In the third quarter of the Cleveland Cavaliers' win over the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night, a comeback victory on the second night of a back-to-back, Jarrett Allen rotated in for Evan Mobley with 4:54 on the clock.
Kenny Atkinson has made a number of small changes to the Cavaliers' rotation since becoming head coach, and one of them is to lean all-the-more on staggering Allen and Mobley to maximize the team's spacing. While they always start games and halves together, they tend to be split up fairly quickly.
That's why Allen took to the bench a few minutes into the third quarter against the Nets, and then rotated in with just under five minutes to go. It was a rough night thus far for Allen, and with the Cavaliers trailing 75-64 it was an opportunity for him to assert himself on a smaller Nets team.
Allen started off with four quick points, a pair of free-throws and a layup. Then things began to fall apart for Allen; he was out of position on an alley-oop dunk, he missed a shot, then had the ball stolen away. He missed another two shots, and then suddenly Evan Mobley was checking in. For that stint: 1-for-5 shooting, a turnover, and the Cavaliers still trailed by 11 points.
Whether Kenny Atkinson made the decision at that moment, or whether he went with his gut when it was time to pull the trigger, but those were the final minutes that Jarrett Allen would play. Evan Mobley played center as the Cavs trimmed the lead to six points, and then it was time for him to rotate back off the court for a rest.
Rather than put Allen in, however, Atkinson waved in Dean Wade. A combo forward who started multiple games at the 3 for the Cavs to start the season, was now in at center.
It only lasted 91 seconds of game time. The Cavs missed a shot and made a shot, the Nets missed a shot and made a shot. Evan Mobley checked back in with six minutes to go and never left the game again as Cleveland went on a 20-9 run to end the game and remain undefeated.
The Cavaliers could use this strategy more often
Atkinson was able to place a full 5-out offense on the floor, with a frontcourt of Caris LeVert, Georges Niang and Dean Wade. That group offered very little interior defense, but Wade and Niang are both strong enough to bang with bigger bodies in the post. It was a fascinating roll of the dice for Atkinson, and it worked out - playing such a perilous defensive lineup could have resulted in a quick Brooklyn run to put the game out of reach.
Trying Dean Wade at center is something the Cavs try when one of Allen or Mobley misses a game and the alternative is Tristan Thompson. It's something they try when Allen or Mobley are dealing with significant foul trouble. Purposefully sitting an All-Star center in order to play Dean Wade and Georges Niang on the backline is a wild move.
Evan Mobley is unique among big men in his ability to play significant minutes, but in the early going Atkinson has liked playing he and Allen for shorter stints of high-intensity basketball. What has unfolded as Mobley's role on offense has grown, however, is that there is a clear hierarchy for the coaching staff, and Mobley is above Allen.
That means that increasingly, Atkinson is playing only Mobley at center down the ends of games, and Allen is riding the pine. Now that has expanded even to important, high-leverage minutes when Mobley sits.
Per Cleaning the Glass, the Cavaliers have played 356 possessions with Allen on the court without Mobley (filtering out garbage time); Cleveland is +13.1 points per 100 possessions during those minutes, a dominant number.
With Mobley and no Allen, however, those numbers leap to +18.2, in the 97th-percentile leaguewide, and across about the same number of minutes. Atkinson is going to Mobley in crunchtime without Allen for a reason. When both the bigs play together, the Cavs are a solid, but unspectacular, +9.8. Cleveland is at its best with just one big.
Saturday was the first time that the Cavaliers played a lineup without one of the team's three centers in competitive action, and it broke even. Not a spectacular showing, not a disastrous one. Yet if Atkinson grows incresingly comfortable with such a lineup, it begins to open the door for bigger, more important questions.
If lineups with Mobley and Allen together are not elite, and Allen is not closing games nor even always backing up Mobley, is there a point where trading Allen even with the team's dominant start comes into view? That's a difficult question to ask, but if things get more difficult as the schedule ramps up (which won't happen until after Thanksgiving) it's an option that may fit more with Atkinson's vision for the team.
It was 91 seconds on Saturday, but Atkinson may have found an alternative he likes, and that could spell the beginning of the end for Jarrett Allen in Cleveland.