Cavs are starting to hit their stride again, closing how they should be

After the Cleveland Cavaliers cruised to a 117-94 win over the Washington Wizards on Friday night, the group moved to 45-28 on the campaign. Cleveland has won seven of their last 10 outings, and four of their last five.

Of course, we won’t know how this group will respond to the pressure of the playoffs ahead, which are set to begin mid-next month. For most of this Cavaliers team, they haven’t been on the playoff stage, and time will tell how they react to that atmosphere.

Still, there’s been business for this team to handle in the mean time, and fortunately, despite some drawbacks, the Cavs do appear to gaining momentum heading into the postseason, and it’s been nice to see. As we alluded to, Cleveland has been playing pretty well recently, and in the Cavaliers’ four games of late without Jarrett Allen available, they’ve gone 3-1; on the year, they’ve been now 6-5 sans Allen.

Allen was injured in the closing minutes in a loss at the Miami Heat on March 10, and suffered an eye contusion, but he could reportedly return in one of their next two games, per Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. That’s at least the hope from the team, Fedor noted in the report, and either way, it was a relief Allen didn’t sustain any structural damage. For the Cavs, though, they played well in his absence, and as a team, March has been an encouraging month.

Granted, everybody’s eyes are looking ahead to the playoffs, or plenty of the fan base it seems, but it has been a plus to see the Cavaliers hitting their stride again. The team looks to be closing strong, and following the Wiz game, Evan Mobley expressed postgame in media availability how the group is not taking these games to come lightly, even with the playoffs looming.

The Cavs are hitting their stride again, and closing how they should be.

There’s still some stretches where the Cavaliers still resemble a young team, and they still are one.

Cleveland faltered in the fourth quarter in their second game in a miniseries at the Heat earlier this month, resulting in a loss, and Cleveland has to consistently start better in games. Additionally, in their 108-109 loss on Wednesday versus the Philadelphia 76ers, the Cavs conceded too many open looks from miscommunications or overhelping late, and Philly’s runs in the fourth led to their demise.

That being said, the Cavaliers have had a number of quality performances, and their No. 1-ranked defense has been forcing turnovers, which have sparked key runs throughout games. It’s been great to witness Mobley pick things up offensively, too, to go with his stellar defense, and Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell have been sharp. There shouldn’t be a ton to worry about with Garland in the playoffs, either, and Ricky Rubio could aid the team for spurts as well.

What has been another promising development of late has been how Caris LeVert has been making a difference more and more as the season has worn on from an all-around perspective. He has been more on-point with his scoring in this last chunk of outings, but his defensive play, playmaking and better than expected off-ball offense have given Cleveland a boost post-All-Star break. It’s been nice to see him put it together at the right time.

So, while this has not been the postseason yet, it’s been meaningful for the Cavaliers to seemingly be hitting their stride again in this closing portion of the regular season. And in that last win over the Wizards, they had their league-best 11th win by 20-plus points, per Cavs Notes. With that W, Cleveland surpassed their win total from last season.

Regardless, everybody following the team is focused on the playoffs, for obvious reasons. But as Mobley essentially stated above in that postgame from Friday night, it’s a plus the group is still valuing these upcoming nine regular season games, to help secure homecourt in the first round, clearly, and to simply keep building momentum for what’s ahead.