The 64-win campaign concludes with a disastrous, injury-riddled second-round.
CLEVELAND — This wasn’t how we expected the season to end a week and a half ago. However, a lot has happened since then. The Indiana Pacers were simply better than the Cleveland Cavaliers. That continued as they put the Cavs out of their misery with a 114-105 victory.
Indiana has officially punched their ticket to the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Cavs had the second-best regular season in franchise history and their top one without LeBron James. That means something. And even though there were injuries this round, this was a poor showing and not in line with what we saw in the regular season.
This core has now been bounced in the playoffs in five games by teams that finished the regular season with a worse record than the Cavs in two of their three seasons.
Koby Altman and the front office will be spending this summer trying to figure out why these issues keep popping up in the postseason. They’ll have hard choices to make as to whether they should run it back with this core. For whatever reason, the good regular season play hasn’t translated to the playoff success it should’ve.
The Cavs started strong. They were the more aggressive team in the first quarter. Donovan Mitchell was at the center of that.
Mitchell took the fight to the Pacers. He relentlessly went downhill to attack the basket despite the ankle and calf injuries that he was dealing with. This led to 13 first-quarter points to help the Cavs jump out to a 31-19 lead. A lead that was made possible by the Pacers uncharacteristically shooting 1-8 from three in the first quarter.
Unfortunately for Cleveland, Mitchell’s injuries caught up with him in the following three quarters.
Three-point shooting has been the biggest separator in this series. The Cavs — who were one of the best shooting teams in the regular season — went completely cold at the worst possible time. Their series-long struggles didn’t change in Game 5.
The Pacers used hot shooting to cut into Cleveland’s lead. They went 7-12 (58.3%) from three in the second quarter to cut the deficit from 12 to four. Meanwhile, the Cavs couldn’t hit a shot as they finished the first half, knocking down just one of their 11 attempts.
Head coach Kenny Atkinson teased that he was going to change up the rotations during his pregame media availability, and he did. Sam Merrill missed this game with a neck strain and Ty Jerome lost his spot in the rotation entirely in the first half.
Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade replaced Merrill and Jerome. They provided more physicality in a series that the Cavs desperately need as much of it as they can. That said, it didn’t help their struggling offense get going. The Pacers cheated defensively off both players when they were on the floor, and neither was ready to shoot threes when the ball kicked to them.
I’m not blaming Atkinson for the decision. It was justifiable given the circumstances and probably the right one. But you’ve usually already lost when you’re going away from what’s been working all season, you’ve likely already lost.
The Pacers kept the momentum from the second quarter into the third. They completely dominated that frame on both ends of the floor. They held the Cavs scoreless for a four-minute stretch in the third. They were held without a field goal for over seven minutes and had just seven field goals in the third quarter.
This led to Ty Jerome being re-inserted into the lineup. He immediately hit two threes to give the Cavs some life, but the Pacers relentlessly attacked him on the other end.
Indiana won the third quarter 33-20 and took an 85-76 lead into the fourth.
The Cavaliers didn’t go quietly into the night. They opened the fourth on a 10-2 run to cut the deficit to one thanks to threes from Jerome and De’Andre Hunter.
That was as close as the Cavs would get.
They had multiple chances to tie or take the lead, but the shots simply didn’t fall. Even the good ones that they generated.
It also didn’t help that Darius Garland and Mitchell were easy targets on the other end due to their injuries. Cleveland just didn’t have enough to get it done.
The Cavaliers finished the day shooting a pitiful 25.7% from three (9-35). It was the fourth time in this series that they finished under 30% shooting from deep. It didn’t help that they squandered plenty of opportunities at the line as well, shooting 70.3%.
The Pacers were led by Tyrese Haliburton. He delivered his best outing of the series as he provided a team-high 31 points on 10-15 shooting and eight assists. Pascal Siakam had 21 points and eight rebounds in the win.
Mitchell gutted it out despite moving at about 50% at the end of the game. He emptied the clip in a gutty performance that ended in 35 points on 8-25 shooting. Mitchell also had nine rebounds and four steals.
Evan Mobley provided 24 points on 8-12 shooting and 11 rebounds. The Cavs would’ve benefited from featuring Mobley more.
Jarrett Allen started strong, but was a no-show after the first quarter. He finished with nine points and four rebounds, with only three of those points and one rebound happening in the final three quarters.
Garland didn’t look close to himself. He couldn’t move on defense and wasn’t able to hit any threes. He ended the game with 11 points on 3-14 shooting with three assists.
Cleveland fought hard in Game 5, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe next year will end differently.