The Cleveland Cavaliers have lost consecutive games for the third time this season as they dropped Tuesday’s contest with the Los Angeles Clippers 132-119.
The Cavs came out of the gates strong with a 45-point first quarter. That wasn’t a sign of things to come as they registered just 74 points for the rest of the game which included putting up just 17 in the fourth quarter.
Second halves have been an issue for two games in a row
The second-half box score was ugly for the second game in a row. Max Strus put up 12 points on 5-5 shooting over the final two quarters. His teammates combined for 34 on 13-39 (33.3%) shooting from the field and 1-17 (5.9%) from three.
Second half shot chart for Cavs in loss to Clippers Second half shot chart for Cavs in loss to Clippers
via nba.com
That isn’t going to cut it under any circumstances.
Los Angeles came into this game with the fourth-rated defense in the league. We saw why in the second half. They did a good job of being physical at the point of attack and making it difficult for Cleveland to get into the offensive flow they were in at the start of the evening.
This was a night the Cavs needed their best offensive player to pick them out of the mud, and he couldn’t.
Donovan Mitchell has to be better late
This was the second game in a row the Cavs lost partially due to their best player simply not being able to convert down the stretch. Mitchell went 3-12 from the field in the fourth quarter in Sunday’s loss to the Orlando Magic. On Tuesday, Mitchell went 1-10 with just five points in the second half. This led to the Cavs being outscored by 23 points in the second half when he was on the floor.
Mitchell missed two games with a groin injury before these back-to-back poor showings. It would be easy to blame bad shooting on that, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue. Mitchell was able to get to his spots well in the second half against the Clippers, he just simply missed shots after creating the space he needed to convert them.
I don’t think there’s a reason to be concerned long-term. We saw Mitchell struggle when he came back from a knee injury around this time last year. Then, he simply wasn’t able to create the separation he needed to be an impactful interior scorer. Tonight, that wasn’t the case. He just missed good looks that you’d expect him to convert going forward.
Rebounding can still be an issue in close games
Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson has preached winning the possession game as part of their playoff preparation. That didn’t happen in Los Angeles as the Clippers beat them up on the glass. They retrieved 41% of their missed shots (95th percentile). This resulted in 20 second-chance points.
It’s nearly impossible to be a good defensive team when you can’t clear possessions to this degree. Cleveland found that out the hard way.
Ivica Zubac was the one the Cavs struggled to contain. He provided eight offensive rebounds on his one by simply outmuscling the Cavs' frontcourt and using his long arms and positioning to tap the loose ball back out to the perimeter.
It doesn’t feel like defensive rebounding has been a problem for the Cavs much this season even though opponents are grabbing a higher percentage of their missed shots now (28.8%) than they have in either of the last two years (25.8% and 27.1%). Just being a better overall team, specifically on the offensive end, has provided far more margin for error so this hasn’t come back to bite them often.
That said, this is something to still keep an eye on come playoff time when the margin for error decreases due to the level of competition.
The Cavaliers have shown that they don’t currently have many of the flaws that plagued them in the 2023 first-round series against the New York Knicks. Rebounding is the exception. Getting over that could be the last hurdle.