CLEVELAND — The
Cleveland Cavaliers dropped their
second-straight game to the Chicago Bulls on Friday,
136-125. It’s their third loss in a row and their fifth in their last seven.
Things are not going well.
Inconsistent performances from their top remaining players have been one of the key contributing factors to the team’s struggles. Cleveland was without its two All-NBA players, Donovan Mitchell (illness) and Evan Mobley (calf). That meant that their remaining core pieces needed to step up in their absence.
Darius Garland did. He turned in his best performance of the season. Jarrett Allen and De’Andre Hunter once again didn’t.
Allen’s play remains inconsistent at best. There’ve been stretches, like the third quarter, where he’s featured in the offense and makes a meaningful impact. Ten of his 14 points came in the third quarter when the Cavs briefly retook the momentum and the lead. But his impact seemed nearly non-existent throughout the other three quarters.
It’s one thing when Allen takes a backseat when he’s the fourth or fifth option. Not having a consistent impact when he’s one of the few remaining core players during this tough stretch is inexcusable. Allen needs to get himself more involved. And his teammates need to look to give him the ball more when they can.
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Hunter remains completely lost. Last season was the best of his career by a wide margin. A regression wasn’t out of the question. What we’ve seen so far this season couldn’t have been anticipated.
Through 25 games, Hunter is shooting a career low from three (30.3%) and is having his second-worst shooting season from the floor (42.5%), which is only slightly better than what he put up as a rookie.
This has bled into other parts of his game. Hunter has taken a meaningful step back defensively as he’s getting beaten consistently in transition and through backdoor cuts off-ball.
On Friday, Hunter finished with just 11 points on 3-10 shooting while being a team-worst -11.
It’s tough to put together functional lineups around Hunter when he’s playing this poorly. And the Cavs don’t have enough available talent elsewhere on the roster to not afford to keep running him out there. The only hope is that he breaks out of this prolonged slump sooner rather than later.
The Cavs have wrongly prioritized offensive rebounding this season. Head coach Kenny Atkinson has repeatedly mentioned that he wants his team to win the possession game. The thought process is that if you have more shot attempts than your opponent, you’ll have a better offense and a wider margin of error. Grabbing missed shots is one of the best ways to gain extra possessions.
There is a downside to doing this. Sending extra players to grab offensive rebounds leaves you susceptible to getting beaten in transition if you don’t get the rebound. Every additional player that crashes the glass is just another one that isn’t getting back on the defensive end.
So far, the juice hasn’t been worth the squeeze.
Cleveland is
14th in second-chance points per 100 possessions. Conversely, they’ve been torched in transition. They were
24th in points given up in transition after opponent defensive rebounds per 100 possessions going into Friday’s game.
This issue was on full display again. The Bulls were able to limit the Cavs on the offensive glass while also using it as an opportunity to get out and run in transition. And in the end, Cleveland still lost the second-chance points battle 20-18.
This doesn’t just affect missed shots, either.
The Cavs once again gave up an easy basket after a nice Tyrese Proctor layup. This happened because two players were crashing for the miss, Proctor was driving in the paint to make the basket, Hunter got outhustled down the court, and Lonzo Ball didn’t do much to make up for his teammates.
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The Cavs have an overall energy and effort problem. Unnecessarily crashing the offensive glass and giving your opponent unneeded transition opportunities as well magnifies the issue.
Teams that get out and run — like the Bulls — continue to give the Cavs issues.
Atkinson admitted afterward that they don’t do well against teams that push the pace. The only issue is, every team is doing that against them now, after they showed they can’t stop it against the Indiana Pacers in the playoffs.
The concerning part about this is that the Cavs saw this coming. They talked about
needing to get in better shape during the off-season and training camp. If they haven’t found a solution to their poor transition defense after having seven months to do so, there aren’t a whole lot of reasons to believe they’ll find it now.
As bad as the transition defense was, the half-court defense was the bigger problem against Chicago. The Bulls registered a
115.1 offensive rating in the half-court (
91st percentile). They were able to easily get into the paint, which led to clean looks at the basket and open looks from the perimeter.
The Cavs haven’t been a defensive-first team under Atkinson. That’s fine. But you can’t show that little resistance in the halfcourt to a mediocre offense like the Bulls and expect to win.
Second quarters continue to bite the Cavs. They completely let go of the rope in the second frame as they were outscored 34-23. That turned what was a tie game into a double-digit deficit.
This has been a recurring theme this season. Cleveland has now been outscored by an average of
3.3 points per second quarter. That’s the worst mark in the league.
Injuries are a big reason why that’s so. Most of the deep bench lineups see the floor in the second quarter. Even so, they need to be much better than this. There’s never an excuse to be the worst in the league at something when you have this talented a roster.
Garland putting together his most complete offensive game was one of the few bright spots. He looked more like himself than he has at any point since his initial toe injury last spring as he poured in 35 points and eight assists.
It isn’t a coincidence that Garland’s strong scoring game coincided with the Cavs’ offense putting up 125 points. His threat as an on-and-off-ball scorer anywhere in the halfcourt, combined with how he can create angles for his teammates, just makes life easier for everyone.
His toe has slowed him down so far this season. Garland said afterward that he’s rediscovering his rhythm back and is feeling better than when he first came back. That’s encouraging for a team that desperately needs something positive right now.
Garland isn’t the best player on the team, but he is the most valuable offensive piece given how his game unlocks everyone else on the court. The Cavs can’t play the style they want to without him at his best. Friday’s showing provided reason to believe that he can get back up to his multi-time All-Star level play again.
