The Tartan

By Jaden Singh

I wrote about the Cavs sometime in the fall and believed that despite what used to be a lackluster standing in the Eastern Conference, the foundations were there for the type of team they demonstrated they could be in the 2022-23 season. Part of my thinking was that maybe Darius Garland, their star point guard, could bring his play back up to previous standards. If he could resume applying interior pressure to generate shots, and if their opponent three point shooting regressed closer to expectation, the Cleveland Cavaliers could probably be pretty good. 

As it turns out, the Cavs are now really good, and have won 17 of their last 20. But they have done most of that with Darius Garland being out with injury, as well as all-defense level forward Evan Mobley. So now I must revisit them. 

First of all — 17 of 20 is obviously an exceptional run by itself, but wow, Cleveland has just been smoking teams lately. Before their win-streak-ending loss in Philly on Feb. 12, the Cavs won by 24, 23, 8, 26, 18, 7, 7, 10, and 12 points. Preceding that last 12 point win in Milwaukee came a 10 point loss in Milwaukee, and then before that: wins by 27, 21, 40, 18, 9, 2, 24, and 39. The Cavs are steamrolling people. Yes, there are a lot of the Wizards, Spurs, and Pistons in there. But everyone plays those teams. Not everyone shuts the door on them after three quarters. And anyways, across the span of the entire season, Cleveland still has the fifth best net rating against top-10 teams. They’ve had strong wins against the surging Clippers and Kings. This squad is a force.

Why? One of my favorite players in the league is Donovan Mitchell, so I’ll start with him. If you’ve watched Mitchell through his years in Utah and now in Cleveland, you can tell when he’s athletically on and when he isn’t. He’s a player who depends on vertical and horizontal explosiveness, so small injuries are noticeable. His first step sags a little, his burst  is reduced when he’s beaten his man, his stepback isn’t as sharp. When healthy though, his combination of acceleration and control makes Mitchell a league-wide mismatch. And right now, Mitchell is in that mode. In this 17-3 stretch, Mitchell is sporting averages of 29 points and seven assists per game, with a 62.5 true shooting percentage. That’s premier.

The biggest strength of the team, though, isn’t offense – it’s defense, like last year. The Cavaliers trail only the Minnesota Timberwolves for the best defensive rating in the league and have lots of positive indicators to show for it. They have the second best opponent two point field goal percentage, the second best opponent field goal percentage inside three feet of the basket, and the third lowest opponent rate of assisted field goals (so they are forcing more one-on-one attacks, which are inefficient). Jarrett Allen remains a stifling rim protector in drop coverage, but Evan Mobley has been missing much of this year and the defense has kept humming. It’s a credit to the wings, which last year were a weakness of the Cavaliers — Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade in particular have stepped up to make opponent perimeter play a nightmare. Crisp switching and rotations also help lock up screening actions and minor breakdowns. Even Donovan Mitchell, usually a defensive liability, has stepped up his play and is one of Cleveland’s best at generating live ball turnovers. 

Midseason runs make postseason projections difficult. How representative can a 25-game sample be? Two years ago, the Celtics went from almost exactly 0.500 at the halfway mark of the season to the champions of the Eastern Conference in May. Like the Cavs, Boston saw a major bump to their net rating and started dominating teams mainly through a bulletproof defense. Cleveland does lack much of the postseason pedigree many of Boston’s stars had already accumulated, but you have to start somewhere. I’m excited to see how much Cleveland can translate to the postseason from what will hopefully be a multi-round bid.