Going into the series, I predicted the Cleveland Cavaliers would win in six games versus the New York Knicks. I thought it would be a very competitive series, but ultimately Cleveland would win in six or seven games, but probably six games. Quite frankly, this series really wasn’t that close.
Now, it was understandable to believe the Cavaliers would win because they had the best player, they had home court, and their top end talent of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen was just better than the Knicks’ top end talent. Most of the time in a series the team that has that wins the series.
The Cavs didn’t win, though, because Mitchell and Garland didn’t show up enough when needed. The Knicks were able to expose some of the Cavaliers’ obvious flaws and just simply physically overwhelmed them. Mitchell Robinson, in particular, just single-handedly dominated Jarrett Allen, which was argubly the story of the series.
Again the Knicks were able to expose some of the Cavs’ flaws we knew existed, but they really highlighted the flaws, which will lead to some interesting conversations in the offseason. After the surprising way the Cavaliers were eliminated in five short games, here are the takeaways from their series loss to the Knicks.
Takeaway No. 3: The Cavs couldn’t match the Knicks’ physicality
With the exception of Game 2, the Knicks physically dominated the Cavaliers. For instance, the Knicks outrebounded the Cavaliers 48-30 in Game 5, with 17 of those being offensive rebounds. Simply put, the Cavs defense played mostly great this series, until it came time to finish the possession.
Mitchell Robinson himself had more rebounds (18) than Mobley and Allen combined in Game 5. In Game 1, New York had 17 offensive rebounds to the Cavs 11, and in Game 4, the Knicks had 17 offensive rebounds to the Cavs seven. Further, in the elimination game everything completely unraveled, as New York had 17 offensive rebounds to the Cavs four.
It seemed like in pivitol moments in the series, whenever there was a loose ball, the Knicks would always beat the Cavaliers to the punch. The Knicks were able to win all the hustle stats that the Cavs pride themselves on winning, and again, Cleveland until they had to finish the possession were pretty good defensively in this series, but New York dominated them on the glass and in key points of games, they converted when grabbing extra possessions. It’s a little concerning how much Robinson dominated Allen and the way Allen was less and less effective as the series went on.
I’m not going to say that this was a good series for Mobley. He did a good job and he showed up more than Allen on defense for the most part, but Mobley isn’t strong enough, especially against guys like Robinson and Randle, who are just clearly more put-together than Mobley at this stage. That led to issues closing out possessions at times, and offensively, he was limited. Mobley will get stronger where what happened in this series won’t happen again, but he just isn’t there yet.
Takeaway No. 2: The Cavs were unable to overcome the lack of depth
Over the course of the regular season against New York, and for the first couple games of this series, when the group of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley and Allen were on the court together, the Cavs were winning those minutes. The problem was if those guys weren’t great, the team had no margin for error. The Cavaliers probably had six guys (Garland, Mitchell, Mobley, Allen, Caris LeVert and arguably Isaac Okoro) that they felt good about in the rotation and after that you didn’t really have any.
The Wine and Gold had a number of issues in this regard. If Allen or Mobley got in any kind of foul trouble, the Cavs are in deep trouble considering they are already thin on depth and they don’t really have a third big they can rely on.
In this series guys like Ricky Rubio, who still hasn’t looked like himself coming off a major injury, was unplayable, and Dean Wade was unplayable, and again the Cavs didn’t have a legitimate backup big. Danny Green was a terrific three-and-D guy earlier in his career on championship teams, but he’s well past his prime, and Cedi Osman is hard to rely on playing 20 minutes per night in playoff games.
When you have only six guys you can count on it’s almost impossible to function, and sometimes in the playoffs bench play gets overstated. In the playoffs rotations get shorter and most teams only have eight at-most nine-player rotations, as your stars and starters play much more minutes in the regular season, however, when you’ve only got six players you can trust it’s hard to be successful.
The Cavs need to find the right fifth guy with the group of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley and Allen (assuming he returns), along with the bench, which one should expect to look a bit different going into next season.
Takeaway No. 1: Shooting inconsistencies, lack of three-and-D wing
My biggest takeaway from the Cavaliers series loss against the Knicks was the lack of consistent shooting and absence of a three-and-D wing, outside Garland and Mitchell. We knew before the series that even if the Cavaliers won the thing that probably held them back aside from experience and not being good enough at wing, is they just don’t have enough shooting. The Knicks did a great job of exposing it and it’s pretty clear and glaring President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman will need to address this issue.
I’m not giving DG or Mitchell a pass for this series, but a big factor is with the lack of shooting and spacing, things were so much harder on them and the Cavaliers had a brutal time trying to score. Outside of those two, Cleveland doesn’t really have consistent knockdown shooters. Mobley hasn’t extended his range yet, Allen is a non-shooter and the Cavs would have big stretches where Okoro was on the floor with them.
One shouldn’t blame J.B. Bickerstaff for that choice, he simply didn’t have many options to choose from. Still when you have Okoro, Mobley, and Allen all on the court together together, New York was able to sag off those guys and pack the paint. It made things really difficult on Garland and Mitchell to operate. They didn’t really have anywhere to go with the ball and the Knicks quite often would throw extra defenders at them, daring those other guys to beat them from deep.
It was an issue that you could see in the regular season, and the Knicks completely exposed it. Furthermore it’s on Altman to get a legitimate three-and-D wing this offseason. No matter how dynamic the backcourt of Garland and Mitchell are, if you don’t really have anything at wing for extended stretches, it’s going to be hard to have a ton of success in the playoffs. The Knicks have pretty average wing play, but they were able to exploit the Cleveland’s biggest weakness.
Adding a three-and-D wing or two, or more shooting is the number one thing the Cavs need to address this offseason, via trade and/or free agency.
The good news is the Cavaliers have already addressed the hardest part of what you need to do to become a contender, and that’s finding the top end talent guys to anchor your franchise, now it’s just hitting on the margins and fixing the few flaws, which is doable. Seemingly rumored potential target Dorian Finney-Smith of the Brooklyn Nets, who have a glut of wings and are a team in transition, would make a lot of sense and would do wonders for the Cavs.
If anything, for Altman it’s clear where the flaws are that need to be addressed for this team to become a true contender.