The Cavs are now 2-3 over their last five games with losses to Boston and Atlanta (twice). For a team that won 15 straight has hit a bit of a rut here recently.
Not shooting the ball well and not defending is not a recipe for success. The Hawks shot 41% from deep but only made 14 of them – that’s far from an insurmountable total.
Nothing the Hawks did offensively looked hard – far from it. The Hawks were able to get where they wanted and do what they wanted without much resistance. The Cavs improved from where they were the other night, or at least that’s what Donovan Mitchell said, but getting the Hawks off the spot or closing out on shooters wasn’t where it needed to be.
Do the Hawks have the Cavs number? Maybe. We’ll see how things roll but the Hawks have done all this really without Trae Young going off. Long, athletic wings who cause contested shots and deflections in the passing lane, and consistent shooting around a distributor may be the Cavs kryptonite.
The game started and ended just how Tuesday night started and ended – with the Cavs on top early but looking up when the clock hit zero.
The Cavs came out on a 16-8 run to start the game. They stated going inside out with all six of their initial shots coming inside, and Darius Garland hitting some perimeter shots.
The Cavs defense was also very active and opportunistic early. They forced five Atlanta Hawk turnovers and were able to take advantage of those at the other end.
But it would only last so long. Coming out of the early Hawks timeout after the Cavs run, the Hawks went on a 9-4 run causing a Kenny Atkinson timeout.
In between Garland’s made three-pointer at the 9:22 mark and Sam Merrill’s made three-pointer at the 3:02 mark the Cavs managed 8 points over 7 minutes of play.
It’s been the case the last few games: How do the Cavs produce when the outside shot isn’t falling? It’s a hard question to answer for any team in today’s NBA but it has caused the Cavs offense to come crashing down from the heights it previously reached.
The Cavs were 3-for-11 on 3-pointers in the first quarter, and Mitchell was 0-for-6 from the field. The Cavs also had just 3 bench points. Put those in a blender and it’s not an appetizing drink.
All the things the Cavs had been doing (shooting the ball well, getting other contributors, having their key players step in when needed) just hasn’t synced like it had been the first month of the season.
Getting Dean Wade and Max Strus back will really help mainly because it’ll replace Niang, and to a lesser extent, Merrill’s minutes.
Niang had another empty quarter going 0-for-3 and grabbing one rebound in six minutes of play. Merrill was 1-for-3 shooting the ball but when he and Niang are on the court, it creates a lack of rebounding that was exploited by this Hawks team.
Mobley and Garland were the ones keeping the Cavs together in the first quarter – they combined for 20 points, and 2 assists, making up all offensive success the Cavs had.
So, it was a bit puzzling to see the Cavs not play through Mobley more to start the second quarter. The Cavs went 0-for-5 from deep while Mobley had 1 shot attempt.
Kenny has talked a lot about shot quality – he’s more concerned with the quality of the look than anything else. Within that, there’s also the nuisance of understanding the flow of the game, and what’s working and what’s not. Yes, you want the Cavs to keep shooting but throwing shots up when they’re not going on, and not trying to switch how they play, is the adjustment we’d like to see them be more willing to make.
The lack of an alternative to Niang has allowed Jayton Tyson to get some minutes. In 4 2Q minutes Tyson had more rebounds (2) than Niang had the whole game (1). Tyson is still finding his way offensively, but it seems like Kenny is hoping his energy, effort, rebounding and willingness to defend can get himself and the rest of the team going when he’s out there.
We’ve talked about playing inside out when the Cavs struggle offensively, and they really took that to heart in the second. The Cavs did not have a shot made outside the paint through 9 minutes into the 2Q. Unfortunately, that was more so because they couldn’t get anything to go down then an adjustment in style of play.
That also included a stretch of zero points for almost three minutes.
Saying all that makes it hard to believe the Cavs even recorded 23 points for the quarter and managed to keep their deficit to only two points going into the 3Q.
Most of that was due to the fact the Cavs finally got hot towards the end of the second quarter. They made four 3-pointers in a row, and prior to that streak had just 11 points in 10 minutes.
Mitchell also made two 3-pointers to end the quarter after missing his first 11 shots on the night. There are bad nights, and then there is whatever Mitchell had for the game.
He credited Dyson Daniels for being a good defender after the game but didn’t exactly attribute his offensive struggles to anything outside of his control.
The Cavs ability to create extra opportunities, despite their shooting struggles, is what kept them in the game. They had 10 offensive rebounds and created 10 turnovers in the first half – this allowed them to stay afloat despite the shooting disparity of 50% to 35%.
Atlanta also continued to put the Cavs bench bunch to shame with 28 points at the half compared to a measly four by the Cavs.
Caris LeVert started to get into rhythm, and inject some life into the Cavaliers, with eight quick points in the third quarter. Problem was there wasn’t a whole lot of help behind him as the Cavs bench had 28 points on the night.
The Cavs were 9th in bench scoring coming into the game at 38 points. Their ability to provide scoring at every different spot is what has managed deflect bad games, or other teams scoring so when that bench scoring dwindles both those items are felt even more.
However, the Hawks did come in 6th in bench scoring. De’Andre Hunter had 23 points off the bench, almost outscoring the Cavs bench by himself. That’s back-to-back 20-point outings for Hunter.
The third quarter is really what did the Cavs in. The Hawks jumped out to a 13-5 run to start the third quarter and put the Cavs in an uphill battle when their offensive ammunition just wasn’t there.
So of course, it wasn’t any further help when the Hawks hung 39 points on the Cavs, on a night when the Cavs failed to hit above 30 points for any quarter in the game.
Seven Hawk players scored in the third quarter with Capela and Okongwu of all players pacing the team for the quarter with 8 points apiece. It wasn’t just one player for the Hawks all night; rather, the Hawks gave the Cavs a taste of their own medicine with everyone chipping with Trae Young conducting it all.
Capela’s and Okongwu’s production begs the question: What happened to Jarrett Allen? Wish we had an answer.
Unfortunately, it looked to be another one of those clunker Allen games that seems to come about every so often. No rhyme or reason other than he just doesn’t have it for the night.
Allen had just 6 points, and 5 rebounds in 25 minutes of play. His -9 wasn’t the worst amongst the starters but in a quarter where the Cavs got outrebounded 15 to 4, his presence could have helped.
Kenny was trying anything he could to inject some life into the Cavs. It even meant going a few minutes without Mitchell or Garland on the floor. Instead, he went with Merrill, LeVert, Niang, and Ty Jerome around Mobley. They were the best 5-man unit in the quarter to the tune of a +3.
The Cavs stretches of the fourth quarter where they looked like they may be able to make it a game but never could string together scores they’ve been accustomed to in the past.
In one stretch, the Cavs hit 6 of 7 shots while the Hawks hit 1 of 5 shots but even then, the Cavs couldn’t get it to under 10 points.
Okongwu and Daniels each hit a 3-pointer later in the fourth quarter that acted as a one-two knockout punch to the Cavs chances. Both times the Cavs had scored, were looking to cut it below 10, had played defense for 23 seconds only for the Hawks to hit a bail out shot to swerve the Cavs pressure.
Garland was the little engine that could tried for the game – he had 8 fourth quarter points along with 2 assists and was acting as the Cavs lone offensive playmaker in trying to get the Cavs back into the game.
Atlanta had as much as an 18-point lead late into the fourth quarter which was ever so close to the 20-point lead late in the third. If it seemed like the Cavs were never close all game, it’s because they weren’t.
With a few minutes left in the game, Kenny waived the white flag and put in the end of the bench to finish the game out while the Hawks were trying to increase their margin of victory.
This is a tough stretch for the Cavs, and it doesn’t lighten up with the Celtics coming to Cleveland on Sunday. If there’s any positive, it’s that they should be as healthy as they’ve been in a while with Dean Wade due back.
Otherwise: They have some fixing to do. It’s not unexpected to hit rough patches throughout the season. To think the Cavs would continue to sustain their high level of play for all 82-games is a bit unrealistic. But to see the Cavs fall off a bit of a cliff is also not comforting either.
More than just shots not falling, but perhaps a byproduct of that, the Cavs also had just 21 assists on 38 made field goals. Moving the ball and creating easy opportunities has been a staple of the Cavs offense, and that gap of assists to made field goals feels wider than it has been most of the year.
The Cavs only had three players in double digits for the game, and one of them was 5-for-23 from the field.
Up next: Boston at home on Sunday at 6:00 PM (EST).
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