The Cleveland Cavaliers didn't show up.
That is, there were five players on the court to start their Friday night game against the New York Knicks, under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden. They were wearing Cleveland jerseys, they were announced as starters by the arena announcer, they walked back and sat down on the Cavaliers bench when a timeout was called.
Yet in a game that was technically meaningless to the Cavaliers, who locked up the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference earlier in the week, their starters did not show up to play their best. They did not look like the team that had gone 3-0 against the Knicks earlier in the season and which had boatraced the league to the tune of 63 wins.
By the second quarter, the Cavaliers found themselves down by 23 points to a Knicks team fighting to secure their spot in the playoff bracket. And this was not a group of players who would normally be coming off the bench as the starters rested on the sideline. Four of their five usual starters suited up for this contest, so to see them go down by so much so quickly was a surprise.
Some coaches may have chosen to rip into their players, verbally chewing them out for not showing up ready to play. Others may have shrugged, recognizing it was a relatively meaningless penultimate game of the season, sat the vets, and moved on.
Kenny Atkinson, however, has shown the ability to reach his players. To press the right buttons, say the right things, to get this group to trust him and respond. He did that again on Friday night.
Calling a timeout once the deficit reached 23 points, Atkinson gathered his players together and asked them a question, per Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. He told them "if we don't want to be here, we will play the young guys. I want you guys to tell me, do you want to play?" And then he walked away.
Atkinson laid down the challenge, and his players rose to it. They didn't dismiss it as some sort of overplayed motivational ploy, but saw it for what it really was: a recognition that on this night, in the greatest arena on earth, the Cavaliers did not show up to play. They lacked the competitive drive to compete with a good team.
The Cavaliers took his qustion to heart, and answered it: they wanted to be there. They wanted to stick it to the team who knocked them out of the playoffs two seasons ago. They wanted to prove that they were not a group that mailed anything in.
They came storming back, were down just 12 points at halftime, and rode a 30-16 fourth quarter to pull out the 108-102 victory. Darius Garland scored 13 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter as a Cavaliers team that didn't show up to play turned things around and instead ran through the tape. It was a momentous game for Garland, who shook off the malaise he had been in recently and had one of his better games of the year.
What Atkinson accomplished on Friday night was not an isolated incident. He used a thrown water bottle to get through to his team a few weeks back and break them out of a losing streak. He challenged Jarrett Allen not to get punked again by Ivica Zubac, and Allen went back and took it to one of the league's most intimidating centers. Time and time again, Atkinson has proven capable of getting through to this team.
That will matter in the playoffs. On some nights, the shots will be falling and passes will be crisp and the Cavaliers will cruise to victory. On others, however, the offense will look sluggish, the shots will clang off of the rim, and their defensive rotations will be a touch too slow. On those nights, Atkinson needs to be able to turn the ship.
Friday he proved, once again, that he is capable of doing so. He can get through to this team. For a group as talented and as deep as this one, that takes away one of the few avenues to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers.
With Kenny Atkinson on the sideline, the Cavaliers are ready to play anyone.