The Cavs showed that this series is far from over.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Cleveland Cavaliers rebounded from one of their worst losses in franchise history to defeat the Indiana Pacers 126-104 in Game 3.
The Cavs still have a lot of work to do before they can feel like this was a successful trip, but Friday night was a good first step.
Donovan Mitchell was phenomenal again. He has risen to the occasion every time the Cavs have needed him to. This included providing 48 points in a Game 2 losing effort. Tonight, he added 44 on 14-29 shooting with nine rebounds and five helpers in a game he controlled straight from the opening tip.
“I thought he was masterful,” Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said about Mitchell. “I don’t use that word hardly ever. He was masterful in the way he controlled the game. … It was probably to me, the best performance of the year.”
Mitchell continues to dominate the paint. That’s once again where he did most of his damage. Mitchell was 4-6 (66.6%) in the restricted area on Friday. On the series, he’s now 21-34 (61.8%) at the rim while getting there early and often.
Additionally, he’s found his range with the floater this series. In Game 2 where he went 4-8 (50%) in the short midrange. This has been a great counter all season when teams rotate over to help at the rim on drives.
via NBA.com
Three-level scoring is so important in the playoffs. Teams that make it this far are typically good enough to take away what a star player does best, or at the very least, they know how to make life difficult for them.
Part of Mitchell’s continued success throughout his postseason career is the multi-faceted nature of his offensive game. He can comfortably score at all three levels and get to the line without relying on a favorable whistle to do so. Maybe you can take away one or two of those things. You can’t take away everything.
That is what separates the truly great playoff players.
Mitchell doesn’t have to do everything when this team is fully healthy. This was in stark contrast to Game 2 where he was essentially the only one who could reliably bring the ball up the court, set up the offense, and provide any level of self-creation with how poorly Ty Jerome played.
Darius Garland helps with this, even if he’s far from 100%, as does Evan Mobley. It’s easy to overlook just how much Mobley does as a self-creator and distributor.
Mobley is superhuman. You wouldn’t have known he was just held out with an ankle injury earlier this week. He was easily the most athletic player on the floor as he was everywhere on defense and bullied Indiana’s thin front line all evening.
Afterward, Mobley said that he “heals quickly.” And the Cavs are sure glad that he does.
It’s easy to think of Mobley as just a defensive specialist, although he’s someone who can actually do it all. He plugs so many holes on both sides of the ball that are easy to overlook when he’s on the floor, but are glaring when he’s off. This is part of the reason why the Cavs are 6-6 this year when Mobley doesn’t play including the playoffs.
Mobley can wreck an entire offense by being at the top of a zone defense. He can do the same in a man defense with his ability to roam off his assignment and recover to simply shortcircuit any action. He can dominate the offensive glass like he did today with five offensive rebounds. And he can completely bully a team inside like he did in Game 3 en route to 18 points and 13 rebounds.
There’s no chance the Cavs would’ve lost Game 2 if they had a healthy Mobley. And they probably don’t lose Game 1 either if he doesn’t twist his ankle at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Cleveland’s frontline deserves credit for dominating the glass this series. That continued on Friday as the Cavs grabbed 18 offensive rebounds, which led to outscoring Indiana 31-9 in second-chance points.
Both Mobley (five) and Allen (four) grabbed more offensive rebounds than Indiana starting center Myles Turner grabbed total rebounds (three).
There’s a trickle-down effect of controlling the glass like this. More offensive rebounds mean that Indiana needs to keep guys in to clear possessions. That also means that they aren’t able to get out and run in transition like they’d like to which is perhaps the biggest benefit in this series.
Welcome back Darius Garland. This wasn’t a good game from Garland. His foot still didn’t seem quite right as he wasn’t making the same cuts we’ve become accustomed to all season. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
You could both see why he’s been sitting out and just how helpful a hobbled version of Garland is to this team. He brings a level of shotmaking and creation that allows the Cavs to avoid some of the inept offensive sequences we saw in the second half of Game 2.
Ty Jerome was unplayable for most of this game. He struggled to convert when he got to his spots and remains a turnstile defensively with Indiana’s guards targeting him on that end.
The Cavs need Jerome in this series with Garland banged up. They simply don’t have many options to turn to for additional self-creation and playmaking off the bench.
Max Strus has been at home in a series that has become chippy. He once again elevated his game as he provided 20 points, seven assists, and seven rebounds in the win.
The Pacers’ best players didn’t show up. Tyrese Haliburton was practically a no-show as he provided just four points, five assists, and three turnovers in 30 minutes of play. He also declined to meet with the media afterward to discuss it.
His sidekick Pascal Siakam wasn’t much better. He added 18 points, however, grabbing just four rebounds as a power forward in a game — and series — you’re getting dominated on the glass isn’t acceptable.
The zone is giving Indiana problems. Cleveland opted for a 3-2 zone, which featured both Mobley and De’Andre Hunter at the top for portions of the evening. This caused Indiana’s free-flowing offense to stagnate leading to Cleveland’s best defensive stretches of the series.
The 3-2 zone also isn’t one that Cleveland has run since the 2021-22 season under J.B. Bickerstaff.
It’s a role that Mobley is comfortable in.
“I think it’s my length,” Mobley said. “[I’m just] trying to deter their passes. They try to get us to the middle a lot of times, and my length kind of messes with them. Also, I feel like the backside has done a great job back there as well. So it’s two bigs, one on the ball, and then one on the back.”
This zone also isn’t what Atkinson has opted for at all this season, as they’ve typically only run their 2-3 zone.
“It’s because of their five-out spacing,” Atkinson said when asked why he went with the 3-2 zone for Game 3. “We decided we can’t play our traditional zone against them. We had to match to their five-out stuff.”
“It’s a tough defense to solve,” Mobley added. “We’ll see how they try to solve it.”
Imagine what would happen if the Cavs actually hit some threes this series. They’re still waiting for the three-point variance to finally swing the other way for them. While they benefited from a poor shooting night from the Pacers, the Cavaliers still finished with their third-straight game shooting under 30% from three. For context, they didn’t have back-to-back games with under 30% three-point shooting in the regular season.
So far, the offense in this series has been good despite getting absolutely nothing to fall from the outside. Maybe that changes in Game 4.
The Cavs came to Indy to get two. They haven’t done that yet. And until they do, this isn’t a successful trip.
“We haven’t done anything,” Mitchell said. “We won one game. We got to do it again. … I told them, we’re not celebrating, we’re not smiling. We came here to take two games and we did one. Understanding that the next one is gonna be the hardest game in the series. Then the next one after that is gonna be the hardest game.”