The Cavaliers beat the Thunder by doing all the things they couldn’t previously in high-pressure games.
Both head coaches tried to downplay the level of preparation that went into the showdown between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday.
“This is definetely about us,” said Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson before his team’s win when asked about how he’s approaching this game. “I think regular season too, this isn’t all the sudden we switched our process like, ‘Oh man, we’re going to scout these guys like crazy.’ This wasn’t a playoff scout.”
Mark Daigneault, head coach of the Thunder, echoed a similar sentiment. They were both proven to be liars. Cleveland immediately came out and attacked Oklahoma City’s weakness on defense by taking corner threes on their first two possessions. Meanwhile, the Thunder blitzed Donovan Mitchell early to make him move the ball.
This wasn’t the beginning of your typical midweek January game.
The playbook for slowing down the Cavs offense has been pretty simple for the previous two seasons: Get the ball out of the guards’ hands and watch the offense grind to a halt. The Thunder perfectly executed that game plan. They consistently threw different coverages Mitchell’s way and made Lu Dort follow him everywhere he went on the court. The result was one of Mitchell’s worst outings of the season as he went 3-16 from the field.
The Cavs wouldn’t have been able to withstand that type of performance from Mitchell in the past. However, this team is different. Cleveland not only withstood it, they hung 129 points with a 91st-percentile offensive rating on the best defense in the league. Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen made all the difference as scorers and playmakers.
This formula for beating Cleveland is out there because it’s what the New York Knicks used to shortcircuit the Cavs’ offense in the 2023 playoffs. Plays like the one below were common occurrences in that series. The bigs didn’t know what to do when they got the ball in the short roll. This would result in turnovers, but more often than that it’d just be an offensive reset that burned precious time off the shot clock.
The team-wide offensive process is distinctly better now, but so is the big’s ability to read and react. That was seen repeatedly as both carved up Oklahoma City’s defense with their scoring and specifically their playmaking. Allen finished with six assists while Mobley provided seven.
“The game is slowing down,” said Allen about his playmaking after Wednesday’s win. “Coach makes a big emphasis on playing off of two feet. You get the ball in the short roll, play off of two feet. Read all of your options and make the right read. We honestly go over it in practice every single day. We all want to get better at it.”
Their processing speed has improved dramatically by doing the opposite of trying to play quicker like they’ve done in the past.
“You stop on two feet so you have pivots,” Allen said. “That slows you down. It lets you see the floor instead of running in and jumping off of one foot and trying to decide mid-air.”
The below plays are good examples of the bigs doing that which resulted in point-blank looks at the basket.
“Kenny does a good job of going through drills in practice that put us in that situation,” said Mobley. “We got to read the coaches on what they do, and read and react and just play basketball from there.”
Mobley made it sound simple, but executing the right play in these situations against a defense that rotates as well as Oklahoma City’s is difficult to repeatedly do to the level both bigs did.
“The way we guarded Mitchell and Garland, we put [Allen and Mobley] in decision-making positions, and they did a great job,” said Daigneault postgame. “Sometimes you just have to tip your hap. They played a clean game and really kept the ball ahead of us a lot of the night.”
The Cavs haven’t lucked their way into the best offense in the league. They put pressure on defenses even as good as the Thunder’s in so many different ways. Few teams have the shooting and dynamic off-the-dribble guard play Cleveland does. Throwing in two seven-footers who can beat mismatches as easily as Allen and Mobley did while consistently making the right read is why this offense has become nearly impossible to guard.
“It’s a pick-your-poison proposition against a really good team,” Daigneault said. “You’re not going to take everything away. ... But that’s why they’re a really good team. They put you in those spots.”
This improved playmaking came on top of incredible individual scoring nights from both. Mobley and Allen continually punished mismatches in the post as they combined for 46 points. They did this while putting the game away by helping to grab three straight offensive rebounds in the final minute and a half to break Oklahoma City’s will. The script was finally reversed for both Mobley and Allen. They showed all the benefits of playing with two bigs can have against a good, but undersized frontcourt.
The Cavs have been fighting to get the recognition they deserve. Part of the reason they don’t get the benefit of the doubt is that their debut on the national stage in the 2023 playoffs was a complete disaster. It’s difficult to shake first impressions. This one win doesn’t mean these concerns are gone forever, but it does show just how far they’ve come individually and collectively.
While the Cavs may have switched up their process more than Atkinson led on, this game was ultimately about them. They proved to be an inner circle title contender alongside Oklahoma City and the Boston Celtics. Mobley and Allen’s improvement in the short roll as playmakers is a microcosm of the team’s transformation.
