The Cleveland Cavaliers have played four games this season, and they have been up-and-down affairs that overall should leave fans feeling good about the state of the team. After two losses to open the year when the Cavs were in each game into the fourth quarter, they came back to beat a pair of playoff teams from last year in the Atlanta Hawks and Denver Nuggets.
Looking at stats this early in the season can be a tricky thing to do. Looking at the defense and turnover numbers after two games would have been nauseating, but now after four they look much more palatable. Trying to extrapolate from four games when you have another 78 games to go can be a fool’s errand.
After four games the stats look a bit wonky, but there are still things to learn about the Cavs from these crazy stats
It’s easy to set the narrative for a team early in the season. How a team starts influences the team’s perception in an outsized way because there is no other data to balance it out with. There will be 19.5 other four-game sample sets during the year; these four games matter just as much as those, but probably not much more than them.
Yet there is the reality that the start of a season gives us an extra glimpse into the development of players, the deployment of lineups, the offseason alterations to team strategy. To that end we can look at some of the crazy stats from the early season and decide why they are happening and how likely they are to continue.
To that end, let’s look at four crazy stats, starting with a budding superstar on the defensive end.
Cavs: 2 crazy stats for the defensive end
Stat #1: Evan Mobley is holding opponents to 47 percent shooting at the rim
The general consensus is that rookies are bad on defense. NBA offenses are fast and smart, and picking up all of the nuances of defending takes time for new players. That’s why what Evan Mobley has done out of the gate has been so impressive. The 7-footer has been an absolute eraser at the rim despite his slim frame.
It's a sample of just 36 shots, but right now Evan Mobley's allowing makes on just 47% of shots he defends at the rim.
— Zach Kram (@zachkram) October 26, 2021
For context, last season Rudy Gobert led the league at 48% (among high-volume players).
Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff is already deploying Mobley all over the defensive formation, from using him as a wing stopper in their Triple Towers look, to placing him at the top of their 3-2 zone. There will be growing pains, and Rudy Gobert shouldn’t be looking over his shoulder just yet, but Mobley’s start is an excellent sign of things to come.
Stat #2: The Cavs lead the league in fewest free throws against
Opponents of the Cleveland Cavaliers have taken just 14 free throws per game, which leads the NBA through the first seven days of the season. That’s a trend that could continue to some extent. J.B. Bickerstaff coaches a conservative defense that tries to avoid fouling, and last year they ranked seventh in the league with 20.4 attempts per game.
Why has that advantage been so pronounced so far this year, especially when they have played against guards like Trae Young and Ja Morant that historically draw a lot of fouls? One could point to the new emphasis on limiting foul calls when the offensive player initiates or exaggerates the contact, but those rules should be affecting every team in the league; foul shots are down leaguewide, but they don’t explain the Cavs being in first.
It’s likely a combination of smarter defenders and the zone defense. Ricky Rubio and Evan Mobley may have been the two best defenders on last season’s team and are playing heavy minutes thus far this year. The Cavs have also deployed a 3-2 zone at times, and zone looks tend to cause fewer fouls. Either way, look for this number to stay low the entire year.
Cavs: 2 crazy stats for the offensive end
Stat #3: The Cavaliers are shooting 79.2 percent from inside three feet
The Cleveland Cavaliers have been monsters inside this season, ranking top-5 in dunks (Jarrett Allen is first in the league) and sitting second in terms of field goal percentage at the rim. Some of those made baskets have been self-created, but the Cavs have done an excellent job of setting each other up for lobs and passes on the roll.
What is even more impressive is that last year the Cavs ranked dead last in this number, hitting just 62.6 percent of their shots at the rim. The emphasis on getting into the defense and then finding the open big man has been clear on film, and the numbers back it up. The most efficient shots in basketball are at the rim, and the Cavs have been taking full advantage.
Stat #4: Lauri Markkanen is shooting just 30.8 percent from the field
The Cavs acquired 7-foot marksman Lauri Markkanen this offseason to give their offense a shooting spark. Instead the Cavs are trending in the opposite direction — after ranking 30th by hitting just 33.6 percent of their 3-pointers last season, they have hit just 30.3 percent thus far this year.
Markkanen is a major factor in that, hitting just seven of his 26 3-point attempts thus far (26.9 percent) and overall shooting just 30.8 percent from the field. Despite the cold shooting he leads the team in 3-point attempts and is second to Sexton in overall field goal attempts. That’s a good thing — Markkanen is a good shooter going through a slump, and it looks worse since it’s the start of the season. His shot will come around and the team will want him to be shooting. Even so, no one was expecting his shot to be as cold as his native Finland, and the longer the slump goes on, the worse that contract looks.
Four games is a tiny sample size in an 82-game season, and most of these numbers will look significantly different by the end of the year — or even after another four games. Yet perhaps they give us a glimpse of how the team will look this year, and at the very least they will be fun to track.