After the recent acquisition of Donovan Mitchell, the Cavs have been catapulted into title contention with an 8-2 record. They have the second best record and the highest net rating in the NBA. They’re one of the most interesting and fun teams in the NBA. They have an amazing coach and a great young core that’s already top 5. Their success this season cannot be pinned to one thing, its multiple things that makes this team great.
To start, they have 3-4 all star caliber players. Darius Garland is an elite point guard who quarterbacks the 4th best offense in the NBA. While he was out for a portion of this season, he’s back now and looks great. He shoots the ball with confidence from far past the arc. He can score off the dribble with the best of them and is an elite off the dribble shooter. He’s very accurate despite taking hard movement shots and contested shots off the dribble. He has an amazingly quick first step and can finish at the rim through contact. While he’s not a great defender on ball due to his lack of strength and lateral quickness, he’s great at jumping passing lanes and providing value this way. He’s also a sensational passer, especially as a lob passer. His accuracy on these passes is immaculate and he’s got two great big men who catch lobs very well.
One of whom is also a very fun player, Evan Mobley. Mobley uses his length and agility to be an elite weak side rim protector. He’s agile and has a quick leaping ability which allows him to be one of the better weak side rim protectors in all of basketball. On the offensive end, he’s versatile as well - he’s a great rim runner and lob catcher. He can shoot a bit, it’s not perfect but his touch seems promising. He uses an array of moves to score at the rim. He’s very fluid with his movements and is fundamentally sound, not forcing anything and making smart plays. He’s not a spacing killer but shooting threes isn’t his role not is it Jarrett Allen’s.
It’s surprising to me how Allen and Mobley can coexist where neither are floor spacers or great shooters, but constant movement forces defenders to keep an eye on you. Both Allen and Mobley set screens very well and catch lobs, that’s Allen’s primary offensive role. The Cavs also have lots of smart off-ball players and floor spacers which help the offense function.
JB Bickerstaff has done a great job of coaching this team and scheming around their best players. They run lots of screens, on ball and off ball, for their best players to get open. Garland and Mitchell are both great at shooting off of ball screens, which forces the drop big to play up. They can’t play up too high, or they’d have to rely on the help defenders coming over from the corner to help on one of the best rollers in the NBA. They frequently ran the Spain Pick n Roll, which u/Amdaymond covered very well in one of his articles. Basically, Donovan Mitchell fake-screened for Garland and filled to the wing, then Allen screened for Garland and immediately rim-ran. There are lots of options off of this, and Mitchell got a lot of open threes off this because of all that’s going on.
Bickerstaff also allows players to run split cuts. Similar to what the Warriors used to do, the Cavs had two players screen each other and cut off each other to generate confusion and open looks. On defense, they play a lot of help defense and try to funnel the opponents into the paint where Jarrett Allen and Mobley lie, waiting for a helpless guard to enter the paint just to get smothered by two 7 footers.
On pick n rolls, the POA defender goes over the screen and trails behind the play while the big drops and covers in between the ball handler and the rim runner, not giving up either the lob or a layup by the ball handler. This allows the POA defender to return to the play and pick his man back up. Good mid range players can kill this strategy as what happened last night against the Clippers. Paul George was the ball handler in a few P&R’s and he pulled up from the mid range for an easy 2.
The offense runs smoothly due to having multiple creators (Mitchell, Garland, and Levert are all very good playmakers and scorers) and lots of shooting. Currently, the Cavs are 2nd in the NBA in 3P%, with 39.9% accuracy. Donovan Mitchell shoots an inhumane 45.1% from three with 9.1 3PA AND is in the 10th percentile shot quality (90% of people take better shots than he). Dean Wade and Kevin Love are elite floor spacers that shoot 48.6% and 42.2% from three. Combining Mitchell’s rim pressure and Wade/Love’s catch and shoot abilities forms an extremely high offensive ceiling.
I was worried at the beginning of the year about the Cavs’ point of attack defense. Garland and Mitchell are both small guards who aren’t good on defense, so someone like Steph should kill them, right? Mitchell is improving a lot on defense showing inconsistent but nice defensive effort and lateral quickness. He also has a +9 wingspan, which helps him get a whole lot of steals and blocks for a guard. As I previously stated, Garland is a negative on ball, but he is valuable off ball. Plus, both LeVert and Okoro look like elite guard defenders. Levert is very laterally quick and strong. He’s also pretty long, with a +5 wingspan. Dean Wade also is very solid guarding guards. He’s got very quick feet for his height and can stay with his man well. While he doesn’t get steals often or make huge plays, he’s very good at guarding perimeter players and forcing tough shots.
All in all, the Cavs have an amazing blend of a top 3-5 offense and an elite defense which has made me change my mind on whether they should be a title contender. I believe they are capable of winning the championship, despite being young and lacking in playoff experience.