The Cleveland Cavaliers decided that defense and rebounding were optional on Wednesday night. That, combined with hot shooting from the Boston Celtics, added up to a humiliating 125-105 loss.
Give the Celtics credit. The Cavs repeatedly shot themselves in the foot against an inferior opponent. At the same time, Boston knocked down their threes, had a coherent plan on both ends of the floor, and simply executed their strategy better. Their cohesiveness stood in stark contrast to a Cavaliers team that played like they hadn’t shared the court together before Wednesday night.
The Cavaliers lost this game on the defensive end. It was a repeat of a lot of the issues we saw against the New York Knicks. It’s only been five games, but anytime they go up against an offense with good spacing principles, they completely fall apart.
Head coach Kenny Atkinson has made an emphasis on picking up opposing guards in the backcourt. That has worked sometimes, but hasn’t been the most successful strategy when facing more dynamic guards. The Cavs don’t really have the personnel to make that work, which results in the pressing defender getting blown by and forcing the defense into early rotations.
That is just one of several weaknesses on that end. When you add that into overhelping, not clearly communicating defensive assignments on screens, and not being physical at the point of attack, you can end up with a performance as ugly as this.
Right now, this is a team that seems unaware of what it’s trying to do on that end of the floor when going against a team with good spacing principles and off-ball movement.
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The defensive issues were on top of not being able to get rebounds. Specifically, the Cavs weren’t able to secure missed threes.
Of the Celtics’ 22 offensive rebounds, 12 of them came off missed triples. This led to 19 second-chance points on just missed threes.
This was also a problem against the Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets. Both of which are in the top five of three-point attempts. And when the Cavs have played teams that don’t take as many threes — like the Milwaukee Bucks and the Detroit Pistons — they don’t have this issue.
That’s because the Cavs’ bigs are primarily the ones who get their rebounds. Missed shots close to the rim typically don’t travel far. Errant threes, on the other hand, often bounce to the free-throw line. This is where the Cavs need the guards and wings to help out.
Cleveland’s guards and wings were either crashing the basket on missed threes or just standing by as passive observers. Neither is helpful, as seen in the clips below.
This screenshot better illustrates the point. All five defenders are below the free-throw line when the errant shot draws iron. That leaves nobody home if the ball bounces like you’d expect it to from a missed triple, even though the two Celtics closest to the basket are boxed out.
Even if the Cavs improve their defense, it wouldn’t help much if their rebounding remains this poor.
Things weren’t much better on the other end of the floor. The offense has no balance.
Making a bunch of threes in the first half masked how poor the offense actually was (12-24 in the first half). That became clear after the break when those shots stopped falling (4-28 in the second half). This added up to a whopping 52 three-point attempts.
Good offenses take threes. But good offenses don’t value threes over everything else. Right now, the Cavs are falling into that latter category as they’re consistently pulling whenever they have a sliver of daylight.
There’s a difference between being willing to take threes and taking them at the expense of running any kind of cohesive offense.
This three from De’Andre Hunter is emblematic of the issue. Hunter gets the ball in transition and simply takes a pull-up because he has room to do so, even though it’s contested. This isn’t a high-percentage look considering how early it came in the shot clock.
That kind of shot isn’t the sign of a good offense. It’s one that believes the only desirable outcome is a three-point attempt.
This process left the Cavs attempting just 12 shots in the restricted area and having only 28 points in the paint. You can’t have a good offense if you’re this imbalanced. And this isn’t just an issue with this game. The Cavs have attempted the second-fewest shots within five feet of the basket this season. That needs to change.
Donovan Mitchell looked off. He was added to the injury report a few hours before the game with a hamstring injury, but decided to play anyway. Based on how it went, he probably should’ve sat out. We can only blame Michael Jordan for him giving it a go.
Mitchell simply had no explosiveness, which exacerbated Cleveland’s issues of not being able to get to the basket. He was a step or two slower than normal and was relegated to being a jump shooter. It wasn’t a concern when he nailed his first five triples, but it quickly became one when the outside shot stopped falling.
The Cavs lack shot creators. This time last season, they had a healthy Darius Garland, Mitchell, Caris LeVert, and Ty Jerome. That many off-the-dribble scoring threats, combined with a principled movement offense, can create an incredibly dynamic attack.
On Wednesday, the Cavs only had a hobbled Mitchell from that group. Even though players like Hunter and Lonzo Ball are good fits, their inability to put the ball on the floor and generate their own shot going to the basket has led to a team that is all too willing to take the first open three they see as opposed to actually getting to the rim and the free-throw line.
Adding Garland back to the mix soon will help, but this isn’t a problem that’s going to magically go away. I’m not sure what the solution is. But at this time, the Cavs are far too overleveraged on what Mitchell can create. That isn’t good.