Recap: Knicks 106, Cavs 95 (or, Out with a Whimper)

The Cavs lost 106-95 to the New York Knicks to get gentleman’s swept out of the first round of the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Here’s a retrospective on that fateful night and some other meandering thoughts on the Cavs’ 2022-23 season…

1. Out with a Whimper

Sadly the NBA playoff pressure cooker revealed that the Cavs’ junkyard dawg mentality was more wishcasting than reality. They showed very little competitive toughness throughout the series, getting outrebounded by a million boards. A bunch of calculator nerds have elaborate explanations about “defensive coverages” and “scrambling defenses” as the reasons why the Cavs sucked at rebounding, but real hoopers know that rebounding is purely about effort and hustle, two things that the Cavs sorely lack throughout the series. Jarrett Allen was completely outclassed by Mitchell Robinson and Isaiah “Hard Rock” Hartenstein. Allen’s role on the team is to do the dirty work, but instead the Cavs got a prima donna performance. Will Jarrett Allen ever show the physicality needed to survive playoff basketball? He’s never shown it in his career unfortunately, but hopefully it’s more a matter of his youthfulness than unwillingness. Tower City’s first run in the playoffs was a disaster, the future viability of the lineup ought to be scrutinized next season and into next year’s playoffs should they be so lucky to make it again.

2. It began with J.B…

The bad vibes of the Cavs 2022-23 season began with Coach J.B. Bickerstaff’s idiotic decision to indefinitely bench NBA Champion Kevin Love in late January for the services of teacher’s pet Lamar Stevens and an injured and completely ineffective Dean Wade. With J.B.’s public noncommittal stance towards future Love minutes, Kevin Love rightfully asked and was granted a buyout from the Cavs to join the Miami Heat. To this day, there are still bozos in Cavs’ fandom who wrongfully think Love was killing the Cavs on defense… allow yours truly to re-iterate yet again how stupid that take is when looking at the evidence:

From Kevin Love’s benching, Cavs ranked 29th in the NBA in defensive rebound rate @ 68.3%
Prior to Love’s benching, Cavs ranked 3rd in the NBA in defensive rebound rate @ 73.6%

From Kevin Love’s benching, Cavs’ defensive rating: 110.0
Prior to Love’s benching, Cavs’ defensive rating: 109.8

That’s right the defense without Love got slightly worse, and the defensive rebounding went from one of the best with Love to one of the worst in the NBA without Love. Also keep in mind the Cavs’ schedule was front loaded, so the Cavs should’ve performed better on defense if Love was actually “killing the defense” that much.

J.B.’s terrible decision-making didn’t end there. It continued throughout the Knicks playoff series with zero adjustments to the Knicks’ prolific rebounding, whether it was going ultra big with Dean Wade at the small forward position or ultra small with Wade and Stevens in the front court as small ball bigs. Here are the four best defensive rebounders the Cavs had going into the Knicks series:

How many minutes did Dean Wade and Lamar Stevens play in the Knicks series? 19 minutes combined. Yes that’s right, J.B. Bickerstaff decided to play the two players he deemed more important than Kevin Love a combined 19 minutes in the playoffs.

Despite Cavs’ POBO Koby Altman’s full throated defense of Bickerstaff in the end of season presser, the era of good feelings ought to be over for a coach that’s sub .500 for his career with a 2-8 playoff record, 2-9 if one includes the play-in. There’s also a long documented history of Bickerstaff-led teams lacking any sort of creativity on the offensive end, which reared its ugly head in the Knicks series. There was zero chance that Koby Altman would can Bickerstaff this off-season, which I’ve consistently said here and on podcasts alike. But if another season goes by and another flame out in the playoffs? One would have to think that would force Altman’s hand… the question now is whether that will be too late given the ticking clock that is Donovan Mitchell’s contract. Speaking of Donovan Mitchell…

3. Mitchell didn’t show up

When you’re the superstar player and potential All-NBA player, there are expectations that you’ll step up when the lights are brightest. The opposite happened for Donovan Mitchell, who shrank in the moment and validated the concerns of those who say he’s not a number one option on a championship team. What’s interesting about Mitchell’s advanced stats is that his usage declined (31% vs. 29.6%) and his assist rate went up dramatically (14.9 to 21.6) when compared to the regular season. To yours truly, it suggests a bit of passivity in his game, that he lost confidence and became indecisive once his shot wasn’t falling. There’s certainly an argument that he should’ve shot less considering how his true shooting percentage cratered in the playoffs (51.8%). Whatever the problem was, Mitchell needs to figure it out, because the Cavs are only going as far he is able to take them.

4. Silver linings?

There were a couple of silver linings in the playoffs for the Cavs such as the defense of Evan Mobley (102.2 defensive rating while on the court). Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro, and Caris LeVert found some scoring rhythm in the playoffs. Cedi Osman found some rebounding prowess. Yes this might be grasping at straws, but maybe these positives could’ve been leveraged further with a better game plan and adjustments from the coaching staff. At the very least, the young guys got their first taste of playoff basketball, the experience should serve them well in the future.

5. Thank you CtB

While the team may have lost their competitive edge, the CtB Commentariat never loses their edge. Thank you to all that read and commented this season, it’s humbling to be around the great basketball minds of Cavs’ fandom. It was a fun season, bitter ending, and the offseason should be an interesting one with a wheeler and dealer such as Koby Altman, Go Cavs!