Atkinson wants to keep things the same as the regular season as much as reasonably possible.
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson has repeatedly talked about not wanting to change things up too much from the regular season to the playoffs. This includes keeping the same demeanor he’s had throughout the season. He doesn’t want there to be a “Playoff Kenny.”
Things have worked incredibly well this season. This group has had the proper focus and intensity throughout the last six months. Why change anything?
“Someone said to me today, ‘Oh, it’s time to turn it up.’ I felt like saying, ‘We’ve been turning it up since August,’” Atkinson said before Game 1 against the Miami Heat.
“We’ve done our work. … Trust all [of the] accumulated work that gets you in this position. So, all of a sudden, if we’re gonna say, ‘Oh man, we gotta work a little harder.’ It doesn’t work that way. [It’s] your accumulated work. You gotta trust it.”
Trusting what got them here is a theme for Atkinson. He’s doing his same pregame routine and workout. And he also plans on running the 10-man rotation that worked throughout the regular season.
That said, he won’t be afraid to tinker with the minute distribution depending on how the game is going.
“I think that’s a feel, you know?” Atkinson said when asked about his lineups. “I know who our best players are, right? And we’re just gonna have to feel that. But I’m definitely more willing to get guys out of their rotation spots, run them a little longer, get them back in maybe a little quicker. But it’s gonna be a complete feel.”
Atkinson has plenty of playoff experience under Ty Lue with the Los Angeles Clippers and Steve Kerr with the Golden State Warriors. He knows what it takes to win in the postseason, but he doesn’t have much experience as a head coach in the playoffs.
His only postseason as head coach with the Brooklyn Nets was in 2019. It only lasted five games as they were defeated rather easily by the Philadelphia 76ers.
How Atkinson handles adjustments and rotations is a little bit of an unknown. We do know that his feel for the team has been incredibly well in the regular season. There’s no reason to believe that won’t translate to the playoffs.
“We can’t reinvent the wheel in Game 1,” Atkinson said. “I think we come out with the mindset we came out with all year.”