Cavaliers obtain De'Andre Hunter from Hawks

    Koby Altman must have been frustrated with his Cleveland Cavaliers' recent struggles against the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder, arguably the two best teams the Cavaliers must face to win an NBA championship.

Altman needed to do something to upgrade the roster. Still, with limited resources to trade if he didn't want to trade any of Cleveland's "Core Four" of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen, the Cavaliers weren't tabbed as a team likely to acquire a player that could be more than a role player by the NBA's trade deadline.

Anyone believing that would have been incorrect as Altman not only landed a player that improved the roster, Altman did so at a surprisingly low cost as the Cavaliers acquired De'Andre Hunter from the Atlanta Hawks for Caris LeVert, Georges Niang, three future second-round draft picks, and pick swaps in the future, which sometimes never are used.

Hunter was the fourth overall draftee in the 2019 draft from Virginia and is enjoying his best season as a professional with averages of nineteen points and almost four rebounds a game for the Hawks.

The twenty-seven-year-old Hunter is signed through this season and the following two years so Hunter won't be a rental and can be planned into the Cavaliers future.

Hunter is shooting forty-six percent from the floor and a career-high thirty-nine percent from beyond the three-point line.

Hunter is the "three and D" on the wing that Cleveland lacked. At 6'8", he can play the four position if circumstances require it. While Hunter may not have been the defensive stopper he was in college, he is still better than average on the defensive end.

Cleveland's cost for Hunter seems light compared to their return, losing two players from their second unit.

Caris LeVert averages ten points and just under four assists per game in almost twenty-four minutes a night. He is capable of offensive explosions, but it's difficult to consistently rely on him. His expiring contract may have appealed to the Hawks most in the trade.

Georges Niang was averaging eight points a game in twenty minutes per game off the bench and was shooting forty percent from three-point range in a season that saw improved play from Niang after a disappointing first Cleveland campaign.

The second-round picks are a tangible asset and not something that I worry about trading, and I doubt the option for Atlanta to switch first-rounders with Cleveland will ever occur.

The amazing thing for me is that the best two assets that could have been traded, the Cavaliers next available first-rounder in 2031 and their most recent first-round pick in Jaylon Tyson, Cleveland managed to keep both!

Tyson isn't playing a large role yet but impressed when he has had the opportunity and Cleveland hopes to develop Tyson into a key performer when the Cavaliers may have to make salary cap decisions down the road.

Caris LeVert and Georges Niang are both reported to be great locker room guys and losing them certainly weakens the second unit.

However, neither player would have been a playoff regular and Niang in particular would see his playing time decrease drastically during the postseason.

Both players will be missed but Koby Altman has to be praised for adding a player such as De'Andre Hunter to fill the team's largest weakness at a reasonable price.

Clearly, Cleveland has improved their chances of dethroning the Boston Celtics with the acquisition of De'Andre Hunter.

Young ends Cavaliers season in Play-In Comeback

    One period into the game, the Cleveland Cavaliers appeared to have everything going their way in their play-in game against the Atlanta Hawks.

Scoring thirty-eight points and holding a thirteen-point lead can give teams and fans a large amount of confidence.

And when Atlanta only cut the lead to ten at the half,  it seemed that while the lead wasn't large enough to book your flight to Miami for the playoff yet, everything did point in that direction.

And then Trae Young woke up.

Young tossed 32 of his game-high 38 points in the second half and led Atlanta to a 107-101 comeback win that will see the Hawks in the playoffs against the Miami Heat and Cleveland at home for the postseason.

Lauri Markkanen led the Cavaliers with 27 points, Darius Garland added 21 with Evan Mobley assisting with 18 points.

Swashbucklings

1) Even after the first quarter and the thirteen point lead, you didn't think the game was over and it was for one reason- The Cavaliers spent much of the second quarter firing up off-balance shots (oftentimes on the drive)  that made you think of a talented youth league team that thought once they had the lead that they could goof off and blew chances to truly put the game out of reach.

2) Then there was Trae Young, who scored only six points in the first half and then a whopping thirty-two in the second.

Young started hitting contested shots from well beyond the three-point line, beating defenders off the dribbles, and was even scoring on baseline layups.

In other words, Cleveland couldn't stop Young, and the only way Atlanta could win happened.

3) Darius Garland finished with 21 points but did it on nine for twenty-seven shooting and kept driving to the hoop, getting caught in traffic against Hawks defenders, and forced off-balance shots.

I've complimented Garland over the last month for developing an alpha dog mentality and I stand by that but if you are going to be the player that is going to carry the load, you need to develop some more moves to the basket- And if you are going to shoot twenty-seven times, you better hit more than nine of them.

4) Lauri Markkanen didn't play well against Brooklyn but he led the team in scoring with 27 points and hit six of ten three-point attempts.

Markkanen can be streaky and I still think his long-term best role will be what Kevin Love is doing now but when he is feeling it, it can be an awesome thing to see.

5) J.B. Bickerstaff played only eight players, and Kevin Love played only ten minutes.

I can understand why Love was idle with Lauri Markkanen playing so well but Isaac Okoro played twenty-two after an awful game against Brooklyn and Cedi Osman and Lamar Stevens didn't play at all.

Osman appears to be an especially puzzling decision not to play as maybe his defense could have helped against Bogdan Bogdanovic.

6) Bogdanovic scored nineteen points off Atlanta's bench, which was ten more than Cleveland's bench (Love, Okoro, and Rajon Rondo).

I would like to know what either or both of Osman and Stevens would have added to this game as both are the type of players that can give a team and a crowd an emotional lift with one or two energetic plays- especially in the second half.

7) Cleveland did welcome Jarrett Allen back and Allen played hard, scored eleven points but pulled down just three rebounds.

You could tell the finger affected Allen defensively as he was trying to rebound almost one-handed to avoid contact with his broken finger, and a few times tapped the ball in the direction of a Cavalier rather than grab the ball.

8) The Cavaliers also struggled in moving the ball in the second half and that resulted in not only the desperate drives of Darius Garland but a few shot clock violations as well.

Cleveland is talented but they aren't yet to the point that they can run isolation so often and allow the ball to become stagnant-which is exactly what happened in the second half.

9) You could tell the playoff pressure was hitting a young team in the fourth quarter and while it's not always fair to play that they played scared, it certainly looked like a team that hadn't been in this situation before.

That is why I wanted them to win this game so badly- Even if the Cavaliers dropped four in a row to Miami, the experience gained would have been priceless.

10) Trae Young slammed the ball to the floor and waved goodbye to the crowd as he walked off the floor.

Young had been heckled all game (some of which were less than clean and could be heard on the ESPN broadcast) and I really can't blame him for ribbing the crowd back- especially after the second half that he played.

Sometimes it's best to wait until the game is over or as Kenny Rogers sang in "The Gambler"- "There will be time enough for counting when the dealings done".

11) Awkward stat of the year.

Friday's loss was the eighteenth of the season that Cleveland led by ten points or more at one point in the game.

That is something that will have to be figured out before next season.

12) Trading for Caris LeVert didn't pay the dividends that the Cavaliers and Koby Altman intended for this season but there is always hope for next season and because Altman had the foresight to cover his baselines at a time when the Cavaliers not making the playoffs seemed extremely remote.

Altman added a clause to the trade that didn't seem important at the time but is very important now as if the Cavaliers didn't make the playoffs, Cleveland would retain the first-rounder that seemed destined to move to the Pacers in Indianapolis.

Because of that, the Cavaliers will be in the lottery and while the odds are against them getting higher than fourteenth (Cleveland will either be in the top three or fourteenth as the team with the best record in the lottery), that pick would not be owned by Cleveland at all without some forethought about the worst-case scenario.

13) I am planning to do a season review next week but despite a disappointing ending to the season and final month, you cannot help but be pleased overall.

Entering the season, Cleveland's ceiling appeared to challenge to just slide into the play-in series as the tenth seed, and instead, they won forty-four games to double their win total from the previous season.

The Cavaliers were a fun team for most of the season, outperformed any expectations, and dealt with plenty of adversity.

Evan Mobley has an excellent chance of winning Rookie of the Year and Darius Garland took another step towards stardom in a season to be remembered perhaps as the start of a successful period of future playoff runs.

They aren't perfect and I'll try to write what they need in the season review but this season was a success, even as they fell short of what seemed to be certain to be even more.

Cavaliers vs Hawks-Winner take all.

    It's winner take-all from Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland as one team will face the Miami Heat and the other will have their season ended as the ninth-seeded Atlanta Hawks will visit the eighth-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Hawks are playing the better basketball at the time and thumped the Charlotte Hornets in Atlanta 132-103 to advance to the final game.

The Cavaliers fell behind the Brooklyn Nets by twenty points at the end of the first quarter and despite playing competitively in the final three periods were unable to catch up to Brooklyn in a 115-108 defeat.

Cleveland had the better record in the regular season by one game (44-38 to 43-39) over Atlanta but it was the Hawks that won the season series between the teams, winning three of the four games with the two games in Cleveland being split between the two.

Cleveland is hoping to return Jarrett Allen for the contest and the team announced that Allen will be taking place in warmups in an attempt to see if the center will attempt to play.

This game is pretty simple to project.

The guard that plays better between Atlanta's Trae Young and Cleveland's Darius Garland will be more likely to win.

Young averaged thirty-one points in his four games against Cleveland this season and the Atlanta offense runs through the former Oklahoma star.

Garland has been the dominant focus of the Cleveland offense over the last month as the team limped into April with Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley out of the lineup.

Jarrett Allen's possible return would be a major help for Cleveland and I would think it would be as a defender that would see his largest impact.

Cleveland has had major problems protecting the basket in Allen's absence and the Cavaliers could use Allen in the paint to allow Evan Mobley to defend away from the basket and give a boost to a team that moved from a top ten team defensively to one in the bottom third since Allen's injury.

Atlanta only won sixteen road games this season and the homecourt could be huge for Cleveland.

Atlanta crushed Cleveland in their last meeting last month 131-107 and I can see either team winning this one.

The winner will not have long to celebrate as the victor will travel to Miami for game one of a seven-game series against the top-seeded Miami Heat.

Cavaliers speared by Hawks 131-107

    The battle-weary Cleveland Cavaliers are in the middle of five games in seven-day stretch that may very well determine where they stand in the playoff picture and whether they can take some time off or play in the league's play-in stage.

The Cavaliers lost to Dallas and had to go on the road to Atlanta to play a Hawks team that is starting to play its best basketball at the right time and were dispatched for their trouble 131-107.

Cedi Osman led Cleveland with 21 points, Darius Garland added 18 more, and recent arrival Moses Brown finished with a double-double of 15 points and 13 rebounds.

Cleveland will play both days this weekend with a visit to the Big Apple for a Saturday afternoon tilt against the Knicks and a Sunday evening home game against visiting Philadelphia.

I have been able to watch recent Cavalier games but haven't always had time to write about them, so some of the swashbuckling sword points will cover thoughts on recent events with the team rather than only the loss in Atlanta.

Swashbucklings

1) The Cavaliers are limping towards the playoffs and while they have clinched a spot in the play-in portion, they would not make the top six at this time.

Cleveland is trailing Toronto by two and a half games for the sixth spot, which would allow them to avoid the play-in series but leads Brooklyn by two games to keep the seventh spot.

2) Seventh is important as well for the Cavaliers, who would host one game against the eighth seed (Currently Brooklyn), and the winner of that game moves into the playoffs as the seventh seed.

3) The loser will host the winner of the ninth vs tenth game for the final playoff berth, so even if the Cavaliers may feel like their hopes of sixth place are waning, it's important that Cleveland finish as high as possible.

4) Since last I wrote about the Cavaliers, the team lost Rookie of the Year candidate Evan Mobley to an ankle sprain and Mobley has missed the losses to Dallas and Atlanta and has been already announced as out for both the weekend games.

5) For those scoring at home- Cleveland is now without Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen from the starting lineup and Rajon Rondo as the point guard to spell Darius Garland, who is currently playing through back woes.

The Cavaliers are severely undermanned and their "big man" lineup is badly handicapped without two of their three frontcourt stars.

6) Cleveland signed second-year man Moses Brown to a two-way contract and Brown started both losses compiling a combined twenty-seven points and twenty-one rebounds.

Brown, a 7'2 center, shows a high motor and while I know it's a small sample size and Brown needs lots of work in training camp, I could see Brown developing into a productive player off the bench in the future.

7) Cedi Osman led the Cavaliers off the bench with twenty-one points, hitting three long balls and hitting seven of ten shots.

Osman played twenty-seven minutes after not getting off the bench in the Cavaliers two games before the loss to the Hawks.

J.B. Bickerstaff had noted that Osman's effort on the defensive end was being affected when his offensive game was going through struggles and wanted to send a message to Osman that his game is about more than only scoring points.

8) Darius Garland finished with eight assists and pushed past John Bagley for the Cavalier's record for assists in a calendar month with 171.

Bagley's record had held up since December of 1985 when Bagley dished out 169 assists for the month.

9) Garland didn't play the entire fourth quarter and I loved the move by J.B. Bickerstaff to use his young star in minutes that are meaningful, considering his back pain.

10) Since the last time I wrote about the Cavaliers, Cleveland lost another player to the injury bug as Dean Wade suffered a knee injury that ended his season prematurely.

Wade finished the season averaging five points and two rebounds a game and averaged nineteen minutes per game.

Cavaliers lose late to Hawks 121-118

  The Cleveland Cavaliers led by fifteen points at halftime against the visiting Atlanta Hawks but it was not enough as the Hawks outscored Cleveland by eighteen in the third period and played them even in the final quarter to take a 121-118 win in Cleveland.

Kevin Love continued his recent resurgence with 35 points and eleven rebounds off the bench to lead the Cavaliers with Jarrett Allen scoring twenty-one in his return to the lineup.

The loss was Cleveland's third in a row without Darius Garland and dropped the Cavaliers to 20-16 overall.

Cleveland will host the Indiana Pacers on Sunday evening.

Swashbucklings

1) This game was very similar to the loss to the Pelicans in New Orleans (I missed the loss to Washington as due to blackout rules, I wasn't allowed to watch on League Pass replay and I didn't have the time to watch the games live) as the Cavaliers shot well in the first half and then just shot poorly in the second half.

2) Kevin Love is playing very well of late and some of it could be that as the Cavaliers have missed various players through the Covid protocol, Cleveland is funneling much of the offense through Love- especially since the loss of Ricky Rubio as the other option at point guard.

3) Using Love in that manner may be by need rather than choice as the Cavaliers have a lack of outside shooting with the losses of Collin Sexton and Ricky Rubio for the season and the temporary loss of Darius Garland and Cedi Osman.

Other than Love and maybe Lauri Markkanen, the Cavaliers have a distinct problem with their outside shooting until Garland returns but I do wonder why Dylan Windler, who is strictly a shooter, isn't getting more of a look with a roster that needs shooting.

Windler played three minutes against the Hawks and didn't attempt a shot.

4) Cleveland was forced to play Kevin Pangos twenty-four minutes at the point but Pangos didn't spend the most time at the position as recently signed Brandon Goodwin played twenty-five minutes in his first game on a ten-day contract.

Pangos finished with eight points and four assists with Goodwin winding the night up with thirteen points and six assists.

5) Cleveland attempted to fill the backup point guard vacated by the injury to Ricky Rubio by trading for veteran Rajon Rondo from the Lakers.

Cleveland traded veteran Denzel Valentine to the Lakers, who are expected to waive Valentine and create a little cap space for themselves.

Valentine was averaging less than ten minutes a night for Cleveland averaging 2.9 points per game.

Rondo wasn't playing much for the Lakers averaging only sixteen minutes a game in his eighteen games played and averaging three points and three assists but will play far more in Cleveland.

If I have time over the next day or so (unsure with the Rose Bowl and the Ortiz-Martin fight), I'll try to write a quick post on the acquisition of the veteran point guard.

6) Key in the defeat was Cleveland missing six free throws in the final period with Isaac Okoro missing three free throws in a row.

Free throws in the final period are always important but its just as important to hit them early as well.

Stevens Slam ends Ten Game skid!

  Undrafted rookie Lamar Stevens took a pass from Collin Sexton and drove an open late for a two-fisted slam with four seconds to remaining to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a 112-111 win at home over the Atlanta Hawks.

With the Cavaliers down by one with twelve seconds to go, Stevens grabbed a missed Trae Young shot and pitched it to Collin Sexton, who began to work his way up court as Cleveland eschewed a set play off a timeout.

Sexton shoveled the ball to Stevems with Sexton's path blocked by an Atlanta double-team with Stevens cruising by a either indifferent or surprised Trae Young to reach the basket for the jam.

Atlanta did not have a timeout remaining and with the Cavaliers closely guarding Young, Young had little to but to pass the ball and the Hawks were unable to get the shot off before the buzzer.

The win snaps a ten game Cleveland losing streak and gives the Cavaliers a chance for two home wins in a row against struggling Houston tonight in Clevelamd.

Collin Sexton led Cleveland with 29 points, Darius Garland had 17, and Dylan Windler played well off the bench with fifteen points off five made three-pointers.

Swashbucklings

1) The Cavaliers almost lost this game on the possession before the Lamar Stevens dunk.

Down by one, Darius Garland tried to go one on one against Atlanta's Kevin Huerter, who didn't fall for the fake and took the ball away with ease.

Had Trae Young's floater fallen after that, Atlanta likely wins the game.

2) The Cavaliers are struggling up front at power forward with Kevin Love and Larry Nance Jr out with injuries and a banged up Taurean Prince, so Lamar Stevens and Dean Wade are receiving extra time.

Stevens finished with eight points and four rebounds in sixteen minutes, while Wade had five and two in twenty one minutes after starting.

3) Collin Sexton didn't make the All-Star game and neither did Atlanta's Trae Young and both came out blazing to show their worth.

Both players are playing well, but the Eastern Conference is stacked in the backcourt and despite being the pair being deserving, they were up against strong competition that was very deep.

4) Atlanta caught a bad break when John Collins, their second best scorer, suffered a concussion after playing only thirteen minutes.

Collins had scored thirteen points at that point on five of six shooting, so the Cavaliers were fortunate to see Collins leave the floor.

Shorter than usual as I am off for my second dose of the Covid Vaccine- Wish me luck.

Cavaliers comeback clips Hawks!

  The Cleveland Cavaliers appeared to be falling back into past habits against the Atlanta Hawks as they fell behind by as many as 15 points in the third quarter, and trailed by twelve at the half in Atlanta.

The battered Cavaliers appeared to be on the verge of dropping their third game in a row after a three-game winning streak to start the season before a funny thing happened- the high-scoring Hawks began to miss some shots and the Cavaliers, like a golfer grinding out pars for 60 holes and suddenly finding themselves in a position to win a tournament on the final day, began to work their way back into the game.

Cleveland finally took the lead, pushed back against a Hawks run that tied the game with under one minute remaining, and grabbed the lead back for good when Collin Sexton stepped back and drilled a three-pointer in the Cavaliers 96-91 win.

Collin Sexton led Cleveland with 27 points with JaVale McGee scoring 14 points off the bench as the top supporting scorer.

Cleveland travels to Orlando for games on Monday and Wednesday against the Magic.

Swashbucklings

1) Collin Sexton took this game over in the fourth quarter as the best player on the floor from either team. Sexton scored 14 points of his 27 points in the fourth quarter and he hit jumpers as well as drove the lane to show the value of Sexton's improved outside shot since his rookie year.

2) With Sexton's ability to beat his man off the dribble, the development of Sexton's outside shot has been key to making him a better-rounded player. 

On the basket that put the Cavaliers on top, Sexton's ability to take his man to the hoop forced the defender to bite on the fake to the basket and allowed Sexton to step back for the three.

3) The Cavaliers looked more like the team from the first three games in the second half- working hard on defense and moving the ball around on offense.

If the Cavaliers have any chance of a successful season, it's going to come through effort and hustle that wears the opponent down- not through skill, but through making the opponent expend so much energy trying to keep the Cavaliers off of them that they allow Cleveland to stay in games that they shouldn't be in.

4) With the various injuries that the team is dealing with currently, each player hit the team in a different area.

Kevin Love hits the offensive game, Isaac Okoro affects the defensive end of the floor, Kevin Porter costs an athletic scorer that can play multiple positions, and Dylan Windler the spot shooter that this lineup still needs.

How long can the Cavaliers overachieve without these players and can they keep things afloat until they all return?

I'm doubtful that this can keep going for that long, but one never knows.

5) The Hawks entered the game leading the league in scoring at 125 points a game, yet against Cleveland, they only posted 91.

Atlanta was on the second half of back to back games and was vulnerable to a close game late, but still to take a strong offensive team and turn the tap off on them is quite a feat.

6) Darius Garland finished with only eight points with a miserable three for fourteen shooting night, but Garland did help out with Atlanta's explosive scoring Trae Young, as Young was held to sixteen points on the game. Young entered the game averaging close to thirty points per game, so that's quite an achievement.

7) JaVale McGee continues his strong play off the bench with 14 points and nine rebounds and he is playing with the type of energy that makes you remember his days in Washington when he was a reliable 12 and 10 player.

McGee's signing might prove to be the quietest yet quality free agent signing of the season.

8) Cleveland has been starting a three-guard lineup with Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, and Dante Exum and while this does give them three ballhandlers, it does make them vulnerable to size, especially on the wing and it's not a strong defensive unit either.

Once teams figure that out, I wonder how long J.B. Bickerstaff will stick with that starting trio.