2023-24 Regular Season Thread II: March Toward Destiny

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Isn’t there an argument the Cavs, given the plethora of circumstances working against them this season, have actually overachieved? Many predicted their downfall when Evan Mobley and Garland went down for more than a month. Few expected them to be in this position, jockeying with Milwaukee for the second seed coming down the stretch. That’s a credit to Altman, Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff and the entire organization. - Fedor

The preferred starting rotation of Garland/Mitchell/Strus/Mobley/Allen has played together in 24 of the team's 75 games so far, averaging 12.7 minutes per game. It comes out to a shade over 4 minutes per game for the season. If you told me the Cavs would be in 3rd place after 75 games with their preferred starting lineup missing over two-thirds of the games and averaging four minutes per game I would not believe it.

The January-February Cavs overachieved for sure. But for whatever reason - Mitchell’s injury, the NBA catching up to our surprise role players - we are no longer that team.
 
The race for the 3 spot about to get crazy - records below w/ remaining schedules:

3. Cavs (46-30)

at Phoenix
at Lakers
at Clippers
Memphis
Indiana
Charlotte

4. Orlando (44-31)

at NOLA
at Charlotte
Chicago
at Houston
at Milwaukee
at Philly
Milwaukee

5. Knicks (44-31)

Sacramento
at Chicago
at Milwaukee
at Chicago
at Boston
Brooklyn
Chicago

6. Indiana (43-33)

at Brooklyn
OKC
Miami
at Toronto
at Cleveland
Atlanta

7. Miami (42-33)

Philly
at Houston
at Indiana
at Atlanta
Dallas
Toronto
Toronto
 
Was just going to post that I think we should pull for the Bulls for the next fortnight...they play the Knicks 3x in like 11 days.

Also, the Knicks have a very weird, but advantageous Chi-Milw-Chi road trip. Grab a nice hotel in Chicago and settle in for a week. Easy 2 hour bus trip to Milw, they'll be back in the Chicago hotel by 1am after that game.
 
The race for the 3 spot about to get crazy - records below w/ remaining schedules:

3. Cavs (46-30)

at Phoenix
at Lakers
at Clippers
Memphis
Indiana
Charlotte

4. Orlando (44-31)

at NOLA
at Charlotte
Chicago
at Houston
at Milwaukee
at Philly
Milwaukee

5. Knicks (44-31)

Sacramento
at Chicago
at Milwaukee
at Chicago
at Boston
Brooklyn
Chicago

6. Indiana (43-33)

at Brooklyn
OKC
Miami
at Toronto
at Cleveland
Atlanta

7. Miami (42-33)

Philly
at Houston
at Indiana
at Atlanta
Dallas
Toronto
Toronto
52-30 here we go!!!
 
The January-February Cavs overachieved for sure. But for whatever reason - Mitchell’s injury, the NBA catching up to our surprise role players - we are no longer that team.
garland driving the offense to a halt has a lot to do with it
 
Lol, it's more complicated than that.
Yeah. Fedor has a column on how opponents are blitzing Darius and the Cavs are working on a counter. We saw it last night when Garland had 8 points and the Cavs scored 129. When Mitchell comes back they'll be doing the same thing with him.

 
I guess any way you slice clutch stats, it will be fairly arbitrary. But that win by 3/10 really made my eye twitch.

Per NBA.com definition of clutch time (5 minutes or less, score within 5 points) we are pretty mediocre. 17th in NETRTG (21st in OFFRTG). 25th in TOV%. 17th in TS%. 29th in pace (lol). 16th in WIN% . 17th in +/-.
 

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