Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Miami Heat, March 5, 2025
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cavs locked up a top six seed in the playoffs with their 112-107 victory over the Miami Heat on Wednesday. In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands and Jimmy Watkins break down the key moments of the contest to explore how the Cavs managed to come out on top.
More Cavs coverage
Kenny Atkinson’s difficult decision gives Cavs fans another reason to love Jarrett Allen — Jimmy Watkins
Cavs punch their ticket to the playoffs with roller coaster win over the Heat, 112-107
How to watch Cavs vs. Heat free NBA live stream today
Takeaways:
Cavs clinched a playoff berth with a victory over the Heat.
The Miami Heat are always a formidable playoff opponent.
Playing a team that could be a first round opponent was helpful for the Cavs.
The Cavs’ defensive fortitude in the fourth quarter was a key reason for their victory.
De’Andre Hunter’s versatility enhances the Cavs' lineup.
Kevin Love’s contributions to the Cavs are Hall of Fame worthy.
Nick Gilbert’s legacy ties into Kevin Love’s return.
The nickname debate highlights creativity and originality in the NBA.
The emotional aspect of basketball is as important as the game itself.
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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
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 today, I got Jimmy Watkins with me, not his alter ego with the three buttons undone. He’s buttoned up. Got the collar on. He’s working it, ladies and gentlemen. We just got done watching the Miami Heat come into town.
and the Cavs had to spoil the first time Kevin Love have returned to Cleveland since 2023 in their 112-107 victory that clinched them a playoff berth. They are the first team to clinch a berth into this year’s playoffs, not just postseason. Ladies and gentlemen, they have secured a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference. This is also the second team.
in NBA history to have three separate 12 games or more win streak. And the other is the Dallas Mavericks from, believe 2006, 2007. Jimmy, this game coming in, a lot of different things were on my mind. Obviously Kevin Love returning, but also the fact that the Miami Heat had six different players on their injury report listed as out.
Tyler Hero being the most notably added later into the day, especially with a head cold. So they relied on Bam Atabayo as they would have even if Tyler Hero was on the floor. But I wanted to get your thoughts on this overall game. What stood out to you?
Jimmy Watkins (01:50.454)
First of all, since you shout out my buttons, I’m thinking with Kevin Love in the building, the championship puzzle that they made where every win was a puzzle piece. Maybe during the Cavs playoff run, I lose a button for every Cavs. No, I won’t do that to our YouTube viewers. is the fastest way. Every series, that seems more presentable, packageable.
Ethan Sands (02:10.961)
Maybe every series, every series.
Jimmy Watkins (02:19.73)
the people. still not what you want, but it could be a fun gimmick for us to do. We’ll workshop. sure, I’ll say this is a good thing Chris isn’t here right now. I don’t think he would appreciate the ingenuity being showed by his two pals on the pod. Yeah, this was, I mean, there’s two ways to look at this. One is, and both are valid, I think. Number one,
The Cavs just played four games and six nights. And the first of those four games was a very emotional comeback road victory against the Celtics. The Portland Trail Blazers win was a very emotional comeback victory. The Chicago Bulls win was a scratching claw until the very end, until about midway through the fourth quarter when the Cavs decided to flip that switch. So this was...
This stretch right here was basically begging the Cavs to lose a dumb game. they tried. They tried on a couple of occasions. the fact that the fortitude that they showed to get through this stretch and when they go down, what is it, five or seven after a bam hits that three late in the fourth quarter tonight, a lot of teams are just like, okay, you know what, we’ll let go of the rope. The fortitude that they showed there is very impressive.
Now how we got here again, is it four and six or is it the Miami Heat being, I mean, the Heat have been a zombie for five years now, ever since the first Jimmy Butler finals run. You can never count them out in any situation, in any playoffs series, doesn’t matter what their seed is. It’s like not quite the same level of dominance, but there’s a little bit of like,
Lebron era calves to him were like, yeah, I just don’t care what their seat is. I have to give them a certain level of respect. And once we get to the postseason and tonight was kind of another was another reminder of that. No Tyler hero, no club where no Andrew Wiggins, no Nikola Jovich. And the heats and by the way, the calves were taking care of business for the beginning portion of the game. by 17.
Jimmy Watkins (04:42.818)
with about three minutes left in the second quarter. And then he went on a 13-0 run in like 90 seconds. And suddenly the are fighting for their lives again. there’s two less here. the Cavs are tired, I think, and we should applaud them again. I want to reiterate, they should be applauded for pulling this one out and coming through, escaping the stretch without the dumb loss that, again, was begging.
to be put on their record after this stretch. But also we always, much like the NBA Cup, we must always respect the Miami Heat. We must never underestimate Eric Spolstra in his junkie zone defenses that took the Cavs out of their flow for stretches tonight. it’s just like, this guy is just, Eric Spolstra has a funny knack for both unearthing rotation players out of nowhere, undrafted land or.
second round Pickville or your G League squad, or we’re just like, we’re going to give this guy Kyle Anderson and Alec Berks in their mid thirties and they’re going to be plus whatever. They both had very positive impacts on the game for the Heat tonight. We have to keep that in mind when we preview potential playoff series between the Cavs and the Heat.
Ethan Sands (06:09.265)
Jimmy, think we also, if we want to go back to the buttons conversation before we move on, you would have to start with like all of them button with a tie. And maybe the first series is a tie and then we get to the finals and then you have it all three buttons down. I think that’s the most viable option. And Chris would, we’ll see, maybe we do it. Maybe we have you do that and we don’t tell Chris and see if he catches on to the buttons.
Jimmy Watkins (06:36.27)
think he would like the more obstacles there are to me getting here, the more he likes. the audio only audience, I gave my shirt an opening right there. So I think the less skin, the better from Chris’s perspective. think that’s the word we’ve arrived at here.
Ethan Sands (06:42.855)
you
Ethan Sands (06:55.463)
Agreed agreed but Jimmy obviously this is a game that could potentially be a first-round matchup when looking at the Eastern Conference standings and we understand that coming into this game I asked Kenny Atkinson about playing against Eric Spolstra and what he does differently than other coaches and just his overall perception around the league, right and
If this Cavs team, this is what Kenny Atkinson said, he said if this Cavs team has to go up against the Miami Heat in the first round, they would have their hands full. The Miami Heat are currently the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference after tonight’s loss. So obviously if the standing continued exactly as they are, the Cavs would play the Orlando Magic who are in the eighth seed. But I still think there is
possibility viability in the opportunity for the Miami Heat to drop down one spot and end up being the first round matchup. When you look at the complexities of the difference in playing against the Miami Heat against two teams that utilize the zone at an abundance and we talked about that a little bit after the game. We’ll definitely get into it in this next segment segment. But with the Cavs having the roster that they do, I think they’re better equipped to go up against
a Miami Heat team, especially the zone that they have, and knowing that they do not have a great history when it comes to going to Miami and getting victories out of that arena.
Jimmy Watkins (08:36.33)
I mean, it’s not, it’s not who you want to see in the first round. Eric Spolstra is for my money, the best coach in the NBA. He is an elite, I mean, possession by possession, micromanager of defense. knows you are, you can come in the Cavs were the best offense are the best offense in the NBA. doesn’t matter who you have on your team. doesn’t matter, frankly, who Eric Spolstra has available that night.
You come, you step onto the floor with his team. You’re going to be in a weird rock fighty type basketball game. Given the kind of team that he has right now. thought Kenny had an interesting line after the game is quoting his college coach. said that zone defense is the ultimate talent equalizer. Cabs have, if we were drafting the best players from both of these teams tonight, how many, I mean, other than bam, we’re probably taking.
six straight calves off the top. Maybe Tyler Hero sneaks in there if the heat are fully healthy, but it didn’t matter. Especially particularly with the offense that Kenny likes to run. It’s so rhythm based and movement based and there’s a flow to it. It’s like has this energy and the zone is there to interrupt your flow, render your movement useless because now we’re not
We’re not running into defensive defenders are running into each other trying to keep track of switches or anything like that. I just have this area and the other guy has this area. You guys can set all the screens and run all the pretty offball actions you want. Although I will say the heats, who was the rookie they kept throwing out there tonight? Pell Larson, is that his name? He allowed at least two egregious backdoor cuts against the Cavs tonight. He’s still learning.
He’s still learning. So there are still some opportunities, but for the most part, the zone is designed to counter a lot of the things that the Cavs do well and muck up their offense. And it worked really well tonight. The other thing that it did in the fourth quarter, and this is a pattern with, with Miami packing it in and protecting the paint. think Kenny saw less of an advantage with, with the two big lineups with the size and the scoring inside. So we went to.
Jimmy Watkins (11:04.236)
Deandre Hunter instead of Jared Allen and that gives that gives the Cavs a shooting boost. The best way to beat the zone is to shoot teams out of it. It also gave the Cavs a another viable playmaker in the heart of the zone. They were throwing Deandre Hunter and the high post throwing him the ball and he was making some pull at mid rangers. He was directing, he was sort of running the show a little bit from that spot. They had Donovan do that a couple of times tonight too.
And it’s just, that’s making the calves change their shape. don’t even know if it’s making them get out of what they do best anymore because the De’Andre Hunter trade has set them up with a different kind of lineup that, that might also like the longer we look at that, and this could be a conversation that we keep having throughout this podcast, the longer we look at De’Andre at the four and Evan at the five, we could well decide that that’s the best look for the calves as a closing lineup.
in the playoffs. I’m gonna write about this in the morning. Jared Allen in last four games has played nine minutes and 35 seconds total in the fourth quarter. He averages six fourth quarter minutes per game. He has not closed any of those games. And the Boston game, the Boston game and the, I think it was the Portland game combined, one second.
one second of fourth quarter playing time. right. So this is the De’Andre Hunter trade was a hard decision that the Cavs made, sacrificed a little chemistry with George, George Niang and Caris Levert in and of itself. The thing about hard decisions sometimes is that they beget more hard decisions. So now you’ve acquired this really well-fitting piece. Kenny, how many times has Kenny said, I can’t believe how fast De’Andre Hunter is fitting into what we do. He doesn’t even know.
All of our defensive schemes. we don’t, Donovan was saying after the game tonight, we don’t call plays for Deandre because he doesn’t know him yet. He just fits in really well. That’s great. The problem is it’s now you have a guy on the, whose face is on the side of the building that faces the basketball arena and Jared Allen, who isn’t closing games sometimes. And maybe in the highest leverage of playoff series, that is, that could become the norm. So it’s, I think the Cavs are.
Jimmy Watkins (13:31.15)
because they’re so close, because Kenny has the pre-existing relationship with Jarrett, they are well equipped to handle this chemistry challenge, but it is a challenge, both inner personally and like if you’re Jarrett Allen, this is, it’s not like a, it can mess with your rhythm, it can mess with your, I’m not just gonna say it messes with his confidence, but it’s a weird thing.
for a guy that we all agree is a foundational piece of the franchise to have to go with.
Ethan Sands (14:06.437)
think that’s a good point but I think everybody on on the Cavs has basically said it in some kind of different way but like if it wasn’t Jared Allen it would be a bigger problem than it is. Like Jared Allen understands that he is the fourth member of the core four he understands that his role can change at the drop of a hat and he’s seen it this year he’s seen it in past seasons as well as Evan Mobley has developed now it’s just
more prominent because you have a better option as the backup power forward, right? You don’t no longer have to go to George Nyang. And this again, like Jimmy was mentioning, goes into the trade and how it looks to the playoffs as like George Nyang wasn’t going to be able to play in those fourth quarter minutes. Was not going to be able to play in the playoffs at all in some cases, right? If you look at the Boston Celtics.
He got played off the court. He wasn’t going to be able to play against some of those guys. But now you have Deandre, who is not only capable of playing against those guys, but he might well be the best matchup for a lot of these different teams. You look at Tyler Heroes of the world, the Bam Atabayos of the world. You had Max Strews play great in the fourth quarter, guarding up against Bam Atabayo. That also was a reason because they had Deandre on the floor.
playing kind of perimeter defense and figuring out where everybody else was on the floor and switching that with Evan Mobley to deter Bam to Max and they got that matchup that they wanted even if it was a different look. That’s the other thing because Bam had seen Jared, Evan, Deandre throughout the game. Hey, let’s throw Max on him. See what he can do a little bit differently. What he remembers from playing alongside him in Miami. See if he can get under his skin, whatever.
And that changes the dynamic of the game. So again, the small forward argument, the power forward argument is gonna consistently change and Kenny Atkinson keeps saying this. And Jimmy, think another good question that you asked today was about the rotation minutes in the playoffs and how those are going to change. Why the great question, why do the Cavs feel like they have to shorten or shrink in
Ethan Sands (16:24.079)
their rotation when it comes to their starters playing 35 to 40 minutes heading into the playoffs. And Jimmy, I want to get you to go into that a little bit more, but Kenny Atkins' basic answer was, is the star players are going to play star player minutes and they have to be ready and physically capable of carrying that load and being ready for it starts now rather than waiting for the end of the season.
or when they get into the playoffs and having them have to revamp up like some teams do with resting their star players at the end of the season. Kenny said that’s not necessarily the way they’re gonna go. They’re gonna actually put more on their stars heading into the latter half of the season so that they’re ready for these playoff minutes, for these playoff scenarios.
Jimmy Watkins (17:14.584)
Well, I didn’t ask that one, but I’ll certainly take credit for it. I’m happy that I am not above the Spencer Davies of HSI who asked it was a good question, but I’m happy to take credit for Spencer’s hard work right there. The Cavs have already done the thing that you just alluded to. They have spent most of the season getting their bodies ready for the playoffs the other way. Short, we’ve talked all season, Donovan Mitchell.
barely about 31 minutes a game, Darius, Evan, Jared all hovering at or below 30, which makes this 52 and 10 start all the more incredible. But it makes sense to me that you need to prepare your body for what’s to come. It’s as Kenny said, it’s a sports science point. if you, it’s great to rest, rest is good. But if you don’t prepare your body for a heavier workload and then you acutely
spring it on the body. Like now you’re risking at worst, or I’m sorry, at minimum fatigue. At worst, we could have an injury situation. You don’t want that. Everyone’s knocking on wood as they hear me say that. But the reality is that this goes to the 10, 11 man rotation conversation too. Like the playoffs, I believe Kenny, when he says he wants to do that.
I actually believe the more I watch these guys, they have like 10, 11 playoff rotation worthy players, certainly on their best nights, even like, I don’t know, median Sam Merrill, median Sam Merrill brings all the gravity, whether the shots are going in or not. He’s looking tougher on defense every single day. That guy could make the legitimate, you can make a legitimate case. That guy deserves a rotation spot in the playoffs.
Deandre Hunter’s here. Dean Wade’s here. Kenny classified Sam Rell as a wing earlier today, by the way. Max Struess is here. know, Donovan and Darius are only going to play more. They’re going to shoot like we’re talking if they’re both going 40 minutes each if the game’s close. 40 plus. Mobley. They’d like to play. mean, big men tend to tend to.
Jimmy Watkins (19:37.59)
withstand a slightly smaller minute load, you want to keep those guys down a little bit more, but like as many as you can stand with those guys on the court, so the rotations are going to shrink because the better players are going to play more and you don’t you can’t you don’t want to mess around with five minutes here five minutes there because then you’re playing a bunch of guys who had a rhythm. So yeah, I think that’s really important. And I think that it’s another it’s another
I want to circle this into the Jared Allen conversation too. It’s awkward reality. Jared Allen should be, we should be praising the heck out of Jared Allen for taking this as well as he is because there are not, a lot of players will say they are willing to sacrifice.
the team to win but what they mean when they said that okay I’ll take a few fewer I’ll take a few a couple fewer shots I will share the the shot creation load a little bit I’ll let this guy dribble or I’ll take a few minutes less here but like closing games is a big deal closing games is a big statusy deal and for that to not be happening for a guy who again has his face on a building he’s part of the core four is massive
And now what I’m, the reason I’m bringing that up again is there are going to be a bunch more smaller versions of those, of that conversation happening around the roster. Whether it’s with, let’s say you’re Sam Merrill, let’s say Isaac Okoro, who again, the wing shuffle is so deep at this point that we are, I think I mentioned Sam, who did I say? Sam, Max, Dean, Deandre.
We’re just now getting to Isaac Okoro. What did say before the game? He said sometimes he looks at the box score and he goes, man, I really only got ice 12 minutes. Like that doesn’t feel like enough. And you see after the game, when we were asking about the Deandre-Evan Mobley pairing, Kenny went out of his way to mention like, hey, by the way, if we replaced Deandre Hunter with Isaac Okoro, that probably would have worked too. I don’t necessarily believe that Isaac Okoro is not anywhere near.
Jimmy Watkins (22:02.274)
the offensive player that Deandre Hunter is, he would not be able to hit these pull-up mid-rangers that were hurting Miami’s zone. He would not be able to facilitate the way Deandre Hunter facilitates. But Kenny’s paying that lip service for a reason, man. He’s got a lot of hungry players who all feel like they have a lot of, rightfully so, feel like they have a lot of stake in what’s being built here.
The unfortunate reality is a chunk of them are not going to be able to share in some of the playoff grind or the playoff climbing of the ladder as they want or as they did during the regular season. It’s just a math problem. So it is important because we’re going to see the best players play more in the playoffs. That’s one of the reasons.
that Eric Spolshev said before the game, it’s a completely different sport. You manage your team differently because the marathon’s over, now you’re sprinting. Now you’re sprinting towards the finals. But with that conversation come, while you’re expanding minutes somewhere, you got to contract them somewhere. That’s just how, somewhere else, that’s just how it works. And that’s what makes this whole Kenny Kumbaya thing is such a fascinating social experiment because it’s worked so well. He was so right about everything.
but it’s about to get really hard for him.
Ethan Sands (23:31.759)
And Jimmy, I think you make a great point, but I want to get into, and we talked about a little bit of the nuances of Deandre Hunter on the floor, offensively and defensively, which I think is important, especially looking at both areas of zones for two different teams, again, a potential first round matchup. But the biggest thing about that is the offensive capabilities of Deandre Hunter, because I, I found it funny today when we were talking to him, he was like,
I feel like a lot of people talked about my offense coming in. I’m still pretty good at defense and it was kind of the opposite way around. everybody was like, yeah, he’s a former ACC defensive player of year. He’s six foot eight, seven foot wingspan, all these things. The one thing that everybody was excited about, multiple things, but like one of the biggest things was how his wingspan can allow him to shoot over defenders and that
translates to the three point game that the Cavs have utilized so much this season. But tonight we saw, as Jimmy had mentioned, in the high post role and Deandre Hunter for majority of his NBA career outside of like this season basically has been a mid-range merchant. Like he’s a guy that can get into his spots, knows his spots in the mid-range and him kind of being at the high post it was like okay
I can either turn around and shoot this over almost anybody or the defense is going to collapse on me and I’m going to be able to pick my poison of Darius Garland, Max Struz wide open in the corner, Donovan Mitchell also having gravity so there’s two players on me, two players on Donovan and then you have Jared out or in this case Evan Mobley rolling to the rim, lob pass. Max Struz in the corner, two huge threes in the fourth quarter again.
And I don’t know if you noticed this the other day, Jimmy, from the last time they were at home, I believe it was. Max Drews hit that fourth quarter three pointer that almost sealed the game. And then they went to the foul line and did all that nonsense. But after he made the bucket, he did the big cojones celebration. like, I know who you like these moments, Max. But my goodness. Okay, all that to say, I think.
Ethan Sands (25:54.193)
Deandre Hunter and Max Drews pairing together. I think we’re seeing a lot of different lineup schemes that Kenny Atkinson is looking at, not only to see how good they are together, who is viable to play next to each other while getting them experience with one another. And we talked about it before the trade was even finalized. A lineup of Max Drews, Deandre Hunter, Dean Wade, Evan Mobley on defense is very, very scary, right?
Then you throw in Donovan Mitchell leading the offense on that on the offensive end and you have guys that are spraying the floor running, setting screens, all these other things. And it all makes a difference against these playoff caliber teams. But Jimmy, well, I’ll let you open, I’ll open the floor to you to see if you have anything to response, but I do want to get into some fun things for this to end the podcast.
Jimmy Watkins (26:47.208)
I just want, I would just say this, that there will still be moments where the two big lineup is, is the right look for the Cavs. think the way Kenny tends to approach this is that if the Cavs are trying to protect a lead, he wants to go two bigs because that’s the, the defensive, the best defensive front court pairing that the Cavs can put out there. If the Cavs are trying to chase a deficit as they were at times tonight,
then they’re probably going to opt towards their smaller lineups with your Deandre Hunter or your Dean Wade’s playing the four. I guess in some cases as a Koro, we’re probably done with the max true set four days at this point, but more shooting, more shooting, offense, more firepower to try and close that gap. I do think we have sort of...
We haven’t turned a page, but we’re turning a page here where I think in many of the highest leverage moments, the Cavs are going to want a floor spacer next to Evan Mobley in these situations. Deandre Hunter, I mean, he’s a Swiss Army knife. can do a lot of different things, but this is one of the lineups they were envisioning, one of the pairings they were envisioning when they made this trade.
And that’ll be interesting to see how, how, how that unfolds because, and this is getting way too far ahead of ourselves here, but sometimes I do that on this podcast. If you are paying Jared Allen $30 million a year, but you only play him 25 ish minutes a game. And none of those 25 minutes are the most important parts of the game, the ending. Then it’s kind of like, well, what are you doing here?
which has been the whole two bigs conversation from the start. Like I said, we’re too far ahead. We’re out over our skis on that part of the conversation. I’m just saying that’s why this is sort of a sensitive topic. Right now, what I’m writing today and what I’m saying to you today is Jared Allen, you should appreciate what the sacrifice that Jared Allen is making to win here. That’s important. They need that. Big picture.
Jimmy Watkins (29:12.27)
It could get a little bit more complicated than that. But even then, like I said, there will be bruising, like rebounding will be important here. Protecting the rim will be important here. Even against Boston, there will be plenty of opportunity. by the way, you always, the idea of having two bases, not always playing them at the same time. It’s having an elite rim protector slash rim runner on the floor at all times. The jiu-jitsu is certainly that. So when Evan Mobley needs a breather.
yeah, you, Jared Allen, again, maybe a bit of an overpriced backup five at times. And he’s not that, he’s obviously one of the best rim running centers in league. But in this new configuration, if you, you think of him a little bit more in that vein, pretty, pretty good guy to have back there. He’s still a very useful player, even though the Cavs are starting to go away from him at times now.
Ethan Sands (30:11.463)
And let’s not forget about what he did just last night, 2015, right? Like he is a top five center in the Eastern Conference, arguably a top five center in the NBA, right? But we’re not gonna get there just yet because that’s a different conversation about what the cast need, something that we’ve talked about on this podcast, even dating back to the summertime, whatever. The next thing, as I get into, I haven’t even gotten into what I’m writing about for the morning, but I wanted to get into something fun.
from tonight’s postgame press conferences and being in the locker room because that’s what we like to do on this podcast is to take you behind the scenes and There’s been an argument or debate. Let’s call it a debate across social media about these different nicknames that are just starting to circulate around the NBA and For some reason the Cleveland Cavaliers are at the forefront probably not that hard to figure out why they’re 52 and 10 and trying
trying to associate these guys with names that are easily memorable. Tonight, the biggest topic of discussion in the locker room was Evan Mobley’s nickname, The Predict-O-Mate. Donovan Mitchell keeps trying to call him that. He was in the locker room simply shaking his head saying he did not want that nickname. Dan Gilbert tweeted it out.
talking about it was a battle between the Ottoman appear, which is a BAM out of bio and the predicament, which was obviously Evan Mobley. And there was another name in here that fans were trying to figure out who it was at the same time. I believe it’s the concept. And I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be Max Truss. Anyway, Jimmy, what do you think about these nicknames?
Do you have nicknames you wanna pitch out for some of these guys? And obviously we know there are some bad ones out there, including a basketball reference having Ty Jerome labeled as milk.
Jimmy Watkins (32:21.358)
I think these nicknames suck, personally. This is the predicament. It sounds cool. I’ll say that. But is that not just like a synonym for think he’s a problem? OK, I saw I saw the screenshot where this came from that the on Twitter, had Shay as the conundrum, which again, just the problem.
but repackaged, think these, should never try to, first of all, okay, I wanna approach this from a compliment sandwich perspective. Number one, I appreciate us trying to come up with original nicknames. We have way too many K-D-A-D-L-B-J, like the D-Wade, the nickname.
Your initial as a nickname, we just gotta stop. Even though like KD does roll off the tongue, so does Durantula and Slim Reaper. Those are legit cool nicknames. I like us trying to come up with nicknames for unique players like Evan Mobley or Max Drew. I feel like there might be something there with the concept because he’s such a strategic Swiss army knife and he...
brought over some of the zone concepts from Miami. It’s not all there, but I like the energy of it. That being said, I’ve said the nice thing. I like that we’re trying with the nicknames. We can’t try to force these. We can’t try to force these nicknames. The best nicknames are genuinely, know, genuinely thought of and we can’t, if we...
If we spend too much time coming up, trying to come up with a nickname, then we probably don’t have a very good idea for one. Stuff happens organically. If Evan Mobley, if we come up with an Evan Mobley nickname down the line, that’s great. But here’s the other thing. Not everybody needs a nickname. Don Mitchell was joking about after the game about how he kind of made up his own, Spider, and that’s worked for him. It’s kind of just like a blink test, right?
Jimmy Watkins (34:43.638)
It either works or it doesn’t. I don’t like the predicament for Evan Moley. I think some kids on TikTok just typed in problem into thesaurus.com and then just gave, picked each one of the words, closed their eyes and matched it to one of their favorite NBA players. We, we don’t need to do that.
Ethan Sands (35:06.597)
I think Darius Garland’s might be worse. Like the congeniality. That’s what I’m seeing. Like, why, why are we doing these three syllable words? Why? It doesn’t make sense, bro. Like it’s, there’s so many. I’m just on ex formally Twitter right now, trying to go through it. I literally just typed in the predicament and Statmuse posted about it. The Cav posted about it.
Jimmy Watkins (35:15.992)
That sucks. That sucks.
Jimmy Watkins (35:29.698)
I’m going through.
Yeah.
Mm, bad.
Ethan Sands (35:36.155)
Like, there’s so many people trying to push this.
Jimmy Watkins (35:38.402)
This is going to catch on. I don’t like it. Don’t like it at all. We’ll think about it. We’ll think about it. But again, we shouldn’t have to think that hard about it. Come on.
Ethan Sands (35:41.191)
Jimmy, you gotta come up with something different so it stops.
Ethan Sands (35:54.201)
Yeah, it’s supposed to be free flowing. It’s just like stick. It’s supposed to be
Jimmy Watkins (35:57.55)
How about this? How about this? Now I’m freestylin'. The skeleton key?
Ethan Sands (36:03.345)
What?
Jimmy Watkins (36:03.816)
Skeleton key. Let me me let me talk you through my process here. Evan Mobley entered the league as a skinnier fella and skeleton. He’s also the key to unlocking the peak of this cabs team. Ergo skeleton key.
He wouldn’t like it, obviously. I would not ever want to be called Skeleton Key, but it’s better than the predicament. At least I put an ounce of thought into it.
Ethan Sands (36:27.139)
Okay. No.
Ethan Sands (36:37.093)
Yeah, it sure did. I don’t like I don’t know how like nicknames come up like that like the slim reaper like that is one of the best nicknames of all time. Yes but and I got a lot of backlash last or earlier this season when Ty Jerome’s nickname came up and they were trying to call him the microwave and every like everybody in my mentions was like
Jimmy Watkins (36:45.408)
organically. Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s perfect.
Ethan Sands (37:06.515)
that nickname has been used like 30 years ago and i’m like Exactly, but I sometimes nicknames are Cool to reuse. I don’t know. I don’t know where this no, I don’t know where this stands man. This is hard It nicknames should not be hard, but we’re making it hard
Jimmy Watkins (37:10.018)
Yeah, shout out Vinnie Johnson.
Jimmy Watkins (37:19.54)
No. No.
Jimmy Watkins (37:26.222)
It’s like if we called Isaac Gokoro, if we called Isaac Gokoro Iceman. No, there’s one Iceman. name is George Gervin, he’s an all-famer, all right? We’re not reusing nicknames.
Ethan Sands (37:37.007)
So it’s just ice. It’s just ice for Isaac. It’s just ice. That one’s stuck. Leave it at that. But before we get out of here, I do want to get into the theatrics of today’s game, the emotional aspect of today’s game, which was Kevin Love returning to Cleveland for the first time since 2023 when the Cavs waved him. Obviously, Tristan Thompson was in the building. Kane Love was in the building. Richard Jefferson was also in the building as a broadcaster.
So you had three different players from the 2016 championship team in the building. And then come to find out after the game that Kevin Love stated that he believes or he was told that the Cavs are going to put his name and his number in the rafters when his career is all said and done next to Nick Gilbert’s name and bow tie.
I think that’s a huge statement. think that’s a huge thing when it comes to mental health, when it comes to everything that the Cows stand for. Jimmy, this is a monumental thing if it comes true. The other thing that makes it even more interesting was to me, you cannot retire a number or a player before he is out of the league. So that must mean that K Love is nearing the end of his career.
What do you think about that? And obviously you were around during that time for the Cavs fandom when it comes to that championship run. What do you think about that? Do you think that K Love deserves to be a Rafters member, a retired member of the Cleveland Cavaliers?
Jimmy Watkins (39:23.854)
Oh, that’s a no brainer. Um, he’s gonna be a Hall of Famer. And it’s actually pretty fitting that we’re talking about this today because you want to talk about somebody who sacrificed to win a championship. Kevin Love was a freaking all NBA level forward. And he made, I think at least one all NBA team while was with Cleveland too, but he was like,
2020, I mean, 40, 20 type games, 2020 averages. When he was with the Timberlake, he was a legit number one option. And this was before he even, before he even started shooting threes at a high volume, he was a legit number one option for the Minnesota Timberlake. Now they weren’t very good. And I don’t know that he was ever going to be best cast as number one option, but he certainly, certainly was overqualified to be
the Cavs' third option, which when you’re on a team with two guys who command the ball as much as LeBron James and Kyrie Irving did, man, the difference between a third option and a fourth option and a fifth option sometimes blur together. Like sometimes Kevin Love, as talented as he was in the post, he’s such an underrated passer. It’s not just outlet passing either. Like you could run an offense through Kevin Love and his playmaking.
As good as he was, sometimes the Cavs were just like, hey man, we need to go stand in the corner. Can you do that for us? And he did it dutifully. He did it in the pursuit of winning. He obviously is a part of the, the closing segment of the most famous game in Cavs history. Everything that people say Kevin Love couldn’t do.
in against the Warriors in that series. at times he did play fewer minutes because the Warriors would target him on defense. He did it then. He did it for those, I don’t know, however many, four or five seconds, all the three different sets of dribble moves that Steph tried to hit him with. And you know what, maybe I think, I still think to this day, and Steph, I think has even talked about this a little bit, that he was hunting a three a little bit too hard in that moment because he could have probably driven right past Kevin. But you know what? He didn’t. Kevin moved his feet.
Jimmy Watkins (41:44.59)
And Steph missed the shot. Cavs got the rebound and the rest is quite literally history. Greatest comeback in the history of the NBA. Greatest sports achievement. mean, in the history of, at least in the modern history of Cleveland, you have to go back to like Jim Brown days or the, or the, the seventies, seventies Cleveland baseball team to come to even start the conversation.
So, and also again, I’ve never, was only around Kevin to cover him briefly when the season that he was granted his release, but by all accounts, absolutely great dude. Seems like all the team, like you could see it tonight. Everyone, all the teammates loved him the way that Tristan mobbed him, or the way that Tristan and him were mobbing RJ before the game, the way that...
Darius Garland and Kevin got in their friendly wrestling match in the back court when they both got tangled up and went down during the game. That’s a clip you should find. The listeners should find if you didn’t catch it live. That was fun. They were tangled up and Darius and Kevin basically started playing wrestling behind the play. think it ended up getting Darius a foul, but very good natured stuff. And yeah, Kevin Love made one of the ultimate sacrifices.
superstar level player who accepted a borderline role player level role in pursuit of winning. And that kind of stuff gets your number retired right there.
Ethan Sands (43:24.295)
I think there’s a lot of things that kind of make this feel like it’s going hand in hand with the storyline of the Cleveland Cavaliers. And the other part being that Nick Gilbert’s bobblehead night was on Sunday and like they just celebrated him. He’s still got his bobblehead stuff all over Rocket Arena. I think they had a life-size statue, maybe even bigger than life-size statue of him and his bobblehead.
And you also saw Kevin Love in that tribute video for Nick Gilbert So we understand what he meant to him and all these different connecting features And then for Kevin Love to be in the building when the Cavs punched their ticket to the playoffs And are having arguably the best season since he was here actually not arguably it is the best season since he’s been here and also understanding that this team is
has the opportunity to break the franchise record for wins in a season, because they’re now 52 and 10, and there’s 20 games left in the season, and the franchise record is 66. So we talked a little bit about that on a previous podcast and how that is definitely within reach, within grasp. Some people are saying that they should go for 70. I don’t know how viable these are, especially with
what we know will happen at the end of the season or what other teams are going to be doing as well. But I just think when you talk about like, we talked so much about the love of the game. We talk a lot about the analytics. We talk a lot about the actual game itself. But in, in seasons where there’s so many injuries when there’s so much that kind of deters the love away from the game, something kind of like Kevin Durant said that there’s not a whole lot of players left in the league that love the game.
itself. Tyree Irving was one of them and he obviously he just had it toward his ACL so his season is over but to see the fun and the joy of this Cleveland Cavaliers team especially getting to interact with somebody that brought them so much joy and Max Deuce even being in Miami with Kevin Love seeing how he impacted his career that’s definitely something I’m gonna dive into for my for tomorrow.
Ethan Sands (45:44.633)
I just think it’s like a beautiful thing to think about when you talk about the game of basketball, but also the impact that’s underlying and how Kevin Love is kind of like the biggest person that comes to mind in the NBA when it comes to mental health and how the game is more than just a basketball game. It’s also what can be perceived about life. Well, yeah, I think that covers everything for today’s game.
That’s everything for today’s storylines. Jimmy, is there anything you want to get into before we get out of here?
Jimmy Watkins (46:17.39)
I would say Nick, the Nick Gilbert, Kevin Love tie in, no Kevin Love without Nick Gilbert. You could argue because Nick Gilbert was the lottery, always the lottery. Good luck charm. Cavs traded the number one overall pick, Andrew Wiggins for Kevin Love. And that was the, I that was the second year in a row the Cavs had won the lottery in the third and four years. And that year they had like a, I want to say like a less than 2 % chance.
of winning the lottery. that’s, it would be fitting, I will say, if they go up in the Raptors together.
Ethan Sands (46:58.075)
With all that being said, because I think that’s a great way to end the podcast and wrap this all up in a nice pretty little bow tie, we should say. With that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk Podcast. But remember to become a CAS insider, interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to Subtext. This is where you can send in your questions for tomorrow’s Hey Chris
episode that will be recorded tomorrow afternoon with me and Jimmy and then we’ll send that out for you guys to listen to on your Friday morning before we get into all the other stuff after the Charlotte Hornets game on Friday. But to do that and get all the information that comes around when it comes to the Cavs organization, the Cavs team behind the scenes, sign up for a 14 day free trial or visit Cleveland.com slash Cavs and click on the blue bar at the top.
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