This Cleveland Cavaliers team is starting to look terrifying

Today, or tonight, rather, is Halloween. It’s always a time many look forward to, for obvious reasons, and no matter ones’ age, it’s a fun holiday for all to celebrate in their own way.

Somewhat along those lines, it’s always a nice time of year in the sense that the NBA season is still just getting going, and there’s most of the season to come. From a Cleveland Cavaliers standpoint, the squad is six games into the 2022-23 season on this fine Halloween Monday.

The Cavaliers stumbled a bit out of the gates in their season opener at the Toronto Raptors on Oct. 19, but since, they’ve rattled off five straight victories, and this group is really starting to roll. They’ve been making things happen in a variety of ways, and despite Darius Garland being out with an eye injury since the opener, this squad has found ways to get the job done.

And with the Halloween theme in mind here, this Cleveland team is beginning to look like it should be striking fear into opponents each time they trot out there on the hardwood.

This Cleveland Cavaliers team is starting to look terrifying.

The Cavs have won five straight contests, and in their past two outings, big plays in crucial moments have ignited runs at the Boston Celtics in a comeback effort on Friday night, and versus the New York Knicks on Sunday night at home.

In the Boston game, Cleveland rebounded from a second quarter barrage from the Celtics, chipped away at a 13-point halftime deficit, and eventually prevailed in an overtime win in a game where they got 41 points apiece from both Donovan Mitchell and Caris LeVert. That was the most points a Cavaliers backcourt has ever scored in a regular season game, per the Cavs.

From there, after a third quarter where they were out of sorts it seemed, and were outscored 34-22 by New York on Sunday, en route to being down nine heading into the fourth quarter, Cleveland stormed back and ended up with a convincing 121-108 W. In that one, the Cavaliers had a 22-point advantage over the Knicks in the fourth (37-15), and in that closing period, Kevin Love had 16 of his 29 points, and Mitchell tacked on 12 of his 38 in the game then.

Furthermore, the Cavs got eight triples from both Love and Mitchell in that contest, and in that win over the Knicks, Dean Wade in another spot start with Garland out had six triples of his own, which factored a bunch into his career-high 22-point night. And those 22 threes made by those three guys were the most by a trio of teammates in a game in the history of the NBA, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Now, objectively, this group has played six games, and some of Mitchell’s guady stats are going to decline when Garland is back in the lineup for the Cavaliers.

However, with what this team has been showing to begin the 2022-23 season, and with the way the Wine and Gold have been shooting the ball, this club is beginning to look like a terrifying bunch. The Cavs will have to recalibrate some things a bit when Garland is back from his injury, to reiterate, but on both ends of the floor, this team is stepping up big in crucial stretches of games, and Cedi Osman and the bench have come up huge on a number of occasions already.

Through six games, these are pretty damn nice splits from the Wine and Gold, per Stat Muse, and game by game, this group is becoming all the more confident. And that’s only going to make them more dangerous for opponents.

Even when it’s seemed as if the Cavs have put themselves in tough spots, they’ve been able to generate big runs in high-leverage moments, and with the blend of contributions from Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley and their bench guys, this Cleveland team has been able to make crucial plays when they’ve needed it. That’s applied on both ends, too, as demonstrated by the metrics above, and only six teams have forced more turnovers per game thus far than the Cavs.

It’s again very early in the season for this Cavaliers team, and they’ll need to get some things cleaned up, and have some more consistent play from Mobley on offense, but on a number of fronts, it doesn’t seem to be hyperbolic to buy this team as a legit contending threat.

Though I’m not going to say I’m there at this point, if Mitchell and Garland mesh, the group gets meaningful defensive contributions throughout games and Mobley can take that next step offensively, this team could be among the Eastern Conference’s elite.

I do have to admit, the Cavs are definitely starting to look terrifying, with how they’ve been shooting the hell out of the ball, and going up against Mitchell is probably giving some opponents restless nights.