Up close and personal
Reflections from a weekend in Cleveland
So many things have happened with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the last ten days.
The Wine & Gold put together their first back-to-back wins of the season against Portland and Detroit, teams they should have beaten. They continued their winning ways in statement fashion against contenders Denver and Philadelphia, and followed up their 122-119 In-Season Tournament overtime victory against Philly with a scheduled-dud at home the next night against Miami. A few days off for the holidays looked like a few too many days off while the Cavs got handled by Lebron and his Lakers on Saturday and scored a meager 42 points in the first half on Sunday against Toronto. But the Strus Caboose’s 20-point 3rd quarter and the snarl-filled offensive rebounding of Junkyard Dog Tristan Thompson woke the Cavs up in time to salvage a 105-102 victory over the Raptors and an above-.500 record.
If that recap feels like a whirlwind it’s because we’re getting to the stage of the season where the games begin to blur together. And so if last weekend’s games deserve any special attention, it’s only because I got to go watch them in person. 1
Here are a few observations from my too-rare personal time with the Cavaliers.
Evan Mobley has a long way to go, and that’s a good thing. Sharing the floor with Caris LeVert, Tristan Thompson, and Donovan Mitchell during pre-game work, Mobley clunked quite a few corner threes, elbow jumpers, and even five-foot hook shots. No one else, it seemed, could miss a thing. That Mobley makes as many jump shots as he does during games (he’s shooting a still-not-good-but-promising 40% on pull up shots over the last six games) is a testament to his talent, not to his muscle memory. Because the muscle memory veterans have is insane. In a pressure-free setting, they make everything. It’s the result of tens of thousands of reps, and tens of thousands of reps more than younger guys like Evan.
In the final few minutes before the Cavaliers’ Public Address announcer does the starting lineups, when the whole team is chucking balls at the rim with mad abandon, the Cavs make as many shots in a three second period as the sixth graders I coach do in a whole warmup.
The Cavaliers have a few traditions during that stretch of pregame shooting. If you’re not endeared by them, you should go get an EKG.
As the final song of warmups settles into a groove, Moondog, one of the Cavs’ mascots, settles into a twisting hop in rhythm with the tune. Invariably and without communication, Darius Garland makes his way to Moondog’s left, Isaac Okoro drifts along to the mascot’s right, and the three of them dance in a quiet unison until tossing up a running three pointer at the end of the song.
Meanwhile, Jarret Allen posts up on the sideline with Sir CC, the Cavaliers’ other mascot, to greet the crowd. This is no gloat that he’s on the floor and you are not. Allen, beaming, searches for and finds kids on his half of the arena, giving them a smile and a full 7’6 wingspan of a wave, before moving on to the next family.
His pregame ritual isn’t the only thing that makes it clear Allen is plenty appreciative of his job and his abilities. We’ve all watched someone dunk a basketball and thought to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be so fun to be able to do that?”
Allen can dunk a ball with ease, and in seeming appreciation of our admiration and envy, he puts his soul into it whenever he gets the chance, cocking the ball behind his head or lurching towards the rim with a stylishly bent arm, the ball trapped in his hands like a hawk’s talons.
We’ve all seen the occasionally hilarious and usually impressive handshakes athletes have as they descend into the dugout or join the bench. Tristan Thompson, however, keeps it simple. He daps up every member of the Cavs bench mob, coaches included, and then greets them with a burly shoulder check. That’s everyone except for Luke Walton. They just hug.
Coaches of everything from yoga to baseball frequently tell athletes to stand with their feet hip-distance apart. Donovan Mitchell must have had some big hips as a kid, because he has the widest shooting base I’ve ever seen.
Every time I’ve been fortunate enough to behold NBA players from up close, I’ve been especially surprised by the sheer size of at least one of them (this time it was Gary Trent Jr., who has Christmas hams for arms). But it wasn’t Max Strus’s size that impressed me this weekend. As Strus walked across the floor, bumping elbows with lab-created, long-limbed basketball gods like Mobley and Toronto’s Scottie Barnes, it was Strus’s proportionality that took me aback. He looks like someone clicked the corner of a normal sized human and dragged their mouse until they had a 6’5 jump shooter.
And jump Strus can. Not only can he pogo stick his way into three pointers he doesn’t seem to have any business taking…
He puts his bounce into sheer effort plays too, blocking a Malachi Flynn shot in an homage to Zion Williamson.
You know who, on the other hand, has no bounce at all? Georges Niang.
Everything about the Mini-Van looks like it would be more at home in a Saturday morning run at the JCC than an NBA court. The too-high socks and the low top shoes? Check. The paunch. Check. The lackadaisical speed with which he does everything from shoot threes to toss outlet passes to dive for loose balls? Check.
If NBA players are master of the athletic-looking shuffle (and Darius Garland is king), then Niang sits on the high throne of the layup line trudge.
But Niang is really good! He might complain to the ref like your uncle at your family’s turkey bowl, but Niang hits big shots, puffs out his chest, and is clearly a key glue guy. When he got a three-second violation on Sunday night, in keeping with another Cavaliers’ tradition, Niang locked eyes with Jarret Allen at the end of the bench, pumped his fist and shouted in celebration. Allen and the whole bench laughed and celebrated back.
The sideline hugs, smiling handshakes, and silently habitual affection make it obvious—this team is close. If you don’t believe me, check out this adorable Thanksgiving video, featuring Jarrett Allen in a Star Wars T-Shirt.
What the Cavaliers cannot afford to be close is their final In-Season Tournament group game, which is tonight against Atlanta at 7:30 PM ET.
The Pacers swept through East Group A and clinched their spot in the knockout round. But the Wine & Gold still have a shot to earn one of two available wild card spots. Because the tie-breaker between the likely slew of 3-1 teams will come down to who has scored more points than their opponents, the Cavs need to win, and to do so in a way that meaningfully beefs up their slim +6 point differential.
So root for Donovan Mitchell to turn it around after two lousy shooting nights in a row, for a healthy Isaac Okoro to repeatedly pester Trae Young, and for New York, Miami, Boston, and Brooklyn to lose. If they do and the Cavs win, we are in. Otherwise we might just need to beat the Hawks by twenty.
Here’s to that, and to a stretch of good health, so we can finally get a real sense of how good this team is.
Cheers, and go Cavs.
Thanks to the Saada families for helping make that happen!
...and win they did tonight, big time!