Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson laid out several goals in his introductory press conference last July shortly after taking over. His main objectives were these: modernize the offense, position Evan Mobley to take the next step, align Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, and determine how to utilize the two-center lineups.
To say he met those goals would somehow be an understatement.
The Cavs went from the 16th-rated offense in 2024-25 to the best last season.
Mobley made his first All-Star game, won Defensive Player of the Year, and was All-NBA Second Team.
Mitchell and Garland both played some of their best basketball at the same time, as Mitchell earned All-NBA First Team honors and Garland returned to All-Star form.
The Cavs had a blistering 120.8 offensive rating when both bigs were on the floor last season and a 12.2 net rating. For the sake of comparison, the Cavs had a 111.3 offensive rating and 0.9 net rating the year before when both bigs were on the court.
All coaches set out lofty goals and things they want to improve on before a season. Not many accomplish all of them as convincingly as Atkinson did. It’s part of the reason he was the runaway winner for Coach of the Year.
But for all the progress the Cavs made, they won the same number of playoff games last season as they did in J.B. Bickerstaff’s last year with the team: five. That simply isn’t going to cut it.
The Cavs’ issues seemed straightforward going into last season. Now, it’s not as clear, which makes Atkinson’s task for next season more difficult.
How do you better prepare a team that has mastered the regular season, but still hasn’t come close to imposing its style of play against a similarly skilled opponent in the playoffs? How do you empower the supporting players who shrink in their roles in the postseason after they starred in them for 82 games? And most importantly, how do you keep your best players from giving into their worst habits when the games matter most?
There isn’t an easy answer to any of these questions. There also isn’t anything that they can truly prove in the regular season that can make you believe these won’t be problems again. However, these are the questions that Atkinson will need to solve this year.
In some ways, everything went too well for the Cavs last regular season. Their baseline offensive and defensive strategies held up throughout their 64-win campaign. Even when they lost, it was because of poor execution, effort, or just missing shots. There was never a recurring flaw that they needed to counter if they wanted to be successful against other elite teams.
Atkinson seemed to know this at the time as well. He tinkered with different gimmicks for possible playoff matchups (the zone defense). But nothing really stuck or felt worth focusing on given how well their core principles worked.
This ultimately left them unprepared for when they faced real adversity in the second round against the Indiana Pacers. Injuries were certainly a problem, but not having any alternatives defensively when the switch-easy man defense and the 3-2 zone were getting repeatedly exposed was a problem as well. On the other end, not being prepared to slow down the pace and exploit mismatches contributed to giving up two leads of 19 or more in the second round.
How do you solve these issues? Does another year of continuity help you get over those hurdles? Were injuries the sole reason why they collapsed so spectacularly? If so, how do you stay
Atkinson took over a talented but flawed team last year. He knew what the issues were and fixed nearly all of them before their 15-0 start to the regular season. He made incredibly difficult tasks look easy.
In many ways, Atkinson’s challenge for this season is much tougher. There are known issues, but most of the problems don’t have simple fixes. There isn’t some drill or offensive scheme that keeps teams from melting down under playoff pressure.
Atkinson will have six months to prepare the Cavs for the playoffs. We’ll find out then whether or not he’s done so next spring.
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