The Cleveland Cavaliers’ series loss to the Indiana Pacers in the second round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs marked a devastating end to their title pursuit after all the success they enjoyed in the 2024-25 regular season. Some players for the Cavs weren’t at the top of their games in that series, and that included forward De’Andre Hunter.
Hunter averaged just 9.0 points per game while shooting 36.7 percent from the field and 30.8 percent from 3-point range, but he’s tried hard to learn from his mistakes in that series. The series apparently replayed in Hunter’s mind “all summer,” and he watched a whole lot of tape to look at what went wrong.
“HUNTER REPLAYED THAT series in his mind all summer, watching hours of tape to identify issues to address, holes to fill,” ESPN’s Jamal Collier wrote. “He skipped film of the win but zeroed in on the losses.
“He came to a revealing, but perhaps unsatisfying, conclusion.”
The conclusion Hunter came to was that a lack of mental toughness played a large role in the Cavaliers’ downfall and second-round exit. He said the Pacers were “mentally stronger” and that the Cavs were kind of “mentally weak, at times.”
“It was more mental than anything,” Hunter told ESPN. “Game 1, that’s the game we’re supposed to win. We win that game and the series is completely different. We just kind of were mentally weak, at times, and they were mentally stronger.”
Hunter doesn’t think a lack of talent or physicality ended up costing the Cavs the series.
“I don’t think it was anything physical,” he said. “I don’t think it was any skill gap. I literally just think it was all mental.”
Ultimately, Hunter and the Cavaliers won’t be able to prove definitively that they are mentally tougher than they were last season until the 2026 NBA Playoffs roll around. After last season’s success, fans know this team has little if anything to prove in the regular season, but the games, of course, still matter.
Hunter has taken on a larger role with the Cavs in the 2025-26 campaign. After he primarily held a bench role with the team last season, he’s started every one of the five games he’s appeared in thus far as Cleveland has navigated injuries.
While he has been in a pretty rough shooting slump to kick off his first full campaign as a Cavalier, it’s far too small of a sample size to be legitimately concerned about his trajectory. Hunter has converted just 38.4 percent of his shots from the field and 27.9 percent of his 3s up to this point.
With any luck, he will get out of his slump against a tough opponent on Wednesday night. The Cavaliers are taking on the 5-2 Philadelphia 76ers, and a big scoring night against one of the top teams in the East so far this season could go a long way toward Hunter getting his rhythm and confidence back. However, he is questionable to play against the 76ers.