Cleveland Cavaliers: Three takeaways from the preseason

With the last game of the preseason on Tuesday, we take a look back at what stood out from Cleveland Cavaliers’ preseason action.

At this point, we’re just one week away from the start of the regular season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who begin the 2019-20 season at the Orlando Magic on Oct. 23. That’s something, huh?

Before that, though, the Cavs completed their four-game preseason slate, and we’ll take a quick look back at how they did in that stretch.

To review, Cleveland’s first preseason game was a home one welcoming Argentinean club San Lorenzo de Almagro where they started slow, but then Cleveland’s ball and man movement picked up, and they were able to cruise along for the final three quarters en route to a 120-89 win, and Cavs rookie wing Kevin Porter Jr., who had 16 points on seven-of-nine shooting (per ESPN), showed a ton of promise in his debut, even if it was not against an NBA team.

In Cleveland’s second preseason outing, they led most of the way at the Detroit Pistons, who did not play star power forward Blake Griffin (seemingly due to precaution), but the Cavs had a tough end to that one even after a good showing and fell 109-105, as the Pistons rallied back and beat Cleveland thanks to continuous production in the paint with 58 points there in the game, scoring 22 points on Cleveland’s 17 turnovers and Detroit outscoring the Wine and Gold by 16 points in the fourth quarter (per ESPN).

The Cavs then had a tough one all around on Sunday at the Boston Celtics, where Cleveland did not have star big Kevin Love (due to rest), Tristan Thompson (precaution due to a reported right groin soreness), nor did they have rookie guard Darius Garland, due to the team exercising precaution with him twisting his left ankle in the game against Detroit and not wanting to risk anything major.

Anyhow, in that one, Boston destroyed the Cavaliers, who were playing training camp invitees a good minutes-share, and the team was completely out of sync from the get-go, as the Cavs had 27 turnovers, with 13 of those coming from just guard Collin Sexton and training camp invitee wing Daniel Hamilton (per ESPN).

Boston ran away with that, as the Cavs took a 118-72 L.

Lastly, Cleveland would play Boston again, and though they played a bit better, lost again to the C’s at home on Tuesday, that time 118-95, but that better effort (at least) didn’t mean a whole lot.

The Celtics did not have star guard Kemba Walker, one of their best two-way guards in Marcus Smart, impressive young wings Jayson Tatum (illness) and Jaylen Brown, solid forward Gordon Hayward, and key bigs Enes Kanter and Daniel Theis even make the trip, realistically due to Boston not wanting to risk any potential injury to key players, as was initially reported by the Boston Globe‘s Gary Washburn.

So what stood out overall from the preseason in regards to the Cavaliers, whether that meant the playing style or the team’s approach?

We’ll get into that now.