History tells us that means little in the postseason, and sudden flaws, along with a good opponent on a hot shooting streak, eliminated the Cavaliers last night. The Indiana Pacers survived the Cavaliers' best shot early and controlled the second half of a 114-105 game five win.
Donovan Mitchell scored 35 points, and Evan Mobley added 24 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Cavaliers in their losing effort
I plan on a future look at the Cavalier season and the tremendous problems that they face this off-season.
Swashbucklings
1) The key play in this one?
Donovan Mitchell was fouled by Aaron Nesmith with 1:49 remaining on a three-pointer.
Mitchell goes to the line for three shots, and Cleveland is down six.
Mitchell misses all three free throws, and even though Cleveland would get as close as three points, I never had the feeling that the Cavaliers had a chance to pull this out.
2) Give Donovan Mitchell tons of credit for fighting through the series on one leg, and he rolled up points, but the leg clearly cost him with his shooting, eight of twenty-five in this game.
Points for toughness and effort, but the facts are simple- Mitchell didn't shoot the ball well in the series.
3) Another disappearing act in the playoffs from Jarrett Allen, who finished with nine points and only four rebounds.
I like Allen, who is as personable and likable as a professional can be, but in three postseasons with Cleveland, Allen was bullied by the Knicks, sat out through a rib injury against the Celtics, and vanished against the Pacers.
Of the Cleveland "Core Four", Allen is the easiest to try to move and try something different.
The problem with that is, every other NBA team has seen Allen's postseason play as well, and who can you receive to improve the team?
4) Max Strus played well in the postseason, but he threw up a clunker in game five, finishing tied with me for game five points and missing all nine of his shots.
5) Darius Garland's toe injury affected his play in his return, and his numbers showed it with eleven points, four for sixteen shooting, with six misses in six attempts from three.
Garland is also a fun player to root fo,r but his postseason shortcomings have been glaring, and it's fair to question if a team can go far with two undersized guards (Garland and Donovan Mitchell) that aren't defensive standouts.
6) The Cavaliers themselves need to evaluate how poor their shooting is in the playoffs and what they could do to improve.
Cleveland was the second-best team in three-point percentage in the regular season and tapered off as the worst of the eight teams in the playoff quarter-finals.
Woof.
7) Two players that Cleveland needs to move away from with their second-apron status (salary cap term) are Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade.
Neither are players that you can win with in the postseason, and between the two, Cleveland spends seventeen million dollars, eleven on Okoro and six on Wade.
Those salaries wouldn't allow the Cavaliers to miss the Salary Tax, but any savings help, and neither player would be too difficult to replace.
8) Give Indiana full credit for the series win, and same to their brutally underrated coach, Rick Carlisle, who I remember as a college player at Virginia!
Damn, time moves by fast!
Anyway, Indiana's push-the-pace style on both ends is going to cook a lot of teams, and they did so to Cleveland.
Were there circumstances for that victory?
Certainly, but that doesn't mean that Indiana wasn't the better team.
9) Indiana won all three games in Cleveland's Rocket Arena in the playoffs and won seven of nine games against Cleveland overall. This was no fluke, and I'm not sure homecourt is the advantage that it once was in the league.
That's a feeling and one without actual data, but it seems that visitors are winning at a rate better than previous seasons.
10) In the end, another excellent regular season feels hollow with a postseason exit that creates offseason questions.
Kenny Atkinson did an excellent job in the regular season but was outcoached by Rick Carlisle in the Indiana series.
I can give that a pass as it was Atkinson's first playoff season, and coaches need to gain experience there as players do.
There is plenty to be said and done between now and October, but for all the regular season brilliance, the Cavaliers had their chance to step forward and allow the league to see who they are.
For now, that team folded against adversity and melted on the bigger stage- the Cavaliers indeed #Letemknow.
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