This is not an article to bash the job that Kenny Atkinson is doing.
The newly-installed head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers is the Coach of the Year frontrunner, and for good reason. He stepped into an organization in need of a fresh offensive approach and has provided it, shifting the focus away from the pick-and-roll heavy diet of the J.B. Bickerstaff days and to a system filled with more motion and movement.
That has included putting the ball in the hands of Evan Mobley more often, and he has responded with a career year, thriving as the hub of the offense and challenging opponents in fresh ways in both transition and at the rim. Darius Garland likewise appears to have found new life, shooting confidently and boosting a 3-point attack that remains the league leader despite a pair of shaky performances in their last two games, both losses.
It would be easy to overreact to two losses in a row, especially for a team that started 15-0 and has gone 2-3 since. Overall, the Cavaliers lost their last two games, both to the Atlanta Hawks, because the Hawks shot significantly better from 3-point range. Some of that is luck, and some of that can be attributed to good perimeter defense from the Hawks and inconsistent perimeter defense from the Cavaliers.
There is no need to panic; the Cavaliers set a high baseline of performance in going 17-1 and a couple of cold shooting performances don't change that. Peering more closely, however, there is one coaching decision that Kenny Atkinson is making that needs to change, or the losses may start to continue adding up.
Georges Niang is closing games
Coming out of last season, the general assumption around the Cavaliers was that the team was going to need to break up the core four stars, and most likely that meant trading one of Evan Mobley or Jarrett Allen. The team decided to make another run with this group, trusting in Atkinson to install an offensive system that allowed the double-big look to thrive.
To some extent, Atkinson has accomplished that. What is more the case is that Atkinson has leaned into maximizing lineups with just one big on the court, and those individual units of starters and bench players mixed together have largely crushed the opposition.
Atkinson has carried that philosophy over into closing units, where he has inserted a stretch-4 in place of Jarrett Allen. The idea is that the offensive ceiling is higher with spacing around Mobley, opening up scoring opportunities for everyone involved in a way that outpaces the defensive loss of taking Allen off the court.
The problem with that approach is that Allen is one of the four-best players on the team, and he is essentially being screened out of minutes closing games. He is well behind Mitchel, Garland, Mobley and even Ty Jerome in fourth-quarter minutes, and if the focus was narrowed to the last five minutes of games the gulf would be even wider.
The cold reality facing Atkinson is that taking Allen off the court means he is going to a lesser player; sometimes fit can overcome talent in such situations, and there is an argument for the effectiveness of lineups with a player like Dean Wade at the 4, who can both space the court and defend at a high level.
Where Atkinson has turned late in games, however, is to backup stretch-4 Georges Niang, the least athletic player on the roster and likely the worst defender among the regular rotation. He is averaging 5.6 fourth-quarter minutes per game for Cleveland, some of that time his regular place in the rotation early in the fourth and some of that when he is inserted into the closing lineup over Allen.
Overall in fourth quarters, Niang has been an abysmal offensive player, supposedly the calling card for placing him on the court. He is shooting just 40 percent from the floor and a glacial 17.6 percent from deep, and he is averaging equal amounts of assists and turnovers. If you narrow the scope to just their three losses, Niang has just three total fourth-quarter points on 1-for-6 shooting, with four rebounds, an assist and two turnovers. More glaringly, he is averaging 7.4 minutes per fourth quarter to Allen's 5.5.
Some of that is noise, and it's difficult to parse out specific numbers for when he's in the closing lineup. The eye test, however, is overwhelming. Niang is consistently targeted by opposing offenses; Trae Young practically grinned maniacally when he got to attack Niang in a pick-and-roll, or hit a cutter coming behind him. His lack of foot speed puts a legitimate ceiling on his defensive impact no matter his effort level, and he's the kind of player who can't be a part of high-leverage playoff minutes.
Placing him in the rotation during the regular season is fine, and even experimenting at times makes sense this early in the year. Atkinson needs to find the right lineup combinations to go to when his primary option falls through. Thus far, however, it seems like his primary option is Georges Niang, and that is a problem.
Atkinson could adjust and try out Dean Wade in that role when he returns from his ankle injury. He could give Allen more run in closing groups to see if the defensive approach shines through. Or they could look for an option on the trade market to replace Niang in the rotation -- or even on the roster -- to allow a 4-out closing lineup to be more effective.
However he makes the change, he has to make it. Otherwise, the Cavaliers are going to keep losing games, because playing Georges Niang in the closing lineup is not the answer.