It’s a good thing that the Cleveland Cavaliers have surpassed their win total from a year ago. They are 45-28 and rolling into the postseason. Seemingly, from the outside, it certainly appears that the Wine and Gold are in good hands under the coaching of J.B. Bickerstaff. He should be credited with getting his squad to where they are now to some degree but giving him sole credit wouldn’t be completely true.
Adding an All-Star like Donovan Mitchell has certainly helped and the team in general has had a chance to gel even more this season. All this has led to a productive year. However, how far can this team go through the playoffs, and can Bickerstaff be that coach to get them there?
My colleague at King James Gospel, Josh Cornelissen, recently pointed out that several really good teams in the past, like the Golden State Warriors, fired their previous head coach Mark Jackson right before they were going to NBA Championships. Even though they were winning more with Jackson, he wasn’t going to take that group to titles. Enter Steve Kerr and the Warriors have gone on to win four titles since his arrival.
So, what might be some of the concerns with Bickerstaff and his coaching that would be reason to eventually fire him? Let’s look at some of these issues that seem to be front and center and could lead to that dismissal. While the wins are coming now, is Bickerstaff ultimately holding this Cavaliers team back from making that serious run at a championship?
Concern No. 1: Cavs clutch time inconsistencies so far
When you start dissecting the Cavs games this season especially those games where they were within or leading by five points with only five minutes to play, what NBA stats deems as “clutch time,” the Wine and Gold are only 20-20 on the year. Why is that? You would think that the Cavaliers would have an overall better record in the clutch.
Part of that has to do with the players being stagnant and not running much offense. Whose fault is that? The players have to take some accountability, but so does the head coach. The focus in those clutch situations should be to run plays and execute and those things seem to go out the window for Cleveland in these nail-biting moments.
For the season the Cavs are 16th in the league in assist rate, but in that five-minute window at the end of games when things are on the line, the team falls to 25th in the league in assist rate. They stop passing the ball and try too hard to score baskets on their own.
There have been numerous breakdowns on defense too in these late moments and the Cavs will give back a lead that they had built earlier in the last quarter. Some of these moments still have to do with the youth of the team and they might lose their focus for a number of reasons.
Bickerstaff is the coach and while some of these things are out of his control at times it’s the bigger picture on the whole topic. The little mistakes still continue to happen and he’s ultimately in charge of making sure those little things get cleaned up and that takes coaching.
Concern No. 2: When Cavs get in playoffs/things can tighten up then
As we just looked at, those last five minutes, when the Cavs are in tight games, are pressure moments and too often the team has struggled. Despite that 20-20 record in those close games the team is 45-28 overall which shows that the team has been good at building leads and keeping the lead. However, we all know that when the playoffs begin in a few weeks, games tighten up, defenses start locking up more on their opponents and we get more nailbiters.
How will these young Cavaliers handle all these new things? It takes time to learn how to win in the postseason. It will help to have a player like Donovan Mitchell, who’s been in the playoffs five times, to be the leader of the Wine and Gold.
As for the team’s head coach, Bickerstaff has only been involved in one playoff series when he coached the Houston Rockets. They played the Golden State Warries in an opening round series in 2016 in which they lost in five games 4-1. That in itself isn’t necessarily bad news but it does also point out that Bickerstaff doesn’t have much coaching experience in these pressure cooker series.
This is also why a change at head coach for the Cavs in the near future seems reasonable when you add up all the things it will take to get them to a championship.
While the Wine and Gold may have a ton of basketball talent on the team, they’ve also got to find the leader that will be able to take them to new heights.