It's one thing to say that the Cleveland Cavaliers are a good shooting team. Or even to say that they are great. Yet it can be easy to miss just how dominant they are shooting the basketball.
Start from the team level. The average team in the NBA this season is shooting 35.8 percent from deep this season. They are spread out from the Orlando Magic in last place, hitting a frigid 30.7 percent from 3-point range, all the way up to Cleveland in first.
The Cavaliers are hitting 39.3 percent of their 3-point shots this season. That is not only first in the NBA, it's a full percentage point better than the second-place Milwaukee Bucks. They are running away with the 3-point crown this year.
That's why the Cavaliers rank second in 3-point makes per game but only fourth in attempts. What's more, they are accomplishing that feat despite a team that doesn't look like all of the other teams shooting a high volume from 3-point range.
To ratchet up your 3-point attempts, you usually need to have big men who can shoot. Evan Mobley has increased his 3-point volume, yes, but it's hardly a weapon for him. The Cavaliers start two traditional bigs in their starting lineup and yet have managed to rank among the league leaders in 3-point shots and attempts.
The Boston Celtics start five shooters and have a pair of stretch-5s. The Golden State Warriors have the best shooter to ever live and a stretch-5 coming off the bench. The Chicago Bulls start a stretch big in Nikola Vucevic. The Oklahoma City Thunder have Chet Holmgren. The Milwaukee Bucks have Brook Lopez.
The Cavaliers are without a stretch-5, yet they are destroying teams from deep. The reason?
They have a roster packed with high-volume, high-accuracy perimeter players who bomb away from 3-point range.
The Cavaliers have a team loaded with shooters
Check out this chart from "Automatic" on X, well worth the follow for his tables and charts. A few days ago he highlighted the best shooters in the league thus far, calculating "points added" on 3-pointers, long 2s and free-throws.
Updated top 30 shooters this season!
— Automatic (@automaticnba) February 28, 2025
Malik Beasley 📈📈 https://t.co/Tgig3JEujO pic.twitter.com/bZfuDStjmt
The names at the very top are exactly who you would expect. Stephen Curry. Damian Lillard. Anthony Edwards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. All four were All-Stars this season. Rounding out the Top 5 was Malik Beasley, a shooting specialist having an absolutely mind-boggling season for the upstart Detroit Pistons.
Sixth on the list? Darius Garland, having an amazing season of his own. His strength is not long 2s, but his numbers from beyond the arc are simply ludicrous: Top 10 in both pull-up 3-pointers and catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. His versatility to excel on-ball and then shift to running off screens and lighting it up off-ball have unlocked the Cavaliers' ceiling.
Yet Garland is hardly alone on the list. In the Top 25 shooters in the league a handful of teams have two players show up. Kevin Durant and Devin Booker for the Phoenix Suns. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray for the Denver Nuggets. Payton Pritchard and Derrick White, the greatest duo in Boston Celtics history.
And of course, a whopping four players from the Cleveland Cavaliers. Donovan Mitchell ranks 14th and is positive from all four areas, and especially from beyond the arc in perhaps his best shooting season. Ty Jerome is 19th, and this doesn't even count his floater game. New addition De'Andre Hunter is 22nd, the most well-rounded player on the entire list, excelling from anywhere on the court.
Find a way to stop Garland, and Mitchell is going to destroy you. Slow down the starting lineup, and Jerome and Hunter come into the game and light you up. This doesn't even include Sam Merrill, the team's movement shooter to toss into the game to break defenses, or Max Strus, who makes every lineup he is in better and more lethal.
The Cleveland Cavaliers may not win the title. They may not beat the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. There are very real hurdles to clear.
Yet they absolutely have the firepower to do it, to win the East and take home the championship. Not one, not two, but four of the league's best shooters are leading the way.