The Cavs won’t get the benefit of the doubt going forward, and they know it

The Cavaliers have no one to blame but themselves.

The 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers will be remembered years from now the same way the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks, the 2016-17 Boston Celtics, and the 2017-18 Toronto Raptors are. All four teams were known as phenomenal regular-season teams that folded in the playoffs to an opponent they had a better record than.

In hindsight, getting taken to the woodshed by prime LeBron James isn’t something to be ashamed of. Or at the very least, it looks better than getting punked by an Indiana Pacers team whose leading scorer in the series was Pascal Siakam, who didn’t even crack a 20-point per game average.

“I hope we all feel it,” said Donovan Mitchell during exit interviews on Wednesday. “I think we do. A 64-win season, we were slated to be up here. We lost 4-1. We were the favorite. We were the one seed. It’s not like we were an eight seed trying to beat a seed. Like we should feel that. I said to the guys in the locker room to feel this, embrace it. This is part of it. You can’t, don’t run from this.”

Embracing it also means that you’re going to have to endure comparisons to the Hawks team that everyone wants to avoid. But there’s nothing the Cavs could do about it now.

Injuries played a significant part in Cleveland’s collapse. But no one is likely to remember that. They will, however, remember watching a dominant regular-season team squander a seven-point lead with 40 seconds left in what was essentially a must-win game and repeatedly wilting under the pressure.

That, unfortunately, will be the story of the 2024-25 Cavs, and they know it.

“Y’all are going to write so much shit about us,” Mitchell said to a crowded media room after Game 5.

It took about 12 hours for him to confront that prediction.

His exit day interviews occurred with a TV playing a First Take segment about how much blame Mitchell deserves for the Cavs’ loss. All he could do was sit there and watch it.

“Y’all are gonna write us off,” Mitchell said on Wednesday. “We could go 82-0 and no one will care.”

And honestly, why should anyone give them respect if they do? The Cavs had an opportunity to earn it, but didn’t.

Nobody likes being fooled. Anyone who bought into the Cavs over the last six months was deceived given what they witnessed in the playoffs.

They showed promise that they ultimately couldn’t back up to a degree we don’t often see, especially from a team that was this dominant over 82 games.

The Cavaliers approached the regular season with an intensity and focus that allowed them to rattle off 16, 15, and 12-game winning streaks. That’s incredibly difficult to do given the rigours of the NBA schedule.

But when that focus was rivaled by a somewhat equal opponent, they didn’t have the fortitude to match it.

“We kind of weren’t ready for Game 1,” admitted Max Strus. “The Miami series didn’t prepare us [for the Pacers] and we slept on that and didn’t come out with the same force and aggression. That wasn’t good for us.”

The Cavs talked openly about wanting more credit for how well they were playing in the regular season. They approached each game with something to prove. Most notably, their January win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, which, at the time, felt like a statement to the rest of the league that they were true title contenders.

That victory earned them respect this season. It won’t if something similar is repeated next year.

“Just write us off again,” said Darius Garland. “Nothing has changed. A lot of people doubt us. And it is based off the playoffs. It is based off the postseason. They do whatever they want. We go to work. We get better. And we’ll come back stronger next year.”

The Cavs hope that this is something that they can build off of to be better in the future. But a playoff defeat doesn’t always lead to positive results later. Some teams get better while others just fold.

Their lack of mental toughness was on display in their five-game series defeat. Head coach Kenny Atkinson called it out immediately after Game 5. That will need to improve if they’re going to eventually take the next step.

Atkinson thinks that they will be able to. However, we’ll have to wait 12 months to see if he’s right. And until they prove otherwise, they will be known as a regular-season team that you don’t have to worry about in the spring.

And they only have themselves to blame for that.

“There’s no better motivator than a loss like this,” Atkinson said after Game 5. “There’s nothing that motivates more a player. I know that because there’s the pain you live with every day until you get back here in May or June, you live with that.”