“It was an important lesson for me.”
Evan Mobley was the Cleveland Cavaliers' best player against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday. His 14-point third quarter got Cleveland back into the game. The issue was, he followed that up with zero shot attempts in the fourth. Head coach Kenny Atkinson takes the blame for that.
“It was an important lesson for me,” Atkinson said before Wednesday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans. “How do we make sure he touches the ball in the fourth quarter, you know? I said it after the press conference last night. I think coaches look in the mirror after games like that. ‘Man, what could I have done better?’ And that was one. We did not seek him out. We did not he didn’t get enough touches.”
The Cavs were heavily leveraged on Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland down the stretch. They combined for 50 shots and took 16 of Cleveland’s 23 shots in the fourth quarter even though neither had their best stuff. That may not be the distribution Atkinson was looking for down the stretch.
“We got two of the best guards in the league, but we need more variety, and Evan is the key to that variety,” Atkinson said. “We did not do a good job. You can’t just keep lining a good team up like the Celtics and play pick-and-roll all the time, or isolation ball. So lesson learned.”
Atkinson did everything he could to make up for that mistake in Wednesday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans. He said postgame that the first offensive possession was designed for Mobley. He missed the initial shot attempt, but stayed with it and grabbed his own miss.
He kept going from there. Mobley led the team in shots and had an abnormally high 38.9 usage rate in the first quarter. This was by design.
“I think it makes a statement to him,” Atkinson said after the Pelicans win. “It’s like the head coach putting up his hand. I told him during the pregame today, you know, that fourth quarter I felt like was on me. I did not call your number and we’ll do a better job. And then I followed that up [with getting him involved early]. And the players felt that right? They started getting him involved.”
Atkinson has previously said that he’s tried to learn from wins, but that it’s easier to do so after losses. He didn’t waste the first lesson he received this season and immediately tried to make up for it. Atkinson, like everyone else, knows that Mobley is the piece that puts this team over the edge. That much was clear on Tuesday night.
“Sometimes we need a wakeup call,” Atkinson said. “It’s hard on this team because we’re so talented with our guard play. But if we’re going to get to the next level, we need that balance with Evan’s interior and perimeter play.”
