Recap: Cavs 136, Raptors 106 (or, Evan Mobley MVP Agenda?)
2024-10-24The Cavs methodically destroyed the undermanned Toronto Raptors 136-106 for one of the most impressive, emphatic wins of a massive Wednesday night NBA opening night slate, setting the tone for what yours truly believes could be a special season. Let’s dive right in….
Evan Mobley MVP Agenda?
While this is clearly Donovan Mitchell’s team, the MVP performance of the night was delivered by none other than Evan Mobley: 25 points and a +31 plus/minus in 27 minutes, with nine rebounds, five stocks, and three assists. This is a prime Kevin Garnett stat line. We will be witnessing the Mobley leap this year, the only thing that could hamper it is either injury or some immaturity from the 23 year old… can he handle more expectations, more spotlight, more scrutiny? Stay tuned…
Coach Kenny fixes the offense with Dean Wade, Sam Merrill, and Georges Niang
What’s ironic about the Cavs’ offensive performance last night is that they barely took any threes relatively speaking, yet still scored 136 points. How did that happen? S P A C I N G . With Dean Wade in the starting lineup, Sam Merrill in the first off the bench wave, and Georges Niang backup four minutes, the Cavs have created so much space for all of the Cavs’ offensive initiators. There was an open runway to the rim for everyone outside of Darius Garland to take advantage. Some of the numbers from last night:
Cavs offensive rating: 134.7 points per 100 possessions, second in the NBA
Cavs true shooting percentage: 69.1%, first in the NBA
The third string held their own!
Almost the entire fourth quarter was garbage time and if recent memories serve correctly, the third string Cavs’ have always had a penchant for not being able to hold leads, which led in part to JB Bickerstaff’s trust issues surely. Well last night, the third unit looked AMAZING. They were sharp defensively and put in maximum effort. Jaylen Tyson was ease into his NBA career and did not disappoint!
First of many. Welcome to the league, Rook!@jaylontyson | #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/htAe5np9iu
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) October 24, 2024
Quick word on the Raptors
Scottie Barnes is a fraud, Gradey Dick is their best player, god it feels great to beat the Raptors every time!!! GO CAVS!
Really happy to finally see a legimate offense being run. Saw the faintest hints of it last year, but JB seemed to let it slide at any moment to ‘trust the guys’. Granted, brutal game for Toronto, but exactly the type of game that the ball would stick and the opposing team would stick around or we’d lose unexplainably and JB would come and say, well we just didn’t have it…
Knicks will be a test: they will do a lot of what Toronto tried to do defensively (pick up the PnR high, trap a bit more, force quick decisions) with better defenders in OG and Mikal and Hart. They are also small inside now, so there will be a lot of the same opportunities going downhill (I expect they’ll start Hart on Mobley and KAT on Allen) and I don’t like NYs offense at all despite the upgraded personnel. Will have to keep putting Brunson and KAT in the actions. I think we can guard a heliocentric Brunson offense spaced… Read more »
Enjoyed the cap, my friend
Thank you my friend!!
TBF… The raps were missing four of their top seven guys. I fully expect the Cavs’ to try to throttle JB’s Pistons in the home opener tonight. Washington stinks, but it’s a back to back and Kuzma always gives em trouble. Hopefully they’re 3-0 when they get a real test against the Knicks
For sure, going into Toronto I had admittedly very low expectations. If we were gonna win it was gonna be ugly and a close game.
good points.
Am I the only one who was surprised when I realized that Ty Jerome is white? I first thought Niang lost like 200lbs and started playing point buard.
😂😂😂
I think as one gets older — or maybe as the times get more recent, being white or whatever fades away as being a big deal.
I didn’t mean to offend (just in case I did). It’s just that you picture how someone looks when you read their name. I didn’t picture Ty Jerome to look like that.
not at all. I was offering a comment on the evolution of this aspect of my (and societies) worldview on such matters.
As a long time “observer of the scene”, I find the role of sports and popular music over say the last 100 years in lessening discrimination to be very interesting topics.
iono about lessening exactly, but it’s changed. “everyone wants to be black, no one wants to BE black” has been a common refrain for decades and still holds
I think both Ty and George are from multi-racial families. From Sam Merrill to JT Thor the Cavs have all the skin tones covered!
Ty is “bright-skin” — he’s Black, like Hartenstein is
This is a rare space, where the chat above could run its course without going sideways – credit to you all.
Looking forward to first my first live game broadcast watching of this season tonight when the Cavs drop by the DMV. (Been too busy with work to re-up NBA Team pass but will get around to it. Excited to see the Mobley upgrade!
And also excited to hear “actual Ty Jerome” is even better than “theoretical Ty Jerome!”
interesting NBA season starting facts here:
https://www.nba.com/news/nba-roster-survey-facts-2024-25-season
Outstanding start to the season!
wasn’t Scotty Barns ROY over EM? he doesn’t look like he should be on the varsity.
I always felt SB was physically more mature than the other rooks at the draft, and that his improvement in the league would be less than his cohort.
dunno about that.
I recall some guy named LeBron that was physically more mature than the other rooks at the draft, and that his improvement has been just fine.