The Cleveland Cavaliers ended out the 2020-21 season at 22-50, and it was anything but a memorable campaign. The Cavs had a rough end to the season as well.
The COVID-19-affected last season didn’t help, although all teams had to deal with that, so oh well. All teams had to deal with the injury bug too, but in that sense, the last season was not forgiving to Cleveland, in fairness.
There were positives, on the plus side, and the Cavs got a heck of a season out of Collin Sexton, and Darius Garland had quite the bounce-back campaign with 17.4 points and 6.1 assists per contest. He knocked in 39.5 percent of his three-point attempts too, and before an ankle injury before May, he was on a tear in April; I do believe trade acquisition Ricky Rubio could allow Garland to shot hunt more next season, too.
Jarrett Allen, to a large degree, was a good trade acquisition from the Brooklyn Nets also. And even with it not having been a bargain via five-year, $100 million new deal, I was glad the Cavs locked Allen, who was a restricted free agent, up this offseason.
Isaac Okoro had inconsistencies offensively as a rookie, which was understandable, with the situation even more so, but from April on, looked more comfortable.
Nonetheless, it again wasn’t a notable season for the team overall; it is only natural for fans to look toward next season, though.
To that point, the NBA released its schedule for the 2021-22 season on Friday afternoon, and the Cavs are set to begin the year at the Memphis Grizzlies on Oct. 20, and you can view their full schedule here, via the team. Along with that, they’ll open up the season with a road-heavy slate of contests, and in preseason, are at the Chicago Bulls on Oct. 5, at the Atlanta Hawks Oct. 6, host the Indiana Pacers Oct. 8, play Bulls again on the 10th and then conclude at Indiana on Oct. 15.
It should be intriguing to see how the Cavs fare at Memphis, and in that early-season batch of road games.
In the opener, Cleveland is again to set to take on Ja Morant, Dillon Brooks, and Memphis on the road.
This could be one where both teams get up and down a fair amount, with Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley perhaps in mind in that realm, and Morant and the Grizz will assuredly look to do just that in times throughout I’d think.
The Grizzlies were a team that snuck into the postseason last year via the Play-In tourney, and they’ll look to build on their success.
New faces include Steven Adams, with Jonas Valanciunas sent out via trade to the New Orleans Pelicans, and Jarrett Culver, along with Jauncho Hernangomez, for instance. It could be interesting to see how rookie Ziaire Williams does, perhaps in matchups against Isaac Okoro, for example, too.
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Anyway, looking past that first game, the Cavs start with eight of 11 games on the road to begin 2021-22, and only one of those outings is against a non-playoff team from 2020-21, as Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor pointed out.
So clearly, that will be tough to start out for Garland, Sexton and company.
From there after two home games, first featuring the home opener versus the Charlotte Hornets once again on Oct. 22 and in a back-to-back versus the Atlanta Hawks, the Cavs will have their second-longest road trip of the year.
That’s with five games in eight days, as Fedor noted, and in that, most notably, they’ll face the LA Clippers on Oct. 27 and LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Oct. 29.
As far as the schedule in general, there’s 15 back-to-backs for the Wine and Gold, and their longest road trip is in January, with six games in a nine-day span, which is something that stood out.
Cleveland also ends out with 10 of its last 14 games at home in 2021-22, which could enable them to make a Play-In push, of which that tournament is set for April 12-15, for reference. We’ll see in regards to that, though.
The Cavs, unfortunately, only have four “national” TV games but on NBA TV for those; they don’t have any games slated to be on ESPN, TNT or ABC.
But, lastly, it should be fun to see the NBA All-Star festivities in Cleveland from Feb. 18-20 of 2022, where maybe the likes of Sexton or Garland could be in consideration for their first All-Star selection? We’ll table that for now.
To reiterate, however, that opener at Memphis will be an intriguing one, particularly with the point guard matchup. And although it won’t be easy, we’ll see some of what the Cavs are made of, to a degree, with that early road slate.