CLEVELAND — There weren’t many good things to take away from the Cleveland Cavaliers embarrassing 130-120 loss to tanking Dallas Mavericks. Max Strus’ 24-point season debut was one of them.
Strus looked like he hadn’t missed anything as he drained six of his seven threes. Additionally, he provided help on the glass and a competitive level on defense that this team was sorely lacking at times.
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“It was a pretty amazing performance after seven months of not playing an NBA game,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said of Strus. “Maybe the best I’ve seen.”
Strus’ brilliant start to the season was spoiled by lackadaisical Cleveland defense.
Atkinson didn’t shy away from talking about what went wrong defensively. He called the defense “permissive,” said Dallas “never felt them” and that the effort was “inexcusable.”
“It’s really about keeping the ball.” » said Atkinson.
The Cavs didn’t do that. They allowed Dallas to get into the paint whenever they wanted. And then when they did, the help defense wasn’t quick enough to stop them at the rim. This led to the Mavericks converting 81% (87th percentile) of their shots at the rim.
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And the few times the help defense was there, the turnovers weren’t, leading to Dallas connecting on 50% of their threes (95th percentile) and 75% of their corner triples (97th percentile).
“If you don’t control the ball, that’s a trigger,” Donovan Mitchell said. “When you get beat, the next player spins, and now they’re driving to the corner. You go to the corner, they’re swinging again and the guy is driving. It’s unpredictable basketball, which makes teams elite. … That’s where we have to be better, and it starts on the ball.”
That would be worrying enough in itself. This performance, against a team that entered this match 27th in offensive ranking while being without several key players like Klay Thompson (rest), Daniel Gafford (illness) and Derek Lively (foot), makes the situation even more alarming.
“We need to go out there and find a collective solution,” Mitchell said. “It’s not just the guy on the ball, it’s the next man up. Are we getting into gaps? … When they drive, are we there to help them? Are we there for the next closeout? Are we there in rotation? We have to do this over and over and over.”
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Right now, the Cavs have too many holes on the perimeter. The starting backcourt is not good defensively. Neither Mitchell nor James Harden are known to put up much resistance. Their wing defense is better, but they don’t have many good options against big teams.
The Cavs’ lack of bigger wings hurt them in their recent losses to the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic. They had no one other than Dean Wade that they could count on to contain the opposing wings. It happened again on Sunday when Cooper Flagg torched them for 27 points and 10 assists.
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Get Jarrett Allen back – knee injury – would help enormously. He will provide good help on defense at the rim when he returns. But no center can really make up for such poor point-of-attack defense. That will have to change if they want to be taken seriously as title contenders.
Harden and Mobley two-player doesn’t work.
Before the game, Mavs head coach Jason Kidd said it would take up to half a season before he felt comfortable playing alongside a new big man when running the point. He mentioned that it took a long time to understand what his new big’s strengths were and where they needed the ball to be at their best.
Harden and Mobley may be a deadly duo, but they don’t have time to resolve all the problems they currently have. That showed on Sunday as they combined to turn the ball over 10 times. Many of them were the result of doomed attempts to involve the other.
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Harden struggled to find passing lanes to Mobley when using the pick-and-roll.
Mobley is not a great runner, even when setting a physical screen. He’s not a vertical finisher when rolling to the basket, although he can finish lobs on cuts or when standing in the dunker spot. This takes away a window for Harden to get the ball to Mobley, which left him trying to get it to him with the bounce pass. This is a much more difficult pass to complete and much easier for a defense to disrupt, as the play below demonstrates.
Atkinson mentioned that the duo spent a lot of time watching movies together. This will likely continue to happen. But right now, they’re no closer to putting things together and they’re running out of time to do it.
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This new Cavs team faces adversity after playing so well after the deadline. They have now lost three of their last five games, including two against teams below them in the standings. They felt disjointed on both ends of the court.
It’s no coincidence that all three of those losses happened without Allen on the court. He was the glue that united this team. Despite this, there is too much talent on the team to justify a loss like this.
Things need to be cleaned up before the playoffs, which start in a month.
“We haven’t had a lot of adversity with the current group,” Mitchell said. “It was sunshine and rainbows. It was great, wasn’t it? We had to go through those times and figure this out. We have time. We don’t have time to delay this, but I think it’s good for us. We’ll figure these things out.”
