The Cavaliers begin their post-all-star schedule with an unfamiliar loss to the Magic 109-116
Stock Up:
Evan Mobley and Isaac Okoro picking up where they left off.
Based on Thursday’s play Evan Mobley and Isaac Okoro pre All-Star break play was not simply not a fluke and more of a promising trajectory for two young prospects.
Mobley was flaunting once again his runner-up DPOY skillset by disrupting the Orlando offense all night. Mobley also on offense played a pretty complete game as well finishing with 14 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists. Mobley looks like he’s come back from his injury and has been playing some of the most complete basketball we have seen thus far in his career.
Meanwhile, Okoro offensively now looks like a completely different player than who we even saw at the opening game of the season. Okoro has gained a whole new form of confidence and displayed a much more complementary skill set that fans have been begging to see signs of since they drafted him.
Okoro has shown his ability to generate his looks from the top of the break, while also further showing signs of development from the three-point line as well. Okoro has become a building block for this Cavaliers team. As free agency will loom over his name, the question is shifting from “‘if the Cavs retain him “ to “how will they shuffle their finances to retain him “.
Holding:
The Cavaliers without Donovan Mitchell do not have an offensive engine
We have seen familiar scripts to the way the game against the Magic was playing down the stretch. The Cavaliers find themselves in a 10-ish point deficit and who leads the charge to save the day? Donovan Mitchell. So the question became as the Cavaliers were clawing back against Orlando, “Who is going to step up and lead this offensive charge?”.
It appears no one as tonight was a team effort offensively, all starters scored in double digits and no one scored more than 18 points (Darius Garland, Max Strus and Jarrett Allen). It stresses the point that in the postseason, if and when the Cavaliers find themselves in a tough spot in crunch time and defenses focus on Mitchell, who can be the hero? Once someone else can prove they can be that reliable secondary option this team becomes a lot more potent.
Stock Down:
Decisiveness with the ball
Turnovers were the theme of the woes for the Cavaliers against Orlando. The Cavaliers found themselves in a hole pretty early into the game, mostly due to them seeming lackadaisical with the ball.
Orlando found a lot of their transition scoring coming fresh off a Cavaliers’ turnover. It seemed just as the Cavaliers were able to claw their way back into the game, they would then proceed to become sloppy with the ball and give the Magic opportunities to separate themselves again.
Darius Garland has continued his full-season woes of seeming to struggle with finding the correct passing lanes consistently while also not turning the ball over when driving to the basket.
While one doesn’t want to say this seems to be who Garland is now, it is certainly who he has been lately. If the Cavaliers’ want to succeed deep into the postseason, they need the Garland we have grown accustomed to seeing over the past few seasons.