s what happens when you have Donovan Mitchell and James Harden in your starting backcourt.
That issue is exaggerated by the lack of wing defense as well. Wade is a good defender, but his injury history and inconsistent offense make it difficult to fully trust him in the playoffs. And there aren’t many good options outside of that. Neither Max Strus, Jaylon Tyson, nor Keon Ellis has the size to handle bigger threes. That, inherently, limits how effective they can be at the point of attack when they’re guarding up a position.
The entire foundation of this defense is based on the idea that Evan Mobley and Allen can clean everything up. They’ve shown they can do so with the Darius Garland and Mitchell backcourt — they just haven’t been on the floor long enough to prove they can with this iteration.
Lastly, the scheme just doesn’t make sense.
The Cavs are overcompensating for their poor point-of-attack defense by collapsing too much into the paint on drives. They’re doing so even when the primary defender is in a good guarding position. This unnecessary help allows for clean three-point looks that are just an easy pass away.
Here are nine examples of the Cavs giving up clean three-point looks because of overhelping.
There’s sound logic to wanting to lock down the paint. However, when it’s taken too far — and the execution falls short — it can lead to disastrous results.
“It’d be great if we sat here and said, ‘Yeah, we have no flaws,’ but no team has no flaws,” Donovan Mitchell said postgame.
It isn’t difficult to figure out that defense is this team’s major issue. However, he’s also right to point out that every team has weaknesses — including the top championship contenders. The teams that are best at hiding their shortcomings are the ones that will separate themselves in what is a wide-open playoff field.
The question is whether the Cavs can mask this issue in a way that isn’t just as simple as scoring 125 points on the other end. That’s what they’re going to be using the last nine games to figure out.
“That’s going to be our entire focus, how can we get to the level defensively that we’ve shown at times this year?” Sam Merrill said.
Despite what NBA coaches say, offense is more important in the postseason.
Coaches never have to get their team to try offensively, but that’s a common issue on the other end. That lends to this being a consistent point of emphasis. At the same time, it’s also fair to wonder how much the defense is going to limit their playoff ceiling, given how elite the offense has been — this game notwithstanding.
The Cavs have been fourth in offensive rating since Harden’s debut. They’ve done so with a much more diverse offensive profile than last year’s team, which isn’t solely built around the three-ball. This version of the Cavs has been elite at generating cleaner looks at all three levels and getting to the line in a way last year’s team wasn’t.
It’s also worth pointing out that defense always gets better in the playoffs. The amount of game planning you can do, combined with the increased physicality, naturally lends itself to better defensive play. Offense is what truly separates teams, and what has led to the Cavs’ downfall in their last three playoff runs. And they still will have two elite rim protectors in Allen and Mobley to help mitigate some of the issues we’re seeing.
Even though the on-court product hasn’t been great, the Cavs are confident that they can turn things around before the games really start to matter.
“I have no doubt that everyone in this locker room is ready,” Mitchell said of the playoffs. “We have some things that we can clean up and fix. We have time to fix it, and we’re going to continue to build upon that. … We have a group that’s ready, that’s hungry, and I think we’ll be ready to go.”
