3 potential closing lineups for the Cavs in 2022-23 season

Potential Cavs closing unit No. 3: Modified tall-ball

The “tall-ball” lineup is how the Cavaliers started and finished games last season, when healthy. While they don’t have three 7-footers they can throw out there anymore, or close to that, realistically, they do still have a shooter with size. A modified version of the tall-ball lineup would include Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Kevin Love, and Jarrett Allen.

Our own Dan Gilinsky wrote about this as a potential lineup the Cavs can deploy with Kevin Love this season. Similar to the concept I mentioned with the spacing lineup, pick-and-pops with Love would be one of the offensive priorities here. Being able to utilize a big man on the outside gives the offense plenty of opportunities to knock down daggers late in the game or get easy buckets around the rim with open driving lanes.

Jarrett Allen could be the recipient of dump-off passes as he camps at the dunker’s spot, or he could do work in the pick-and-roll with Garland or Mitchell drawing a help side defender from one of the wings, giving Love or the other guard an open look from deep.

This lineup would create havoc for the opposition. There are so many weapons on the floor that can do so many things.

I was a big fan of having Lauri Markkanen at the three last season, so a modified version of that this season with Kevin Love could really be fun to watch.

This team has so many options to close games. Even players we haven’t mentioned like Cedi Osman, Ricky Rubio, Lamar Stevens, or Dean Wade could crack one of these lineups if they show enough improvement.

For coaches, putting the right pieces together is one of the most important aspects of closing out a game. If Cleveland head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and his staff deploy one of these lineups, I would feel comfortable with this team being able to pull out close wins and put away easy ones.