cavs-darius-garland-nba-playoffs-cleveland-cavaliers-indiana-pacers-come-back-donovan-mitchell
INDIANAPOLIS — Darius Garland paused for 17 seconds when asked postgame why the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t come out with enough force and match the Indiana Pacers’ physicality in Game 4.
“It just didn’t happen tonight,” Garland finally said.
It certainly didn’t. Everything that could go wrong, did. The Cavs didn’t make any threes, the Pacers made seemingly every one they took. Indiana also won the possession game handily, controlled the paint, and were far and away the better defensive team.
On top of that, Donovan Mitchell didn’t return for the second half with a non-contact left-ankle injury after he landed awkwardly during warmups after halftime.
Even though this was their worst performance of the season, Garland doesn’t believe that this is the end of the year. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.
We’ve been through adversity plenty of times, not even just this year,” Garland said. “This group’s been together for a couple years now. We’ve been through a lot of adversity the last three years together, with all of us just together. So this franchise has done it before.”
It can be done, and as Garland notes, the Cavs did it against the 73-9 Golden State Warriors nearly a decade ago. But that team had the greatest basketball player of all time on it in LeBron James. This Cavs team might be without its best player.
And while yes, they’ve overcome adversity before. They haven’t faced a challenge quite like this.
“We’ve seen it done before,” Garland said. “This group is always competing at a high level. It doesn’t matter what circumstance it is. If we’re losing, if we’re winning. So come out there with a chip on our shoulder and a lot of desperation. That’s what we have to do. Got to keep that in our mind and see where it goes.”
The Cavs have the talent to come back if they’re healthy. There’s a reason they won 64 games this season. But if they’re going to do that, they need to get back to the things that made them special all season.
“Keep being aggressive, keep playing our brand of basketball,” Garland said. “Come out with the physicality that we started with. came out with last game. Go watch this film. See what we can do better. See what we can do with the zone.
“And yeah, man, play our brand of basketball. Like I said, this franchise’s been down 3-1 before. This group can do it. We got the talent, we got the skillset. The camaraderie is always there. Just got to just go out there and play with our physicality that we play with, and play our brand of basketball.”