Game Night Observations: LeVert's aggression, a shortened rotation, and a developing duo
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Danny Cunningham cover the Cavs for 850 ESPN Cleveland and TheLandOnDemand.com
The Cavaliers continued their preseason schedule on Monday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse with a 113-97 loss against the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Cavs were without Kevin Love, Evan Mobley, and Dylan Windler due to various injuries. Of those three, Love and Mobley are not concerns within the organization to miss opening night in Toronto a little over a week from now. There hasn’t been an update on Windler.
With both Love and Mobley out, the Cavaliers started both Caris LeVert and Dean Wade with the entrenched starters Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen. Both LeVert and Wade are battling to find themselves in the starting lineup.
Monday night, neither of them were overly impressive in their first run with the starters. LeVert collected a pair of rebounds and a pair of assists, but didn’t attempt a single shot, while Wade missed all four of the shots he took. The second run for LeVert was probably the best stint that either of them played all night. He was much more aggressive offensively and competed on defense at a relatively strong level. Of the two players competing for that spot, LeVert without question had the better night.
“I think Caris did a great job defensively,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said after the game. “I think he’s been really consistent from that standpoint. Talking about through camp and even these preseason games. He has great length, a great will to, he moves his feet well, and he’s accepting those challenges. I think he did a great job.”
Aside from the defensive effort, one of the things that LeVert will need to do is pick and choose when he can be aggressive offensively, especially if he starts games sharing the floor with Mitchell and Garland.
“I think it’s just a feel thing,” LeVert said. “I try not to really even think too much about shots. Just think about getting to spots on the floor, if the shot comes, take it, if not, find a teammate. I think that’s when I’m at my best, when I’m not really putting any pressure on myself to score the ball.”
After his first stint, LeVert was one of the best players on the Cavs, and either he or Garland had the best night of any perimeter players. Garland was quietly very efficient with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting and seven assists. As for Mitchell, he had an off night by his standards, especially in the first half. Mitchell finished with 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting.
As for Wade, he would leave the game early in the third with an ankle injury that the Cavs did not deem serious. He finished the night with eight points and seven rebounds.
While this battle continues, it sure looks as if LeVert is the better player. He’s looked more like the guy the Cavaliers traded for than the one that actually played for the team while battling injuries last season. Wade may be the better fit with the starting group, but it’s certain LeVert is the better overall player.
What to make of the rotation?
It’s hard to say much about the Cavs rotation right now, especially considering that the team was without starting small forward and sixth-man Kevin Love. Obviously, they would both be integral parts in any regular season rotation.
With that said, it’s interesting that with the starters receiving an increased amount of minutes from the first preseason game, the head coach J.B. Bickerstaff opted to only play nine different guys for the first three quarters. That rotation only saw Isaac Okoro, Isaiah Mobley, Cedi Osman, and Robin Lopez take the floor. Even then, Osman and Lopez played less than seven minutes combined before the fourth quarter.
When asked earlier this preseason, Bickerstaff mentioned that his ideal rotation is a 10-man group, and that it can be hard to get to 11 guys comfortably playing. Shortening things down to a nine-man rotation (really just seven) is a bit of an oddity for a preseason game. Typically, that’s an exercise reserved for the playoffs. That said, it did serve a purpose.
“Yeah, I knew I wasn’t gonna play [the starters] in the fourth quarter,” Bickerstaff said. “I was just trying to bump their minutes up, try to get them as many minutes as we could. I let them run long stretches. These games, like we’ve talked about, are also opportunities for conditioning, so that’s why I was trying to let those guys run a little bit longer. We’ll do the right thing by them tomorrow in order to prepare them for Wednesday.”
In addition to Allen’s 33 minutes, Garland played 31 minutes, while Mitchell played 27, LeVert played 25, and Wade played 23 before leaving with an injury.
“For 31 minutes, I think I did pretty good. I’m not tired, my legs feel good. I feel good. Good conditioning,” Garland said. “I’m ready for some actual games, I know that for sure.”
Work in progress
The Cavs made a big bet this offseason when they traded for Mitchell, with one of the biggest factors being the belief that things would work between he and Garland. There’s no reason to believe things won’t work at an extremely high level between the two.
With that said, it’s an unfair expectation to think that this duo should look like years of chemistry has been built up right away. This is a move that’s going to take time to really hit its stride, even if progress already is evident.
“I think It’s been good to watch how much they want to help each other,” Bickerstaff said. “I think early on in camp they were trying so hard to help each other that it was to our detriment. But I think now they found a balance of how they can help each other, how they can play together and be successful in it.”
The Cavs have one of the most talented backcourts in all of the NBA with the pairing of Mitchell and Garland. Even on nights when one of them is having a rough go of it, they’re still difficult to stop. That was evident on Monday with Mitchell not playing like his usual self. The nights when they’re both at their best will be incredibly exciting for the Cavs to utilize.
“It’s evolving great,” Garland said. “We’re starting to gel a little bit. I know thing for both of us, we’ve gotta cut down on turnovers and then guard on the other side of the ball as well. We both are talking to each other about that, we both are holding each other accountable for it. He’s a competitor, I’m a competitor, we want to win. That’s what we’re gonna try to do.
“To be honest with you, I never had a dynamic threat like that for real. Just a go get a bucket type, so I can’t tell you. It took me and Vert a couple games, like actual, real, live games. I mean, hopefully a couple games. Hopefully it’s Atlanta and Orlando, next games, we can start getting a feel for each other and just go from there.”
