Why are the Cleveland Cavaliers So Good Now?

Why are the Cleveland Cavaliers So Good Now?

What the heck is going on in Cleveland the Cavaliers have gone 17- one in their last 18 games and they’re now second in the Eastern Conference they have the League’s best record since January 3 and they have the NBA’s best defensive rating in that time span as well as the

Fifth best offensive rating in the league so what’s going on now the last time the Cavaliers got major media attention was on December 15 which is when Cavaliers fans suffered double nuclear bomb drops when they learned that Evan Mobley and Darius garland would both be out with significant

Injuries for at least a month each this is when the Cavaliers were still in the middle of the Eastern Conference and didn’t seem to have any upside for the rest of the season a lot of people actually started dooming about the Cavaliers uh playoff chances including

Me I should say I even made a whole video If donov Mitchell was going to leave or not because of that low point of the Season well just a few weeks later they went on a winning streak and uh have basically kept winning since then even without Garland and Mobley and

Continuing to win now that they actually did make it back so what’s happening why are the Cavaliers so good well there are a few different factors coming into play here the main one I can think of is the elevated play of Donovan Mitchell and Jared Allen these were the remaining two

Of Cleveland’s big four after Evan Mobley and Darius scarland got in injured and in those two players absence Mitchell and Allen have basically created something of a elite Twan game now both players were already solid in their own right but playing without Garland and Moy has allowed them to sort

Of build a chemistry with each other and it’s resulted in Jared Allen having the best 18 game stretch of his career so far where he’s been averaging about 17 points and 12 rebounds per game and Donan Mitchell on the other hand has been averaging 28.5 points in the last

18 games along to go along with seven assists and five rebounds a game and he’s doing all that on 37% shooting from three and 50% shooting overall actually Donovan Mitchell’s been putting up MVP numbers over the last month and it’s something that has gone quite under the record in my opinion especially because

The last time Donan Mitchell got any significant media attention was when the news of the injuries came out and basically the mainstream NBA media was wishcasting his his future trade request and again I would know because I did a video on that myself of course this personal growth that

Mitchell and Allan have enjoyed over the past couple months is partly because of the injuries to Darius and Evan the reason being that their absence has led to some improve rotations from Cavaliers coach JB bicker staff it’s allowed the coach to put more shooting on the floor

Namely from George Nang Dean Wade and most significantly Sam Merill who is in his first year in Cleveland and is lighting up the court from the three-point range hitting about 44% of his shots and completely changing the way defenses have to scheme for the Cavaliers you may remember but a common

Problem with the Cavaliers Big four of Mitchell Allen Garland and Moy was that they had two big players namely Allen and Moy who couldn’t shoot leading to spacing problems because both of them couldn’t really operate outside the paint but now with these improved lineups the coach has been able to find

Minutes for additional players at least during the absences of Garland and Moy that’s allowed him to always have three-point shooting threats which gives Donovan Mitchell extra space to work where he’s great which is getting to the rim some of the lineups during the Garland and mo absences actually they

Performed really well and the best one I can find and really the most effective one that Cleveland’s uh pulled out so far in in the new year has been the lineup of Donovan Mitchell Max stru Dean Wade Isaac aoro and Jared Allen now that lineup played for about has played for

About 165 minutes and they’ve posted a league best 25.8 net rating in that time span as well as also a league best 94.9 defensive rating and this is a significant sample size with Jared Allen anchoring the rim as well as strong defenders in Max stru Dean Wade and

Isaac auro even Donovan Mitchell is not as much of a defensive liability as he once was so yes the injury absences forced the Cavaliers to try out some new lineups and they found gold basically but in the past week or two Garland and Moy returned but the Cavaliers have kept

Winning anyway so not only did they find new lineups but they’ve also found ways to integrate Garland and Moy into the new system namely they’ve started using a sort of double stagger rotation and it’s kind of a new term for me as well but it basically refers to the coach’s

Plan of having two of his big four players on the court at all times so this usually means Darius and Evan Mobley are heading one unit while Donan Mitchell and Jared Allen are heading another unit which makes a lot of sense because as I said before Allan and

Mitchell have built something of a strong Twan game between themselves but the idea is here that the big four aren’t sharing the court as often as they once were they’re still in the starting lineup of course they still play a lot of minutes together but there’s far greater rotation involved

And it’s allowed the Cavaliers to to sort of get over that lack of shooting that once plagued their most commonly used lineups now it should be noted that as you can see a lot of the teams that the Cavaliers have faced during this time of winning a lot of them have been

Sort of weaker teams or really just bad teams you can see they have for example Washington twice San Antonio twice Brooklyn twice but they’ve also beaten some really good teams like Milwaukee for example they beat the Bucks twice they beat the clipp they beat the Kings now overall are a

Lot of these teams bad yes but if you look at the results number one just like any team is supposed to do you only face the team in front of you you have to beat that team so it’s really not their fault the second thing here is to note

That a good sign of a really strong team is how dominant you are in these wins and as you look through this list you’ll see that a lot of these wins are blowouts they’re really not close wins at all sure sure you have one or two in

There but most of the time they’re shredding the weaker teams which is exactly what a good team is supposed to do playing weak teams shouldn’t be held against them now if they were only winning by a couple points each game then sure you could say something but when you’re winning against Brooklyn for

Example by 30 points or Toronto by 30 points or even Milwaukee by 40 points then there’s something special going on here it’s not any team that does that just because they’re facing weaker opponents now looking at the standings we see that the Cavaliers are now second and they’re five games behind the

Celtics and two games ahead of the bucks now I don’t know how much of a hot take this is it might be cold take actually but I think it’s likely the Cavaliers finish second in the Eastern Conference this year the Knicks and 76ers are both suffering because of injuries they’re

Still good teams especially the Knicks but they’ve lost some momentum because of injuries to their to starting players and in the Sixers case Joel and B lead and as for the bucks they’re two games behind the Cavaliers but they’ve had some struggles of their own that doesn’t

Mean they’re not a good team but it doesn’t mean that they’ sort of lost that momentum that would have kept them close to the Cavaliers and assuming that the Cavaliers stay in second then we’re looking at a potential first round matchup with either the magic or the

Heat or or maybe even the Bulls and and the Hawks but I’d say it’s most likely the Miami Heat which would be a very interesting first round considering the Cavaliers improvements this year and the heat being the heat I’d say that would be an unpredictable first round myself

But anyway that’s where the Cavaliers are at at this point of the season and uh I do recommend watching a Cavaliers game or two because this is a very exciting team and I think they’re going to go at least as far as they did last year in the playoffs which is the first

Round but who knows I could see them going to the second round as well they’re showing playoff run potential that uh I think they were missing last year especially with Donovan Mitchell looking as good as he is he’s looking like the clear-cut leader this time and there’s less ambiguity in the offense

But that’s enough for me I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are on the Cavaliers and yeah leave them in the comments below if you liked what you heard then please leave a like And subscribe and I’ll see you later

The Cavaliers have gone on 17-1 run since the New Year, and they aren’t showing signs of slowing down. The crazy thing is they did most of this with two core players, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley INJURED, so something is definitely up with this team. How have they managed to do it? #cavaliers #donovanmitchell