The Cleveland Cavaliers have 10 games remaining in the regular season. They stand at 41-31 and are 6th in the Eastern Conference standings. Based on their record and the teams around them in the standings they could finish as high as fifth while if they slipped, they could end up in the eighth or ninth spot. In that case, they’d have to participate in the play-in tournament.
They have control over their destiny as they play the Toronto Raptors Thursday and then play the Chicago Bulls on Saturday, and both of those are huge games. No matter how you slice it, if the team gets the sixth seed, they could very well play the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the playoffs, who are currently 4th in the East. The same could go for the Boston Celtics, who are third. Cleveland has struggled against the 76ers this season, in particular, and the matchup would be a tough series, involving the former.
At the moment though, the Cavs are trying to get to the finish line. They’ve had their share of inconsistencies over the last 10 games, going an even 5-5. They haven’t been able to be consistent and they’ve looked like a team trying to hang on and secure a playoff spot.
Now, Cleveland has continued to struggle with player injuries including big man Jarrett Allen and forward Dean Wade. Both have meant a lot to this team this season. While Allen has been a stable presence in the middle of the lane protecting his team’s rim, Wade’s defense has been missed by the team as they are giving up a lot of points of late. Case in point, the team lost to the Los Angeles Lakers 131-120 on Monday night.
Teams scoring 120 points a night should be able to win games. The fact that they didn’t speaks to the problems on defense for this team at the moment. We’ll look a little more closely at that issue next and share a couple of other big questions that the team has to answer if they want to finish the season strong.
#1: Why aren’t the Cavs playing better defense?
I’ve heard the excuse from those that follow the team that part of the reason the team is struggling on defense has a lot to do with Jarrett Allen being injured. Throw in too the fact that Dean Wade is also out now with a knee injury and that does have some to do with the terrible defense we are seeing by the Cavs.
However, they’re 72 games into the season and at this point, if the team is coached well, they should be playing even better defense, regardless of the players out on the court. Either the players aren’t putting in the effort as they should on a nightly basis, they’re getting tired too often because it is a lengthy season, or the coach needs to prioritize working harder on that end of the floor to get better results.
As much fun it is to see the young Cleveland team push the tempo on offense, they also need to slow down the other team, cover their man better, and find the ball in transition defense. We aren’t seeing much of that at the moment and that is frustrating.
I’m not sure if the young Cavaliers team just got caught gawking at the great LeBron James of the Lakers the other night because he was having his way all night long on the court as he was driving downhill by the lackluster perimeter defense and getting any shot he wanted. Why doesn’t the coaching staff change up their plans and try maybe double-teaming James and at least get the ball out of his hands and make someone else on the Lakers beat you for extended stretches?
Considering where both teams are in the standings, it was one of the most disappointing losses by the Cavs all season long. As much as the players lost the game, the Cavs coaches have to do a better job of preparing this rather young and still fragile team when games are on the line.
The team has had more success in the past when they were keeping opponents under 100 points a night. That would be a first step in getting back to securing more wins in the next few weeks.
#2: Is Isaac Okoro the difference-maker?
There has been a lot of chatter about Isaac Okoro, the Cavs starting guard for much of this season, and his contributions to the team. Okoro, as I see it to this point has been a very streaky player on offense while his defense has been the best on the team throughout.
When you take a look at Okoro’s numbers offensively it’s a roller coaster. While’s he’s averaging just over nine points a game this season, he’s had multiple stretches of games where he’ll score 20 points one night and then disappear the next night and score four points.
We saw a few stretches of games where he was much more consistent with his output. Back in mid-December, he put four games together where he had 16, 18, and 20 points twice. But then he reverted to scoring two points or six points in games that followed.
In the most recent stretch of five games, Okoro has scored in double figures four out of five games. In that same group of games, he’s been going for the corner three-point shot and been connecting more consistently. He went a perfect four-for-four in the game against the Lakers, and hit a career-best on deep balls. Additionally, while the volume is not high usually, Okoro has at least hit 47.1 percent from three in his last 15 games, albeit on 2.3 attempts per outing.
The team is going to need more from Okoro, overall, as this season moves from the regular season to the playoffs, though. Those 10 to 15 points a night will all go a long way to a Cavaliers victory.
#3: Cavs fans, are you ready for the playoffs?
I don’t want to jink the team and considering we’re cheering for a team in Cleveland, it’s never advised to get too excited about possibilities for your favorite team, but this team is playing well, despite a few recent struggles and also having player injuries hampering their efforts.
The Cavs play five games at home and five on the road, and should be in great shape from here, and while they’re in a fight to stay out of the play-in, their at worst 3-1 record versus Toronto this season helps for a potential tiebreaker scenario.
No, it’s not the same as when the team won the NBA title back in 2016, but considering where this team has come, from the ashes of mediocrity to now winning more games (without LeBron James on the team) than they had since 1998 is a huge accomplishment. The playoffs for this group is no small thing, regardless of whether that’s via the play-in tourney or the playoffs via top-6 seed.
Though I believe this team has come out from the shadow of James, it was an odd reversal back to that feeling when watching James torch the Cavs on Monday night.
If you could foreshadow a great changing of the guard, maybe the young new Cavaliers could face Lebron James and his Lakers in an upcoming NBA Finals. Wouldn’t that be some made for tv entertainment? I doubt it’d happen, but we can all wish big! Go Cavs.