Cavs’ Evan Mobley stays atop Ladder, but Cade Cunningham’s closing fast

Mobley must seize this opportunity to pull away

For every Cavalier fan out there, I think I can say, our heart sunk to the floor when Jarrett Allen was confirmed to have a finger fracture, to go with a quad contusion. He is out indefinitely. Making matters worse, the NBA regular season has about one month of games left to play.

With the Cavs battling for a playoff berth in the crowded Eastern Conference, someone needs to step up in Allen’s absence. And that man has to be rookie forward Evan Mobley.

In Tuesday night’s game he started at center, and as I wrote earlier, he had a solid outing. However, he’s capable of more from the center position.

Personally, I love the idea of Mobley playing a little bit of point-forward for the Cavaliers. He is more than capable as a ball-handler, and as we saw on Tuesday, he’s a pretty good distributor.

But, to really keep the Cavs in the thick of the playoff race, he’ll need to play great on both ends of the floor, at the center position still for extended stretches; even with the Brown signing, Mobley will likely get his share of play there. He’s gotten more aggressive of late, also. In his last two games, both double-doubles, he attempted 15 shots. I think he should continue to shoot, and shoot more. He should also look to extend his range at times.

While doing this he also needs to be the best rebounder on the court, though, and also protect the rim, regardless of the Brown outlook, with Allen out. It’s a lot to ask of a 20-year-old, but if he wants to walk away with the 2022 NBA Rookie of the Year Award, he needs to be great down the stretch run.