Early in the game Saturday night against the Nets, things looked to be going the way as many other Cavaliers games in this young season, as Donovan Mitchell had four threes and Cleveland jumped out to a 15-point lead in the first quarter. The early lead would soon dissipate as Brooklyn showed why they had taken the Celtics to overtime the previous night. “They play like a FIBA team, I thought I was back in the Olympics,” said HC Kenny Atkinson when describing the slow-paced Nets and their full-court pressure. The game looked doomed in the third quarter. The Cavs had many open looks that rattled out, scoring only 13 points in the third, by far their lowest-scoring quarter of the early season. The Cavs were forced to play with multiple smaller lineups throughout the second half, that had not yet played together this season. The lineup that ended the game, Mobley and four guards, gave the Cavs the defensive stand they have shown all season, forcing seven huge fourth-quarter turnovers to erase the Nets 13-point lead. Clutch floaters from Darius Garland and Ty Jerome sealed the deal down the stretch while Evan Mobley scored and protected the paint in the clutch, including a game-sealing block as time ran out. The Cavaliers are 11-0, the first time a team has started this hot, since the 2016 Warriors.
National media and Cleveland alike may be surprised with how the Cavs are winning these games in crunch time. Throughout the past two seasons, Cleveland has seen Donovan Mitchell take over late in games, winning games they wouldn’t have been able to without his confidence and leadership. Saturday night after Donovan’s scorching start, the Nets did an excellent job at denying Spida his shots. In previous seasons, this sort of defense may have doomed the Cavaliers, denying the ball to the team’s superstar and making the likes of Evan Mobley and Darius Garland take the important shots down the stretch. This defensive strategy continues to prove incorrect. Evan is an early pick for the league’s Most Improved player and DG is playing the best basketball of his young career, as he scored eight points in the fourth last night.
The only team that recently can compare to this hot start from the Cavs is the aforementioned 2015-2016 Warriors. The Cavs have won 11 games in a row to start the campaign, still a very long way to go to get to the 24-game bench mark the Warriors set. While this Warriors team looks extremely different than the Golden State team the Cavaliers boat raced to a 40-point halftime lead on Friday night and only Draymond Green and Steph Curry remain on the Warriors from those early Championship teams. Steph knows how it feels to have the whole league trying to knock you off and end the streak, while outsiders may think the Cavs would use the cliche “taking it one game / possession at a time” when describing the sentiment around the streak. It was nice to hear that players and coaches alike have it in the back of their mind, using it as extra motivation. “Yeah you’re thinking about it. Usually 11 games in you’re not thinking about a streak. I didn’t want it to end this way”. Said Kenny postgame about the streak. He also acknowledged a bit of extra motivation this weekend playing two teams he had previously coached. No one in the league knows better about starting a season like this, as well as what the coaching of Kenny can bring to a team. Curry spoke glowingly about both aspects post-game Friday night. “Offensively they’re organized, they play with pace. He was in charge of our offense for the past three years. The organization feeding into the strengths of your team matters if you buy into it. Looks like they are. Nobody has figured them out 10 games in.” Said the previous MVP Curry.
One aspect of the team that is extremely interesting in the early going is that the Cavs as a team have the best three-point shooting percentage in the league at 42.2%. Kenny has urged the guys to shoot the deep ball, and with that stat in mind, it shows why. While the Cavs are the best three-point shooting team in the league, it is surprising to see that Cleveland is right at the league average in three-points attempted with 36.2. Meanwhile teams like the Celtics who live and die by the three (ugly basketball) average 10 more attempted threes than the second-ranked team in the league at that mark. The Celtics attempt an average of over 50 threes per game, while only converting at a 36% clip. Games like Saturday night, prove the Cavs can win in multiple different ways. Cleveland scored 56 paint points last night and only attempted three triples in the fourth quarter, missing all of them. Proving that while the Cavs boast the best shooting percentage as a team from behind the arc, they are not at all reliant on it, like so many other teams across the association. That’s an impressive stat.
The Cavaliers will take the streak on the road this week. “We’re the hunted, not the hunters anymore” described Darius in his on-court post-game interview. The whole league would love to be the team that ends the Cavaliers streak. With the aforementioned quote, the team knows that while this week’s opponents may not look as formidable as some previously conquered teams in this early season, every team the Cavs play will surely give them their best shot. The Cavs play road games against the pesky Bulls and the depleted 76ers. They then come back to the Rock for their first NBA Cup group stage game against the Bulls.
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