Fourteen teams had better odds of winning the championship than the Cavaliers entering the preseason. That list has shrunk to five, via BetMGM, and it should continue to dwindle if Cleveland keeps up its torrid pace.
It has been a wild year of improvement for the Cavs. After winning a respectable 48 games and securing the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference last season, they’re now projected to finish with 59 wins and the best record in the league.
Cleveland has won 15 in a row heading into Tuesday’s matchup against the Celtics, which will be its biggest test thus far. The Cavaliers are not quite at the 24 straight the 2015 Warriors hit, but they’re climbing up the list of best starts to a season.
The Cavs showed flashes of excellence last year, such as ripping off 17 wins in 18 games. But nobody thought they’d be the best team in the league almost 20 percent into the season. Their ascent hasn’t come as a result of any one player. Instead, several factors have caused this rise.
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Bickerstaff wasn’t a terrible coach in Cleveland — he’s even doing a solid job in Detroit after being dismissed from Cleveland during the offseason. But Atkinson was an underrated head coach in Brooklyn years ago, gained even more experience as an assistant for the Warriors and France in the Olympics, and has been coaching circles around opponents in Cleveland.
As outlined by former Knicks analytics staffer Owen Phillips, Atkinson’s biggest changes to the Cavs have been twofold. First, he’s gotten them to play a lot faster, raising their pace from No. 24 last season to No. 7 this season. That strategy is not revolutionary — every coach wants to get their team pushing the ball more because transition plays generate better looks — but Atkinson has gotten his players to buy in.
Second, the Cavs have cut way down on opponents’ 3-point attempts. Both of those stylistic decisions were staples of Atkinson’s overachieving Nets teams, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise he’s done it in Cleveland too.
Atkinson has done some other nice things on the margins. Like his predecessor, he’s tried to stagger Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen as much as possible to have one guard and one big man on the floor at a time. He’s also started using a nasty 2-3 zone, pulling his back line up higher than usual, which has given opponents trouble.
Atkinson is an early favorite for Coach of the Year. He’s absolutely deserving of that honor. He’s pressed all of the right buttons so far.
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One area where Atkinson has really changed Cleveland is by letting Mobley have more opportunities to initiate the offense.
Mobley has rewarded that trust by becoming a great pick-and-roll threat. He drove the ball only 4.7 times per game last season, hitting 47.8 percent of his field goals in those situations. He’s up to 7.7 drives per game this season while shooting a stellar 56.1 percent.
There are a couple of reasons for Mobley’s development as a driver, chief among them being he’s clearly worked hard on that part of his game. Atkinson is also putting him in an excellent position to succeed, taking a page out of the Thunder’s playbook by having screeners set flat screens (parallel to the baseline) around the free throw line.
Because those screens are set so close to the basket, Mobley can get a head of steam before using them, making it harder to stop him as he comes off them. The flat angle of the screen allows him to go in either direction as well. That optionality, combined with how low the screens are set, makes it more difficult for defenders to use a switching strategy against them.
The icing on the cake: Atkinson usually has a guard who is a good shooter setting the screen for Mobley. That creates a cleaner pop-out for 3, putting immense pressure on the defense when they try to send help at him.
The Mobley pick-and-pop has become an impossible play to stop. It’s led to Cleveland’s rise as the best offense in the league along with a career-high 18.1 points per game for the former No. 3 pick.
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Garland had a rough previous year, seeing his averages dip across the board and having a mediocre playoffs. Much of that regression was out of his control. He fractured his jaw in December, leading to surgery and a liquid diet that caused him to lose 12 pounds in the middle of the season. He was never quite himself after the incident, admitting to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor that he kind of lost his joy for basketball.
Garland is fully recovered and has said his love of the game is back. It’s clearly showing on the court, where he’s looking more like the All-Star player he was back in 2022.
Garland is a great decision-maker and a deadly 3-point shooter at his best. His touch from deep is back — he’s hitting a scorching 45.5 percent from 3 on a career-high 6.7 attempts. His other numbers are up across the board, and he and Mitchell are now one of the best backcourts in the league.
Cleveland’s big offseason addition two summers ago was sharpshooter Max Strus. He hasn’t even played this season due to an ankle sprain, and the team hasn’t missed him at all because of how deep they are. Most teams would love to have two or three bench guys they can count on. The Cavs have six.
Dean Wade has been an underrated bench player for a while, able to shoot 3s and defend at a very high level. Isaac Okoro is a wing-stopper and he’s been hitting his outside shots. Sam Merrill was a scrap-heap find who has become one of the best shooters in the league. Ty Jerome has similarly come out of nowhere to become a pesky defender and deadeye shooter. Georges Niang somehow finds a way to get buckets, and Caris LeVert can look like an All-Star when he gets hot.
Those guys aren’t necessarily household names, but all of them can give solid minutes to supplement one of the better starting units in the league. The Cavs can’t even find minutes for promising second-year guard Craig Porter Jr.
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Driving all of this is, of course, Mitchell, who is the unquestioned best player on the team and a top 10 player in the NBA. He hasn’t gotten that level of respect nationally, but he’s been at that level for a while now.
Mitchell has always been an efficient scorer who can get to the rim and bomb 3s. He took on more point guard duties last season with Garland out, and he has become an even better passer thanks to those reps. That has made him a well-rounded offensive player who needs to be double-teamed to stop.
Where Mitchell has changed more from his Jazz days is as a defender. He didn’t always give the best effort as a younger player — he would show up on some blooper reels for his miscues. The bad defense rap is hard to shake once it’s stuck, but it doesn’t apply to Mitchell anymore. He had the tools to be considered a good defensive prospect coming out of college, only he’s using them now.
Mitchell is willing to lock down opponents and get impressive stops.
but @JoestarJokic told me donovan mitchell doesn’t play defense hmmm pic.twitter.com/U4DcwYho4E
— ben pfeifer (@bjpf_) October 26, 2024
Mitchell’s off-ball defense has also improved dramatically. He’s a good athlete, and he’s giving great effort now at the end of games. He helped the Cavs win a close game against the Bulls earlier in the season with an unheralded possession on defense.
Zach LaVine had been torching the Cavs in the fourth. Nine points in the three minutes leading up to this possession.
Watch Donovan Mitchell making sure LaVine isn’t gonna touch the ball. Stuff like that is why the Cavs are undefeated. pic.twitter.com/wvkmdxrAA2
— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) November 12, 2024
It helps that Mitchell has two unbelievable defensive bigs behind him in Mobley, whose versatility should put him in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation, and Allen, who jumps out of the gym to protect the rim.
Mitchell has led by example, helping the Cavs become the No. 1 offense and No. 7 defense in the league. This ascent is far from a fluke. They’re a well-balanced team with good coaching, deep talent and star power to carry them at the end of games. They should continue piling up the wins during the regular season.
Let’s be real for a second. The above reasons are nice explanations for why the Cavs are winning, but locals know the truth — a dancing frog is responsible for their dramatic improvement.
Cavs victory frog is the best thing ever 🐸 pic.twitter.com/gztM094qJR
— McNeil (@Reflog_18) November 16, 2024
Cavs frog came about randomly during the beginning of the team’s winning streak, dancing in the streets after wins. He’s been embraced by the players, fans and even the team’s social media account.
NBA teams have never lost a game with a dancing frog behind them. Smart ones will catch onto this trend quickly.
