CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands, Chris Fedor and Jimmy Watkins dive into the NBA’s $100,000 fine against the Cavs for resting Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley — and they don’t hold back. It’s a fiery episode packed with honesty, frustration, and a hard look at whether the Cavs are ready for a “come to Jesus” moment against one of the league’s toughest teams.
Takeaways:
Why were the Cavs fined by the NBA, and what was the Chris Fedor’s reaction?
The Cleveland Cavaliers were hit with a $100,000 fine for violating the NBA’s player participation policy after resting two star players, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, during a game against the Miami Heat. Chris Fedor called the fine “absurd,” arguing that the league was being “tone-deaf” to the circumstances. The group pointed out that the Cavs have had one of the most taxing schedules in the league, having played 15 games in 27 days with three back-to-backs. The decision to rest Mitchell and Mobley was presented as a smart, cautious move by a team trying to manage a grueling schedule and preserve player health for a championship run, not an arbitrary decision to sit stars.
What is the core conflict between the NBA’s policies and the reality of the season?
Host Ethan Sands argued that the NBA “wants it both ways”: it wants to prioritize player health while also guaranteeing star player availability for fans and national TV broadcasts. The league has implemented a 65-game minimum for awards and a stricter participation policy to make the regular season matter more. However, the physical demands of the game have never been higher, and the schedule has been condensed, partly due to the new NBA Cup. This creates a paradox where teams are penalized for making data-driven decisions to rest players to prevent long-term injuries, which would cause them to miss even more time.
How might the NBA’s policy on resting players backfire?
Jimmy Watkins pointed out the irony that the Cavs were essentially fined for being honest about resting their players. The new policy may simply encourage teams to be less transparent. Instead of listing “rest” on the injury report, teams will likely start citing minor, unverifiable issues like “illness” or “tightness” to sit players without incurring a penalty. This means the policy won’t actually increase player participation but will instead incentivize dishonesty, defeating the rule’s intended purpose while undermining the league’s relationship with its teams.
What makes the Houston Rockets a uniquely difficult matchup for the Cavaliers?
The Houston Rockets present a significant challenge because their style of play directly targets the Cavaliers’ biggest weaknesses. The Rockets boast the NBA’s #1 offense despite playing at a slow pace, a feat they achieve by dominating the offensive glass with their “Glass Brothers,” Steven Adams and Alperen Şengün. They rebound nearly 40% of their own misses, creating second-chance opportunities that break down defensive structures. This is a massive test for a Cavaliers team whose rebounding has been a “ground zero for red flags” and was a primary reason for their playoff exit against the physical New York Knicks last season. The Rockets are described as “the final boss of that Knicks team.”
Why is the Rockets game seen as a critical “benchmark” for the current Cavaliers team?
This game serves as a crucial barometer for the Cavs’ toughness and identity. The hosts believe the team is still “searching” for a consistent identity, a sentiment echoed by coach Kenny Atkinson’s frequent description of their play as “clunky.” The Rockets play a physical, confrontational style, which will test whether the Cavs can dictate the terms of the game or if they will be bullied. It will challenge the effectiveness of the Evan Mobley-Jarrett Allen frontcourt and force the Cavs to prove they can win the “possession battle” against a team that excels at it. How the Cavs respond to Houston’s physicality will reveal a lot about their readiness for the rigors of playoff basketball.
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Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and could contain misspellings and errors.
Ethan Sands: What up, Cavs Nation? I’m your host, Ethan Sands, and I’m back with another episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. And joining me today, you got us three once again, Chris Fedor, cleveland.com, cAS beat reporter, and Jimmy Watkins, cleveland.com, tomus are on the show once again. But before we get into the Cavs vs Rockets matchup on Wednesday night, we’ve got to start with this because it’s already lighting up the fan base. The NBA hit the cavs with a $100,000 fine for violating the player participation policy after Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley shout out the Wednesday game against the Miami Heat on November 2012 for rest and on paper. Yeah, those are two guys that the league and the NBA national TV and marking matchups you want to see on the floor. But in reality, the Cavs have had one of the most taxing starts to a season, as shown by Cleveland playing in 15 games to this point and the Houston Rockets playing in just 12. Both guys, Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell, have already taken on heavy workloads and Cleveland’s been navigating injuries, as we all know. So the question then becomes is the league doing players a disservice by trying to legislate rest in a league that’s never been more physically demanding? Or are teams doing fans a disservice when stars sit, especially on the road where fans only get one shot to see them? Chris, I know you got thoughts on this because it feels like we’re at the point where the NBA wants it both ways. They want player help to be the priority, but they also want the guarantee of star availability. So where do you fall on this? Is this policy good for the game or is it actually creating more problems than it’s solving?
Chris Fedor: Guys, I’m about to go full radio mode here. In radio, we call it a monologue where you start the show and you just go on a rant. I’m about to go full radio. Tap into my radio background because Fining the Cavs $100,000 is absurd. It’s absolutely absurd, especially given the schedule that they’ve been forced to play. Going into Tuesday night’s action, no team had played more games than the CAVS. They’ve played 15 in 27 days. They’ve had three sets of back to backs. A fourth one is coming this weekend. There have been two, three and four game stretches. One stretch with five games in seven days already. Four of their first five games to start the season were on the road. Seven of the first 12 were away from Cleveland. Think about that. Teams are concerned, and rightfully so. This is a troubling trend in the NBA. And teams like the Cavs should have the right to navigate this grueling schedule in the way that they see fit. Teams like the Cavs should be allowed to do what they think is best for. For them. It’s their job to try to preserve the health of their players. It’s their job to position themselves to compete for a championship. And sometimes, guess what that means. Resting guys. Sometimes that means being extra cautious with injuries. Sometimes that means monitoring minutes. Sometimes that means not going overboard. In the regular season, the game has never been faster. Last season, 15 teams played with a pace factor lower than 100. Fifteen teams, half the league played with a pace factor lower than 100. This season that number is six. Six teams. Think about that. Combine that with this condensed schedule. What do league decision makers think is going to happen here? Of course injuries have risen. Of course stars are missing. Look around the league. Wemby, LeBron, Giannis, Ad Kawhi, Ja Morant, Zion Williamson, Paulo Bancaro, Trey Young, Jalen Williams. All of those guys are out or have been out. And that’s not even close to the full list of guys. Max Drus hasn’t played this year. Darius Garland’s only played three games for the Cavs. So look like I totally get the league wanting to promote participation in the regular season. And, and they’re doing everything that they can. They’ve put this 65 game mandate in when it comes to end of season awards. They want the regular season to matter. They want these guys to play in the regular season. And I get them wanting to preserve the integrity of the regular season and make it somewhat meaningful because there are teams around the league that kind of snub their nose at the regular season and say, hey, wake me up in May or wake me up in April, wake me up maybe in December, right around Christmas when we start taking things a little bit more seriously. Every season it’s different. And every team is going to approach the regular season in a different kind of way. But these teams like the Cavs, the teams that are choosing to rest guys for the benefit of themselves, where they’re trying to be smart, they’re trying to survive this exhausting, taxing, 82 game grind. Like if the league isn’t going to shorten the regular season, and it’s not, we all know they’re not going to shorten the regular season because there’s too much money involved, then something else needs to be done. Because the most important thing is to try to keep these guys healthy. Isn’t that the most important thing here? Yeah. Of course you want them playing a random Wednesday night in Miami. Of course you want them on the floor, especially with these elevated national TV games. Yeah. You want fans who pay really good money that pay for a ticket that go to games to see these guys in person. It may be their one time to see Wemby, their one time to see Donovan Mitchell, their one time to see Evan Mobley. You want them to have that opportunity. You want them to be able to create those lasting memories and feel like they’re getting their money’s worth. But if these teams can’t make their own choices without consequence, like if they can’t rest these guys or quote, unquote, load, manage throughout the regular season, then that one Wednesday in Miami or that Friday in Boston or that weekend in Washington, D.C. or whatever it is, that’s going to turn into three weeks, four weeks, two months. Because their bodies can only handle so much. Because their bodies are going to break down throughout the course of the regular season. If they play this many minutes, if they travel this much, if they play back to backs and 3 and 4 and 5 and 7, the rigors of this schedule have never been greater. And if they’ve invested all this money in trainers and sports science, people think about the Cavs and the number of different people that are involved in these kinds of decisions. They’ve invested in those people for a reason. Because they’re really, really smart and because they provide interesting, important information that informs the decision of president of basketball operations Kobe Altman and head coach Kenny Atkinson. So if the Cavs have invested all this money in all those smart people and they say to them, hey, you know what? It’s best to hold out Donovan Mitchell this one night. Or you know what? It’s best to hold out Evan Mobley this one night. Why can’t a team do that without penalty or consequences? Isn’t that their job? Aren’t teams supposed to be able to make whatever decision they think is best for them? A $100,000 fine for doing that? Are you kidding me? The Cavs are trying to be smart here. They’re trying to do what they can involving their players health and a $100,000 fine for that? That’s ridiculous. It’s completely ridiculous. And it’s the league being tone deaf because teams around the NBA are shouting from the rooftops, hey, this is a problem. Hey, we’re worried about this. Did you Hear what Golden State warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. He’s not the only one saying it. And I think the league really needs to rethink this policy. And I know that they want the regular season to matter, but I think they’ve gone a little bit too far in terms of that and losing sight of, of the bigger picture here, which is supposed to be player health and player safety.
Jimmy Watkins: The funniest thing about this to me is that the Cavs essentially got fined for being honest about this. You can rest guys if you lie about their injuries.
Chris Fedor: Just put illness from now on. Yeah, just say hey man, which is.
Jimmy Watkins: What’S going to happen. That’s what’s going to happen. It’ll be, it’ll be like Donovan Mitchell tightness or Evan Mobley illness, any. Anything like that. That’s the funniest. The Cavs actually were just tried to play more by the rules and they got punished for it. To the point about the league, like, I do feel for the fans, particularly like the fans who grew up league least like I did. I don’t know about you guys. Like we. I basically went to like one or two NBA games a year, sat up in the rafters. You choose that game very carefully based on when your favorite player’s coming to town, if that player is an out of market player, and if that just so happened to be the time where that player is DNP resting like that legitimately sucks.
Chris Fedor: It does.
Jimmy Watkins: And you are legitimately, you know, ruining a fan experience. And Tom. Tom Habershow has a story up today at Yahoo. That star participation percentage in the NBA. Part of the reason the Cavs got fine here is because Evan Moby and Don Mitchell are both considered, quote unquote, star players. Which means, I think it means all star and or all NBA team within the last three years. There are 45 players that meet that criteria this year. And those players are missing are playing about half the games that they did in 2023, 24 again, all according to Tom Haberstrough over at Yahoo. Has done great work on this stuff since like the beginning of the dmp. Rest up with the spurs and Kawhi and all that stuff. Does anyone remember what happened in 2023, 24, what was novel about that season? The NBA cup, which of course we all respect on this podcast. We respect the cup. But what the NBA cup does in addition to allegedly, I’m still not sure, adding more interest to the regular season. In addition to that, it tightens the schedule, it condenses the schedule, particularly at this point at this point in the season. Right. Bans all these games together. And this is that. That’s what triggers all these com. These, like these load management conversations is when you’re playing a bunch of games in a short period of time. And to the NBA, I would just say, like, you’re doing this to yourself. We all understand that they’re not going to ever shorten season by number of games. Can you stretch it? Can we go from October until late June? Can we go from October till even early July? I know those aren’t the best times to be watching television historically, but historically, that’s also the times where there haven’t been sports on television.
Ethan Sands: I don’t know.
Jimmy Watkins: During the pandemic, some of those playoff games were good where getting decent numbers because they were the only things on television. Right. You’ll never know unless you try. And I don’t think it’s the craziest idea for the league to try and shorten the season by like 10 games, but I know that those concerns will fall on deaf ears. Like it’s just a non starter for the owners. Sorry, the governors. So just do something else. Like try anything instead of just stomping your feet and insisting that nothing’s happening here. Like, this also reminds me of during the off season when Adam Silver insisted that they hadn’t found any evidence. No. No correlation between the length and intensity of the season and all these Achilles injuries. Like, give me a break, dude. Give me a break. That’s ridiculous. You haven’t. If you haven’t found it, that’s because you haven’t found it yet. There’s not enough data yet. And you know what data means in this case? It means more serious injuries to star players. And like, that’s. That’s what we’re trying to avoid here. And the NBA is just sticking its head in the sand and covering its ears and going na, na, na, na, na na.
Chris Fedor: Yep. You know, I want to go back to something that you said about consumers buying tickets. And I get the frustration of it. Look, when I was growing up, it was the early to mid-90s, and I was the biggest at the time, Cleveland Indians fan. But it was more so a Manny Ramirez passion that I had. And this was before Manny became Manny, the guy who was in the lineup every single day at this time, he was splitting time and it wasn’t a guarantee that he was going to be playing. Sometimes it was Wayne Kirby, sometimes it was some other schmuck. And this was before Twitter, obviously, before you got that information way Ahead of time. So I would go to the ballpark with my dad, with my sister, and the first thing that I would do is I would look up at the giant scoreboard and I’d be like, is Manny playing today? Or I’d look down on the field and see if Manny’s out there taking these warm up tosses and stuff like that. And sometimes Manny was playing, other times Wayne Kirby was playing. And in that case I just walked around the concourse or I did whatever else I wanted to do. The bottom line is whether it’s a rock concert, whether it’s a sporting event, whatever the case may be, the minute that you buy that ticket, a harsh reality. But the minute that you buy that ticket, there is no guarantee that what you are purchasing is actually going to be what you want it to be. I’m a huge Linkin park fan. My favorite band of all time. What if I buy a ticket for Linkin park six months in advance or something like that, and their new lead singer, Emily Armstrong comes down with a cold and she can’t sing that night? The show goes on, right? It’s not exactly what I bought the ticket for, but that’s the risk that you run any. Because these are human beings here, these aren’t robots. And nothing is guaranteed, especially in life. And there is always a risk that you, that you run into anytime you purchase any ticket for any kind of event. I love Trans Siberian Orchestra. What if like one of the main singers isn’t there? I love shows on Broadway. What if I buy a ticket for a Broadway show and instead of Nicole Scherzinger I get the backup person because it’s a Saturday night instead of whatever night it may be, who knows, you know what I mean? Like they can’t just give you a refund on that. You bought the ticket and certain things happen, life happens and that’s always a risk that you’re going to run. And I just don’t think there’s any way that any of these smart people, whether it’s NBA commissioners or whoever, is involved with these decisions. I just don’t think there’s any way to minimize the risk to the level that they’re hoping to minimize the risk to.
Ethan Sands: All right, guys. And as we get into this next topic, when we’re talking about the fans that are going to come watch the game tomorrow between the Cavs and the Houston Rockets. And the Cavs at Rocket arena have had a sold out crowd for every game in defendants this season, which is great to see. But also there are going to be people who drive in, fly in, or try and come watch Darius Garland play and are still not going to have that opportunity. Darius Garland’s out. Jaylon Tyson’s out. Max Stru is still out. Sam Merrill is questionable with that hand injury that he suffered from, but also played through in the last contest against the Milwaukee Bucks. But I do want to get into the intriguing part of this game because fans that are coming are not only coming because it’s the regular season and potentially it’s their only time getting to come. But for fans that have the luxury of coming to playoff games, it could be a potential meaning game for them and what they could be looking forward to because to me, it’s a really good checkpoint for where Cleveland stands against the Western Conference. We keep talking about the Eastern Conference Finals being this team’s baseline. Like if they do not reach the Eastern Conference finals, there are going to be changes, significant changes. And even if they don’t get to the NBA Finals, there could be changes as well. But a matchup like this tells you whether that ceiling is actually climbing or if the Cavs are still vulnerable to a certain kind of physical, disciplined opponent. Because Houston comes in with the number one offense in the league at the time of this recording and a top 10 defense. And even though the Cavs defensive rating over the last four games is fifth best in the NBA, they haven’t faced an offense built like this. The Rockets don’t play fast. Obviously they’re bottom five in pace, but they don’t necessarily need to guys. They’re able to weaponize their size, their length and their athleticism in the half court. They grind teams down, they win physical battles and they create a ton of second chance opportunities that almost function like transition because defenses are scrambling and out of structure. And as we know for the Cavs, some of them are trying to get defensive rebounds while others are leaking out to try to get into transition when it comes to defensive rebounding. So Jimmy, I’m curious, how has Houston built an offense that doesn’t rely on pace at all, but still being able to leverage their athleticism, create advantage in the half court and keep possessions alive even when the first shot for them doesn’t necessarily go down?
Jimmy Watkins: The Glass Brothers, baby. The Glass brothers. Stephen Adams, L.P. shengun, Clint Capella. There’s just size. The size never stops. Stephen Adams is one of the greatest offensive rebounders of all time. At this point. You just watch like every time a team comes to town, like you look at their Basketball Reference and their NBA.com, all this stuff you try, okay, what’s, what’s going on with this team. And it’s like the Houston Rockets just don’t make any sense, man.
Ethan Sands: On paper.
Jimmy Watkins: Number one offense. The number one offense in the league. Okay. I think they might be last. When three Pointers attempted, they don’t shoot very many threes. They make the ones that they take, but they don’t shoot very money. They’re bottom 10 and 2 point percentage, too. The shootout, they get a lot of free throws up. Okay, 28th in pace, seventh in field goal attempts. What’s going, what, what’s going on? It’s because they, they rebound 40% of their own misses, 40%, 2 and 5 chance that guy. That thing’s going up there, they’re going to get it back. And like you said, a defense on the second chance opportunities defense is going to be out of place. Houston breaks your defensive principle. If you’re trained, particularly in the era of transition where everyone’s trying to get out and run as soon as they can, Houston’s like, ah, no, you’re coming back here because you’re. It’s going to take all five bodies for you to keep us off of the glass.
Ethan Sands: Right.
Jimmy Watkins: I also, when I think about the Rockets, I think about something that Kenny Atkinson’s been preaching start the season, which is that if you win the possession battle in the playoffs, you win the game. And I’m looking at the Cavs profile from that perspective. Their turnovers have gone up a little bit this year.
Chris Fedor: They were four.
Jimmy Watkins: They were top five. Taking care of the ball last year. Turnover rate, they are 11th this year. It’s gone up like 1.3%. I think it was 13.1% last year. It’s 14.4 this year. Obviously, no, Darius Garland for a chunk of the, of the, of the season will contribute to that.
Ethan Sands: But the Pat.
Jimmy Watkins: We, we anticipated that coming in the season too, because the Cavs are going to try to play faster, right? And when you play them faster, sometimes your mind doesn’t always come catch up to your body. Or maybe I have those. Those mix just happened to me right there. How about that? Life imitating art. So the turnovers are up, but they’re like 11.
Ethan Sands: They’re.
Jimmy Watkins: They’re pretty good at taking care of the ball. The rebounding is the whole. This is like the ground zero for Cavs. Red flags, right? Go back to the Knicks series when they got bullied out of the play. And it wasn’t just rebounding. It was the way that the, the Knicks Played with more force for them. It’s the, the ground zero for the Jared Allen conversation. It was our first Evan Mobley’s in Unicorn. We’re sure about that. Like first, first time we had, we had those conversations. The Houston Rockets are just like the final boss of that Knicks team. They’re better on defense. The other, the other weird thing about their offense, they don’t really have a point guard right now because Fred Dan Lee got hurt before the season. Still number one offense in the league. It’s crazy, but they are huge and physical and they are strong in many areas. Where we have questions about the Cavs. Ethan and I talked about this last week. Year five of two bigs, 17th and rebounding. That’s supposed to be one of the biggest sells of this roster construction. It just has never come to fruition. I think last year their overall rebounding numbers were pretty good at some points because they had good offensive rebounding spurts. They were tactical about it. Like the Cavs have never. This, this question has never gone away. We could, yes, the Pacers series was about mental toughness. The Rockets are going to test you physically and I think that’s why this is a really good measure, like a good benchmark type of game for the Cavs at this point in the season. Because if you’re not engaged for this one, you’re going to get smacked.
Chris Fedor: Yeah, I think Kenny Atkinson said following the, the Bucs game the other night, like if we bring our B game against the upper echelon of the league, it’s, it’s not going to be well. We eked out a win the way that they did against the Bucks with Giannis playing 13 minutes. And Jimmy, I think you bring up an interesting point because Houston plays the two bigs because it’s advantageous and they gain something from it. And the theory behind most teams in the NBA play two bigs is that hey, we’ll win the possession battle, we’ll control the glass, we won’t give up second chance opportunities. We’ll get some second chance opportunities. We’ll get some rim protection, we’ll get all that kind of stuff. Houston seeing the benefit of that in a way that the Cavs aren’t. And it raises more questions. It felt like for a long stretch that Evan Mobley, Jared Allen, they kind of asked, answered the question that so many people were asking about can these guys play together? Can the Cavs have a high level offense with those two guys together? Is the split sp spacing going to be too funky? Do they benefit enough from those two guys together. And. And this year, there just hasn’t been the same benefit that the Cavs were hoping to get out of that. They should, in theory, be doing what Houston is doing. If you have Stephen Adams and you have Sengun, you’re like, hey, going into every single game, we’re going to win the rebounding battle. We’re going to control the boards, we. We’re going to control tempo because we’re not giving up offensive rebounds and things along those lines. That’s what the Cavs should do, too. But it just. It hasn’t been to their advantage the way it is. Houston’s the other thing that stands out to me about the Rockets last year. They played in a lot of close games and where they were in terms of their organizational development, they were still kind of learning how to win those games, learning how to handle the pressure moments. And Fred Van Vliet was really, really good for that because he was a champion, because he had played in big games before, and he was like a mature adult stabilizing force around a lot of these young kids that were still trying to figure it out. And then this off season, they had an NBA champion, a future hall of Famer, and I was watching their game the other night, and down the stretch, they had different places that they went, but it was all around Kevin Durant. Either him getting the ball, him being the creator, or him being a decoy that opened up shots for his teammates. And now they have that. They have that in late game situations, and that allows them to. To say, hey, like, one of the things that we struggled at in the past, one of the things that. That was problematic for us once we got into these playoff environments, we have. We have a solution to that. We found a solution to that. And Kevin Durant is going to be. And he has been an ideal fit for them in part because of those things. He’s going to make it easier on the. And not just in late game situations, but throughout the course of the game as well. And that was a missing piece that they had, and now they don’t have to figure it out to the same level that they did last year. It just feels like their developmental curve was accelerated. And going out and getting KD was like a vote of confidence for Alperin Shangoon and where he was ready to go and Amend Thompson and where he was ready to go and some of these other guys that they already had in their program, they just needed somebody that could potentially bring it all together and kind of fix some of the weak points that they showed and Katie has certainly done that.
Ethan Sands: And guys, part of the reason that I think this is a good matchup for the Cavs is kind of like good matchups when it comes to the depth area, right? Like, because as you guys mentioned, Stephen Adams is one of the best rebounders in the NBA, but he’s coming off the bench, right? He started the season as a starter. He played two games as a starter. Now he’s coming off the bench. Now you tell Kenny Atkinson in the Cavs, hey, so Stephen Adams is coming in. You guys have Evan Mobley on the boards. Not necessarily a bad thing, but he’s not going to be able to withstand what Stephen Adams brings in that capacity. Also, hey, forgot to tell you, Wheat shepherd is coming in to play point and is going to be not only a menace defensively, but he’s their version of Sam Morrell, right? So there’s that, right? Challenging this Cavs team depth piece because we’ve talked about that a lot this season, about how this cast team’s depth is being utilized more because of the injuries that they sustain, but also the difference in the two teams when it comes to philosophy. IME Hodoka does not play. He lets Ahmed Thompson get into scraps. He lets off Rin Sengun talk smack. He lets these guys get into the faces of their opponents and push them around and test them mentally. The Cavs are free flowing. The Cavs are happy go lucky. The Cavs are playing soccer and football and all these other things during practice. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there are two very different styles of coaching and one shows that they’re ready for the physical challenges of not only the regular season, the 82 game grind that we talked about earlier in the podcast, but also the playoffs. And Chris, to your point, that’s part of it, right? KD was a stamp of approval for Alf, Rin Shangun and Amen Thompson, but also the system of the Houston Rockets as a whole, like we came into this season. Oh, they’re kind of new. Are they really a contender? ESPN has them in their number two tier when it comes to teams that are in contention for an NBA championship. And I want to get back to the rebounding issues for the Cavs really quickly because I feel like this is the overarching perspective of where the Cavs are going to have to show their best improvement this season. It’s the rebounding issues come from two different directions because offensively they’re taking a ton of threes, which naturally leads to long rebounds as we know. And even when they crash, those misses can spark transition. That’s where slower and bigger lineups get exposed. So if the Cavs do go with Evan Mobley and Jared Allen, you can literally see those guys lagging behind in transition. And I’m not saying again, Stephen Adams is not the fastest guy, Alfred Shanghun is not the fastest guy, and the Rockets are by no means a run and gun team. But Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. Are plenty capable of turning those defensive rebounds potentially when they’re already at half court into easy buckets and big problems for the Cavs. Defensively, teams have been pulling the Cavs bigs away from the basket, which takes Jared Allen and Evan Mobley out of their sweet spots for rebounding, and that’s forced Cleveland into more of a group rebounding mindset. And you can see Donovan Mitchell and Lonzo Ball really lean it into that, and that’s important for this team. But it also deteriorates what they’re bringing offensively, even slightly, because we know Donovan Mitchell is exerting himself to the max. But the real thing for me when it comes to this Cavs and Houston Rockets game on Wednesday is how Houston chooses to dictate take the gate. They can try to slow the pace down and enforce their style of play, which takes the Cavs out of their rhythm, or they can actually be more reactive and adjust to whatever Kenny Atkinson decides to put out there and still have an upper hand in those groups. And that’s where I think it gets tricky for the Cav, because the Rockets have the talent to pull the Cavs out of their principles without Cleveland even realizing what’s going on until it’s basically too late. Because just by forcing them to plug leaks, I feel like possession by possession. And that’s what Kenny Atkinson keeps saying. Winning the possession battle is extremely important and what Houston does makes that extremely difficult. On everything that we learned about the Cavs this season and last, I think.
Chris Fedor: The interesting thing is that when you were a team like the Cavs, when you have these championship aspirations and you’ve got this depth with your roster and this high level talent, you should be able to dictate terms, shouldn’t you? And it just doesn’t feel like the Cavs have. Now, I know it’s only 15 games in, it’s very, very early still November, but I think if you’re the Cavs, you say, you know what, bleep it. We’re going to do what we do better than you do what you do.
Ethan Sands: And it just doesn’t feel like they.
Chris Fedor: Have that mentality right now.
Jimmy Watkins: That’s the sign of a. I think Chris has used the term searching to describe the caps early in this season. I think that’s just further evidence. Top down. There’s not. And again, the roster isn’t whole. When you don’t trust the identity that. That you established over a full season last year, that’s insecurity. Top down. That’s.
Ethan Sands: That’s.
Jimmy Watkins: That’s an acknowledgement from within that this thing is off.
Chris Fedor: It does feel like something’s off.
Ethan Sands: It.
Chris Fedor: It does. You know, I know 10 and 5. I know second place in the Eastern Conference. By the way, they’ve only played one Western Conference team, and we all know that that’s the varsity compared to the junior varsity, so that certainly helps that record. They also got Milwaukee with giannis only playing 13 minutes. We don’t have to. Yeah, but some of these wins. But there’s certainly some more to it than just looking at 10 and 5, second place in the Eastern Conference, tied for third in the east in point differential and stuff like that. It does feel like they’re searching. And I think it’s very, very telling that Kenny Atkinson just is not happy at all with the product from the Cavs. I mean, how many different times has he used the term clunky? It’s 15 games in. If you want to look at the doc that we transcribe every single game, Clunky’s gonna appear on there at least 10 times. So there’s this standard that the Cavs have set, and it just. From Kenny’s perspective, it doesn’t feel like the Cavs have played or exceeded that standard enough for his liking. And I think he knows that something’s a little bit off with this team, and I think he knows that they aren’t at their best. Now, you can sit here and you can ask yourself, well, is Darius Garland going to fix all of that? Is. Is Max Strus coming back eventually going to fix all of that? And it’s like they’re going to help. There’s no doubt that they’re going to help. It just gives this team a completely different ceiling. But there are other things that are meaningful to the Cavs that are supposed to be telltale signs about their chances of winning the Eastern Conference and their chances of winning a championship. And some of those things that are supposed to matter and become habitual just aren’t happening to the level that Kenny wants them to happen at this point. And you can tell that in just listening to him.
Ethan Sands: Talk about this team, this cast team is most interesting because of exactly that. What they say is what we know or what we see is what we know. And the entirety of this Cavs organization continues to come back to whenever we ask what is this team’s identity? Because nobody seems to want to actually define what this team’s identity is. They say defense first, okay? You are going to play the number one ranked offense in the league. And the way to end defensive possessions is by grabbing a rebound. Some area, as Jimmy put earlier, that the Houston Rockets thrive off of grabbing offensive boards. And I think for this team, as Chris said, the challenge is staying grounded, controlling pace and actually playing to the pace that they want to rather than getting bogged down, stuck in mud or in the same pace to. Whereas the Houston Rockets want to play and as we mentioned earlier on this podcast, they don’t like playing fast. They like playing in that mid range game. They like playing on the boards, they like playing in the half court to utilize all of their weapons how they see fit. But the Cavs need to be able to hunt matchups on their terms, which is important because we keep talking about this Evan Mobley, Jared Allen dynamic, right? How are you attacking in transition? How are you attacking in the half court? How are you setting these guys up for success and what the Cavs cannot let them do. And I said this earlier because to me it feels like Houston is going to dictate. The Cavs cannot let Houston’s adjustments drag them out of who they want to be. And still, as we keep saying, it is unclear who this Cavs team wants to be. But that’s the chess match that I’m expecting.
Chris Fedor: There’s also this. The Rockets love the paint. They tend to dominate the paint and on the offensive end of the floor without Darius Garland, without Max Strus, without all that constant movement and the cutting that was so good for the Gavs last year they were number one in points per possession on cuts and they’re in the bottom half of the NBA in that this year. So the, the Rockets control and tend to dominate the paint and on the offensive end of the floor. Through the first 15 games, the Cavs have been mostly allergic to the paint. So that’s going to be fascinating to see. Now the Cavs have been good relatively at protecting the paint because they have Evan Mobley, they have Jared Allen. They’ve played some less than stellar opponents. That’s part of it as well. But how are the Cavs going to handle a team like Houston that, that loves getting into the paint and and has been dominant from that perspective in their first 12 games. It’s a really big test for Jared Allen. It’s a really big test for Evan Mobley. It’s a big test for if Dean Wade is going to play some small ball four or however the Cavs are going to choose to deploy him. Naquan Tomlin, his energy, his activity. How ready is he for what he’s about to see from the Houston Rockets? Kenny Atkinson’s been talking about in his own mind. He’s wondering, hey, is Naquan ready for playoff level basketball? Maybe you can get a glimpse of that on Wednesday night. How ready is he for what he’s going to have to deal with in terms of Houston and all the size and the length and the sturdiness and the bulk and the strength that they put out there on the floor. So big time test for the Cavs in terms of how they decide that they’re going to attack when they’re on the offensive end and how they’re going to try and limit the fact that Houston has owned to the paint in most of their matchups.
Jimmy Watkins: Yeah, I’ll just reiterate the defensive identity point, which is to me, of the many head scratching disappointments that we’ve had so far with the Cavs this year, that’s the biggest one because as we’ve addressed ad nauseam, the personnel is slanted such that you should have a better defense right now than you did last year. And it’s just been up and down. Engagement’s been up and down. If you can flip a switch, this is the one you better the Rockets don’t really have a point guard. Reed shepherd dribbles, Amon Thompson dribbles. But they’re not point guards. Pressure the ball, take it from them.
Jimmy Watkins: Make it hard on them. Right. The Houston Rockets, they got Kevin Durant, they got Jabari Smith, they got Reed shepherd. But a lot of time there could be two non shooters out there. Defense should be easier for you. At least the part where you stop them from scoring. The rebounding, I mean that’s the rebounding thing is everything. The Houston Rockets will crush your soul and let you know about it. And I wonder, I, I can envision the Cavs getting absolutely stomps tomorrow and I wonder if they need that. I wonder if they need like a real come to Jesus moment. And I, and I know that you ask across the league, the Houston Rockets are very good at getting you to talk to your God.
Ethan Sands: And with all that being said, that’ll ramp up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, but remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to Subtext. This is where you can get live game updates for this Houston Rockets vs. Cleveland Cavaliers Ball game on Wednesday night, but the only way to do so is signing up for a 14 day free trial or visiting cleveland.com/cast and clicking on the blue bar at the top of the page. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. All you have to do is text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast. It’s your podcast and the only way to have your voice heard it through Subtext. Y’ all be safe. We out.
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