This crowd rises to its being what Carl slam it? Oh car left wing ball perfect? They have blocked the shot at the rim, how with the left hand and of fowl.
Welcome to Chasetown Podcast, part of the Caves Media family.
I'm your host Justin Rohan.
The Chase Down is presented by Fubo, the official streaming partner of the Calves. Watch over three hundred and fifty channels of live sports and TV, including fan Duel Sports Network without cable. There's no cost and no commitment. Try for free at FuboTV dot com Slash Calves. The Cleveland Cavaliers ended the road trip with a w in Portland, No Donovan Mitchell, no problem, and no overtime. Last time the Cavs played the Blazers, overtime was necessary. This time
they closed them out in the fourth quarter. Big performances from Darius Garland, Evan Mobley looking like defensive player of the year, Jared Allen having a strong fourth quarter, and someone who always brings as best as my co host, Carter Rodriguez.
Carter, how you doing, buddy?
I don't know about that. You know, don't all that you know? I yeah, I'm doing good. It was nice to see the Calves win. And I'm going to take it at a weird angle to start. We didn't talk about this at all yet, we haven't talked about this game almost at all, even even privately. And I my weird angle here is I think it's good that the Calves only took twenty seven threes. Okay, uh, not because I'm someone who's you know, in perpetual freak out mode about you know, the state of the three point game
and being two relying on threes. But I do think it was nice that the team collectively said, hey, like, we haven't been hitting at a crazy high rate. Let's get to the paint. We've got we've got We've got a team that that plays a lot of pressure on the ball. But if we get past them, you know, we're going to be, you know, facing a deep dropping Donovan Klinging for the most part, or a not crazy mobile do op wreath for our forty eight minutes of action.
And we're fine with that. We're fine. We can get into the teeth of this defense. We can we can get consistent buckets and we don't need to get up forty three pointers to have a good offensive rating, and like, I don't think it's like the be all end all, but I do think it's a nice reminder for them, like, no, you can have a dominant game without needing to shoot the cover off the ball. And they did shoot very
well in their limited attempts. Part of me is like, well, that's kind of also part of it, right, like that, you know, you you really took mostly the ones that were really, really clean and the ones that really were in great rhythm that you just couldn't turn down. And I don't feel like they either, they even turned down a tremendous amount of threes either. I think they I just I really liked their offensive game plan in this one.
Yeah, it's not often that you see a team takes twenty five threes more than the Cavs do in a game. Like for the Calves to put up twenty seven and for the Blazers to put up fifty two.
That's remarkable.
And there were stretches where it felt like, man, the Blazers are just so hot. When Mattis Thaibeley is hitting a career high in three pointers made, you're like, is this another one of those bad kind of shooting variant games? That the Calves just can't seem to find any luck on this trip. But what ended up happening was they didn't actually hit that many of them. They just happened
to have taken fifty two. So you notice the ones that they made, and I was a little surprised that they were able to get into the interior at will,
particularly with no Donovan Mitchell. You expected a heavy dose of Kamara on Darius, which you got, and Kamara is honestly, when you look at what he's done over the season, he's got an all defensive case like he is that level of defender, even if he doesn't get recognized from it for it because they're not a playoff team, I do think that he is that level of a defender. So for Darius to go up against a very long, terrific point of attack defender, someone we've seen give him
trouble at times as well. If you think back to that first game against Portland, for him to navigate and basically have the freedom of movement that he did, I thought it was really impressive.
Yeah.
It also makes me think back to our conversation on the last podcast where we're saying, how would.
We like to see them win.
When you're looking at this stretch where they continue to have, you know, so much travel, not a lot of rest, you can tell it's having an effect on these guys. And for them to have a not great defensive first quarter, start to crank up the effort on that end of the floor as the game progressed, but continue to hunt for good shots, not settle for the three pointers as
they had at times throughout this road trip. I just really I felt that their process was so much healthier, and I came away from that game feeling really good about their effort.
Yeah, and I will acknowledge it's easy to feel good about the process when they shoot forty four percent from three. Yeah, you know, if they had an eight of twenty seven night and this is a much closer game or a loss, then you know, maybe me and you were like, go, the offense is in trouble. You know, those those four to three extra threees can be the difference between those
two reactions. But to your point, I just felt like they were back to getting you know, I think what the hallmark of the beginning of the season for me and what really the vast majority of the season till March and maybe a little bit, with the exception of January, which was their other cold shooting month, which no surprise, was their other worst month of the year from a
win loss record perspective. But the hallmark of the season is that I felt like they've gotten to whatever look they've wanted hmmm, and they have dictated the terms of the game offensively. I think that's one of the reasons that when they've played Boston I have gotten grumpy with their starts, is because I felt like they've not done that,
you know, in some of those matchups. And I do feel like at some point in this march, with everyone pressing and you know, the three guards that you know, the three lead ball handlers on the team all in you know, mired in pretty rough shooting slumps. It just felt like the rhythm was gone, the imposition of the offense was wasn't there for them, And I do feel like they definitely brought that in this game. They had a real clarity of purpose. Each possession felt worthwhile to watch.
Yeah, and you know, it wasn't a perfect game by Miami stretch. I thought Jared really struggled the first few quarters. I was impressed with him in the fourth quarter. Like, I felt like he was a big, big part of those last seven minutes where I believe it was the last seven minutes that the Cavs did not allow a madefield goal. The only points Portland got it came out the free throw line. It was a very physical game.
It seemed like the refs basically made a decision that hey, we're gonna let a lot go and we want to get.
Out of here.
We're letting you we're playing this game basically with a running clock.
And think those boys had a red eye.
No blood, no foul, like, you know, we were going to get out of here at an appropriate time.
There was a stretch where there were four straight possessions on either side of the ball where a guy got absolutely decked in that fourth core. Yeah, it was, uh, you know, and I liked it. To be clear, I'm
not being critical. I like a little physicality. I like a little rough play being allowed to go, especially like especially like if we're gonna be people who complain about the grifters getting rewarded, we definitely have got to be okay with, you know, a little roughness getting a getting getting let go.
Honestly, it's my preferred style, Like, I think it was.
Definitely notable that they wanted it.
Yeah, and you know, I I think the ideal spot is a well officiated FEBA game. I think sometimes we get a little too uh, you know, caught up with glorifying FEBA officiating when sometimes it's just, hey, these refs aren't as good and they're like missing a lot of things. A well officiated FEBA game where you're allowing physicality. What I like about it is it just clarifies what a
foul actually is. When you're allowing a higher baseline of foul, there's no longer that interpretation of Okay, well, why does he get a little TICKI tac call while you know this guy's drawing blood. You don't have that. And I liked how it was officiated. Again, I thought Darius was a big, big part of setting the tone in this game and for it to be a very physical game against a team that's been playing very well defensively, that's
had some impressive wins over this stretch. As trying to rally around this end to the season and kind of solidify on identity as a team that they can build off of in the future. I thought it was a quality win, particularly the last game of a long road trip that's a tough one to get with no Donovan Mitchell, I thought Darius at the tone, it was great to see the floater going in at the rate that it did.
The way that he was able to leverage that in between game and the floater to create opportunities at the rim, I thought was great. Really making Donovan Klingon commit and make decisions in space and then punishing those decisions. I
thought he did a terrific job of that. And then of course when Darius is creating those types of opportunities, that just opens up things for everybody else and you see the great big to big passing, you see, you know, the secondary play making from guys like Max Strus, Sam merril Ty Jerome all come into play, and I just felt it was a very very healthy game from the Cavs.
Yeah, I mean to the Darius point, you wondered at the beginning in the first you know, he has a bunch of turnovers in that first quarter, in in that first half, and you're like, uh, oh, you know, is this gonna be one of those sloppy games where they're just not sharp. But like I do feel like you really did, like button it up obviously took over the game down the stretch. The floater being back is really
really important and so much with Darius. I do feel like it's getting to the right spot for the floater. You know, he tried that fifteen footer with like four or five minutes left. It's like, brother, that's a really
hard shot. Like like that's like I get it. I get that he's comfortable taking it, but like that's like probably a thirty percent type of floater, whereas a lot of the floaters he was hitting, he was using that misdirection he was using clinging in the deep drop and making him commit before he went up, or confusing and freezing him in his shoes and just getting what basically was an open layup like no one was on the floor,
you know. And I feel like, you know, I always felt like Darius is a Steph Curry type of finisher, where it's the leveraging of the panic elsewhere that he does so good at at his best that gets his percentages up at the rim at you know, up to where they've been this year. I don't think he's a Kyrie type of finisher, and you know, he and he's certainly not one of these big, strong physical guards who
can create angles using his body. A lot of it is using that freeze game, using the psychological game, using the fear of the pull up and the jumper to give himself a big ass runway on the way to the hoop. And I felt like he did a very very good job of manipulating Portland's defense in this one.
Yeah, and I continue to like seeing him, you know, attack the glass, get a bunch of rebounds, you know, five rebounds in this game. I think he had eight against Utah. Chipping in in those different ways, it's nice to see.
I think it's a.
Good sign of his overall health that, hey, he's getting to his spots, he's getting into the paint, he's contributing on the glass, he's getting steels. All of that kind of stuff just goes to show, hey, he's in a pretty good spot physically right now, and the worst of the slump seems to be behind us. You look at you look at the last five games that he's played. He's shooting forty seven percent from the field, thirty three
percent from three. So maybe that's you know, the one area that you kind of look at, but that thirty three percent is more of like a regular ebbs and flows of three point shooting rather than, Hey, why is Darius's percentages like thirty five percent from the field, twenty percent from three like the kind of horror ific splits there, and hey, ninety one percent from the free throw line too, So even that's bouncing back. I feel very good about the way that he's playing, and it's nice to see
him bounce back. I continue to keep an eye on Jared. He looks tired out there. It was nice to see him dig deep and have a good fourth quarter. I'm encouraged by the fact that it seems like the last couple of games he's been playing without the hand wrap, so obviously that has kind of progressed. I don't think he'd be playing without it if it hasn't progressed, So that's a good sign. But I know he's got the
goal of playing eighty two games. But I'm also I guess I'm hopeful that, Hey, if that's going to be your goal to play eighty two games, it'd be nice if we could put some games away so you don't have to play fourth quarters and get yourself some rest here.
Yeah, I mean, and in fairness, he really played twenty eight minutes in this game, and Evan being there is very very helpful for that. He's out against the Spurs for a rest game, so, you know, no rest for the weary for mister Allen. I think jareded like, I don't know if it's a physical tired or a mental tired from him, because you know, a couple of the
mental mistakes have been pretty jarring too. You know, some really audacious passes that like have no shot, you know, throwing it right to the opposition because he just doesn't see him. I just I think he'd probably tell you he's not playing his best ball the season, like he's in a bit of a survival stretch for lack of a better word. I still feel like the finishing is pretty good, and you know, when he's catching the ball in the move. I do think it's a lot of
the soft stuff that isn't great for him right now. Yeah, you know, it's the being a step late, It's trying to fight for a rebound but already being dug out of position before you get there. I mean, boy, was he wrestling some bears on this West Coast trip, though you know, I'm not sure you have much of a tougher stretch than uh physically. Then Orlando up and down the roster, then Zooboch Valanchunis.
And then Klingon, who might be the largest human in the NBA, Like I know, Wemby's taller, but Klingon is like seven three and five hundred pounds that many.
If he had like great touch, he'd be unstoppable, but
hopefully he doesn't. Phoenix is your one respite, and then you Walker Kestler and the Donovan Klingon like that is just like five out of six just Mondo dudes that you got to wrestle with, and even in the game before that is Zach Edie, who's a big guy, not quite as physically imposing, I feel as as the other guys in terms of like the fight that you have to have and you go up against him, but like so, you know, I definitely think you're seeing that wear on
him a little bit, and you know, part of that's just his job. In fairness, don't want to pretend like I'm not gonna like I can already hear skeptics being like, oh boohoo, the sinner has to guard other sinners who are famously big and strong. Like, I get it, but like it is quite the run of tough dudes that are like kind of not Jarret's preferred dudes to play
against in the first place. Yeah, you know, I think we can acknowledge that, like he'd much rather play another, uh, you know, a different archetype of player than these than these you who just beat him up for forty eight minutes. And I thought his battle was fine. Uh and uh I do I do like that he answered in the fourth quarter with a really really strong fourth quarter and uh at this point, you know, only time will tell
on the playing all of these two. I think you know, most you know, most folks that we talked to, you know, it seems like most of us are like, it'd be okay if you said yeah, but but you know, I also get why you would set that goal for yourself, and like, if you're this close and you're and you're healthy and you know, I mean, the real question is if he takes one game off, is he going to be meaningfully better rested for the postseason when he's not hurt.
Like that's where like me wanting him to rest like and then actually thinking through like the positive implications of it. It feels pretty flimsy to ask him to give up on this goal just so I could be like, well, at least you got a Wednesday off in late March. Yeah, I don't know if that's gonna matter.
It reminds me of, you know, the Darius conversation when he was in you know, the bottom of the slump here, where we're like, if he's fine physically, it's basically just us feeling better and feeling like we have some control over the situation where it's get him a day off, where you know, having a day off in a back to back or something like that, it's it's not giving you a whole lot more rest than you have normally.
So I think if he and if you were nursing soft tissue injury like a hammy or something like that, this conversation is very different, right, but like all intents and purposes, doesn't seem like he's hurt.
Yeah, And I think some of this ties into what we talked about before, which is that when things don't go well, we lean back on our priors. Like I've seen a lot of people freaking out about giving up offensive rebounds in playing against these big, physical, you know centers, and it just brings back unpleasant memories some Nicks PTSD there. The funny thing is, you know, people will say, well, we need to go get ourselves a seven to four giant to come in off the bench and deal with that.
Most of the time when we are playing a Donovan Klingen or a Walker Kestler or Jonas Valentunis, like, we won the Jonas minutes by seventeen, we won the Kessler minutes by forty, we won the Klingon minutes. We won the minutes against Zubac, even though we got blown out in that game, we won those minutes. But because it ties into you know, how that Knick series felt, it gives people the easiest scapegoat. We can just say, oh, you know, like they got an offensive rebound here and
a putback and that's why we lost. Where in reality, a lot of those kind of plotting bigs that play a style that they just want to go right through, you know what, they aren't great at defending in space, and usually when you're playing the Calves, even when the Calves aren't playing their best offensively, that's something that we can exploit at a level much higher than they can exploit on the offensive glass Darius Cooking, Donovan Klingen or Walker Kessler in space. That is a trade off I'm
willing to make. That's why we won the Yonus minutes by seventeen. That's why we swept the Raptors every single time we played in them, because we're like, well, guess what we're going to do. We're going to make Yonas Valentunas defend in space. The formula was the exact damn same. So I understand why it's frustrating, And I think I want to get into the whole rebounding thing a little bit later, because I do think there's some meat on
that bone. I think there's things worth discussing. But I do find that too frequently Jarrett gets kind of put you know, he ends up being the whipping boy there, and too much of the blame gets assigned to him when it's a more kind of comprehensive issue and something that you know, the points of failure usually go beyond just the center position, like it was two years ago, you know, or was it two years ago?
Yeah, two years ago. It is always more complicated I'm glad you want to talk about rebounding because I was pulling up some stets while you're talking about it. But we'll get there. We'll get there, brother man. I got to ask just in general. You know, we left that Utah game and we podcasted after, and I was kind of expecting like a more like a more positive podcast, to be honest, coming out of that Utah game, like, hey, we won, we got off the snod great news, and
we were still pretty critical. Like, I don't think we felt like that Utah game represented as big of a shift in the team's play because maybe we wanted you know, I think. I mean, I'll speak for me. You can confirm or deny this. I felt like they played okay and beat up a team that is not trying to terribly hard to win games against Utah. Do you feel different about the Portland win than you felt about the Utah win?
Oh?
For sure.
I to put it gently, I don't think Utah's goals are aligned with winning in a significant way. I do feel like Portland is still trying to get wins right. They're someone that has given challenging games and had big upset wins over very good teams. I think they're a team that's able to challenge the Cavs in ways that are important, like their ability to throw Kamara on Darius Garland in the matchup where there is no Donovan Mitchell to take some pressure off them.
Seeing Darius do well in that.
Matchup, that's an important data point, right, Like, that's one of those things where, yeah, we don't have a game against Boston or okay, see left on the schedule, but you can still get some information from some of these individual matchups. It may not be an entire team test, but individual members of the team are going to get tested.
So to get this win, particularly with it being at the end of the road trip, I feel better about it, And you know, I think you're right, Like, I just feel like it would be a little dishonest if we came on here after the Utah win and we're like really like you know, houten and hollering and losing our minds over ending the losing streak, when like, we know that this team is very, very good, We know that they are capable of getting big regular season wins, and
we know that they've elevated the standard for themselves. We were trying to kind of sift through this time of the season, which historically does not correlate with postseason success. How you kind of close out March and April well, usually like you want to finish on the right foot, and you feel better as a fan when you're finishing on the right foot and you're going into the postseason
with momentum. Typically it just doesn't tend to carry over, particularly now where the Caves are going to get a week off after the season. As the playing goes on, they're basically going to have a week of training camp positive or negative momentum. You're just not going to be
able to carry that forward. So it would feel a little dishonest because we want to continue to see, Okay, can Darius get back on track, Ken Donovan get out of his shooting slump, I can mobily continue to attack some of these larger defenders and work on the counters that are going to be so important in the postseason. Like it's just the result to me isn't as interesting as the process, and the process didn't feel as clean.
In Utah, I felt much much better about the overall process and kind of the collective effort from the Calves against the Blazers.
Yeah, I think even when the Portland game wasn't going well, it was primarily like making mistakes or not executing, but like what they were trying to do felt really really good. And who knows, you know, Portland has been really really hot, but like they're still not a great team by any means.
They're thirty two and forty one. This is not like a banner win, and maybe to some extent we are giving it a little bit more love than we would have two months ago when the team hadn't lost four games in a row, and you know, maybe this is just a who hum, nice win, But like I do think it felt it felt cavsy that and that's really really good to see. So really, all I want is for this team to feel like they felt all year that four game losing streak was frustrating in part because
they didn't. Yeah, it always feels better when things feel familiar, when everything's in place, all the support that you you count on is there, and I just love always having that background support from zoom Ai Companion Carter, because only you can do your best work, zoom Ayi Companion can help you do the rest, like automatically taking notes answering meeting questions, and helping you respond to your co worker bailable no additional cost with eligible pay plans were Cappy
Zoom AI companion Noah's putting in work in the background all game against the Blazers. Evan damn Mobley, that was a terrific defensive performance. You know, a defensive Player of the Year. Reclaiming performance, one could ask.
Well, here's the thing. He didn't sit on a podcast and complain. Apparently that matters a whole lot more than performances. And honestly, I'm tired of this nonsense.
Carter Terrible, I am terrible.
I'm tired of the shifting standards when it comes to awards. I'm particularly when it comes to Evan Mobley. I'm i am still fired up over that Rookie of the Year where you know, oh, winning really really matters, and then oh, Evan Mobley misses ten days and the Cavs slip in the standings, so you know they didn't win as much, so we have to give the award to someone else where. In fact, losing those games is probably a pretty big
reflection of how good Evan Mobley is. But let's give it to somebody who's part of a six man rotation and the team is better with him on the bench than he is on the court. I am still not over that. I am completely blown away by this nonsense. With Draymond Green, who is a terrific defender, Don't get me wrong, when he is still locked in, when he is giving effort, he is capable of playing defense at a top five level, you know, as good as almost
anybody in the league. But from a consistency standpoint, are you kidding me? Evan Mobley has been dominant defensively all year. You know he's going to give you the rebounds, He's going to give you the blocks, He's going to give you the steals. When he gets a block, it's basically like a steal because he always keeps it in play. He initiates the offense. I don't know what we're doing here.
I don't understand how someone can go from a distant, distant underdog from a betting standpoint to all the way in the lead just because he asked for it on a podcast, and then national podcasters falling in line acting like Evan Mobley is a defensive liability because they saw one highlight one highlight of James Harden having a throwback moment, and that's enough to make you think you get hunt. You can hunt Evan Mobley. You hunt Evan Mobley. He is going to maul you.
Rather you. I feel better. Yeah, did you feel good to get that out?
Oh? Yeah, I feel good. Man. That that was cathartic.
I have. I think the perfect way to explain it would be a tweet. When I complained about this on Twitter ninety nine overall, Calvin said, if I had a dollar for every time I swore Mobley had an award locked and then someone random entered the conversation and Martin stole it, I would have two dollars. But it's weird. It's happened twice.
No, Yeah, like I understood the odds would close because you know Wemby's not there, Jaron Jackson, you know misses time, so naturally the person in second place is going to move up in the odds because you know it's never
just one person in the race. Come on, man, Evan Mobley, particularly this year where it is so apparent that you know it's not the numbers in the past, you could make the argument, Hey, Evan Mobley's defensive numbers are not as strong when Jared Allen isn't out there, so who's really anchoring the defense?
He's playing as a power forward.
A lot of the time, does he have the same defensive impact as some of these true defensive anchors.
That's not the case this year.
The solo mobile numbers defensively are phenomenal. It's been honestly the driving force of that of a Mitchell Evan Mobley pairing when when Darius and Jared go to the bench, it's been the defense that has really carry that lineup.
Yeah, I mean, it is pretty jarring, pretty surprising to see that it's even in question. I hope it's a brief blip. Maxico in the chat it says, maybe you guys should ask for a million dollars since whatever you ask for on a podcast you can get, you know what we're trying every day and it still hasn't happened yet,
So maybe that's an NBA privilege, player privilege only. But yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty crazy to me, and I do think just in general, it feels to me like this last six games or so has represented one of the sneakiest little Evan Mobley leaps that we ever did see. Like, I feel like he's been other than that one the game against the Clippers, where I thought he was really pretty rough. Like he's been phenomenal on both sides of the floor and really dominating in like a takeover kind
of sense. You know, took over late against uh gosh, who was it? Against the Suns. You know, had a few huge moments on offense and defense against Portland where you know it, you know, he bulldozed through Denny Abdia and for that dunk. Like he's having such loud splash plays over this last five or six games, and I feel like it's kind of just gone under the radar because the team hasn't been playing particularly well. But man, when everything else comes together, if he keeps this up,
it's it's curtains for a lot of teams. Yeah, And you look at those solo defensive numbers, they have a defensive rating below one ten one. It's just Evan Mobley and no Jared Allen. And like, honestly, what he is capable of doing defensively blows my mind. Like his ability to defend.
In space, the rebounding the steels, doing so without fouling is at such a high, high level, and I continue to think back to you know, Rudy Gobert and the Defensive Player of the Year awards and all the accolades that he's earned as a defensive player. Having somebody at that level defensively that is also capable of running offense the way that Evan Mobley is that that is able to go out there and give you, you know, twenty one points, twelve rebounds for assist, four blocks like that
is the that's the path man like Evan Mobley. I have never felt more confident that Evan Mobley has like a ceiling of being a top five player. I absolutely believe that when you have someone that is defensive player of the Year caliber that is also able to produce offensively at this level, that has taken you know, such a a dramatic leap at twenty three years old. Yeah, that's the path. That's the That's the damn path to
a top five player. And to me, the most fascinating thing about talking about this cav team currently, they are without a doubt, a contender. They are a team that can win a championship this season. Winning a championship when your two best players are you know, six three, six to one, Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. You need to have a high level impact from Evan Mobley. You have to win as a collective. We're gonna need DeAndre Hunter to play at a high level, we need Jared to
step up. But it's possible, it's possible to win with this configuration. But when you forecast down the road Evan Mobley continuing to close that gap and potentially ascending to a top five player, that just completely changes the map. That opens up your contending window even wider, because now you have a more traditional way to go out and
win a championship. And you know, if if he's going to get short changed in the awards voting, which let's be clear here, like I like to represent both sides, I like to hedge my bets. I like to be fair as I'm being biased as hell. If he doesn't win Defensive Player of the Year, he's robbed. Like he absolutely deserves to win damn Defensive Player of the Year, and nothing short of robbery would stop that this year.
If he doesn't win that, hopefully that that's fuel. Hopefully that's continued motivation because it's it's absurd to you know, harken back to that tweet he just pulled up. It happening twice where he loses out on a warding gets robbed, particularly due to podcast opinions. First time around, it was Zach Low giving his award voting and everyone's cheating off his notes. This time Draymond Green asking for it himself. To me, I find that to be absurd.
Yeah, and Draymond just pulled up fandel Is minus one thirty five. He has moved into even more of a favorite than he was.
Two days ago, even though he ill cooked by Bam.
So I don't know, man, I just I don't know. I don't know what people are seeing. I don't know where this where this momentum came from, other than from the least legitimate source for this to come from. And it would be very, very disappointing. But you know, the nice thing for us as Cavs fans is we kind of win either way because either Mobley gets appropriately recognized for being the best defensive player in the league this year, or Mobley's furious that he wasn't recognized for being the
best defensive player in the league this year. I mean look at how thoroughly Mobley has throttled Scottie Barnes in the games following that award being taken from him at the eleventh hour, Like and apply that to the entire league.
Yeah, well, I mean we smoke the Wars by forty five. Know if he needed more motivation to smoke Dreamlond but you know, who knows, maybe he'll get that. You know, it just drives me nuts where you know, you see on a national level people that cover a beat that really are close it and plugged in on teams, they'll really advocate for those guys. I feel like we don't have those homers in the media. Like, you know, Brian Windhors gets accused of that on The Hoop Collective, which
I think is absurd. I think his analysis is much more fair and not homerrific. But then he's talking about Mobile getting hunted defensively because of that hard and play, Like that's not homer talk. That's you know, that's trying to give a bounds view or whatever you want to call it. But bon Tempsen mcmahonor are so low on the team that by comparison, he gets called a homer. Guess who's going to be a homer me, Carter, I'm going to be the homer. I'm your Huckleberry, all right,
I'm going to step up here. I'm going to be that homer that that's necessary. And we don't have the reach to influence awards ballots, but I'm going to be here, yap in a way talking Evan Mobley deserves to be Defensive Player of the Year.
He absolutely does, and and I just be Yeah, I thought I really did think I was post caring about awards, but like it just feels like such nasty work, this whole thing.
You know, we've been We've been so good this year. Man.
Like as much as I'm complaining about some national coverage, I think in general it's been awesome.
It's been very.
Very positive coverage. And I do think part of me wonders here, here's an actual honest question. How much do you think the fact that the Calves offense has been so loudly their driver this year is playing into some of this because their defense, like per one hundred, is pretty much the same as last year's in the year before, like their defense has not slipped. But the thing that makes them, you know that that an outsider perspective would
say is making them special as their offense. You know, it's like, I don't know, did Sean Marion ever win Defensive Player of the Year. I don't think he did.
I don't think he did.
Know and as and I always kind of felt that way about the Marion on those Suns teams, is like, yeah, he's phenomenal, but they're not going to give it to a team that is known for their offense. And I wonder if that's part of what is playing against him this year, whereas like Golden State's defense is much better than Golden State's offense this year.
Yeah, I think maybe that's a factor. And you know, maybe.
That's not a good factor. To be clear, that's not a smart an analytical factor. I just wonder if that's part of the perception.
Yeah.
I think one of the continuous issues that you deal with when you talk about awards is that people aren't putting a lot of effort into it. I don't think they dive into the data. Yeah, the defense is the same as it was last year, But what's different than last year is there is a drop off this year when you're going from Mobiley to Jared Right, some of that has been three point variants. Some of it has
been a field goal percentage at the rim. Evan Mobley is the reason why him his number is being so much better defensively, is the reason why the team's overall defense is in the same spot that it was, you know, the year prior. So you know, who knows. Maybe it's the ebbs and flows of award voting and you know, the shifting nods or just to drive action or whatever the case may be. Well, we'll see what it ultimately is.
But yeah, the good thing is accolades do non impact results, and I don't think that there's much There's not a lot of things that I can think of. There's not a lot of players I can think that impact results more than Evan Mobley. When you look at basically what he's done since he was drafted to a lottery team, you look at the winning percentage of when he plays as a Cleveland Cavalier, we're at a fifty three win pace for his career. When Evan Mobley is in the lineup.
That is a guy that impacts winning. His defense has been the primary driver of impacting that winning. But now he's becoming a well rounded player and that's what's helping elevate him to that top ten level.
Man, Let's hope, let's hope they finish the season strong, and you know, we can flip some of these narratives back. You know, let's go get that wins record. Why not, you know, go get that wins record. They got to finish nine and one to get it. Justin how the.
Hell are they getting a back to back? When they returned from their road trip, I was listening to Chris Feeder's podcast, he mentioned that they got home to Cleveland like with the time change, flying back for over on Portland at seven thirty in the morning, and then they have a back to back. Evan Mobley will be out for the game against home road back to back. It's not even a home home back to back.
Absurd.
I mean, at least it's a short flight to Detroit. But man, like it's just constant, constant travel. Mobley is out for Rest against the Spurs. Ti Jerome is questionable. I thought Ti Jerome and DeAndre Hunter deserve a shap off for that Portland game. Both of them were fantastic coming in there. I found it interesting, Carter, this probably isn't a surprise, particularly with Hunter coming in off the bench and Harris LeVert going out in the DeAndrea Hunter trade.
But DeAndre Hunter's played more minutes with Tie than anyone else on the team, two hundred and sixty three minutes together with Ty Jerome one twenty four point five offensive rating plus ten point three nets. They've been awesome together, and you know, them providing that kind of joint scoring punch was a big part of that win against the Blazers.
Jimmy Longo just jumped into the YouTube chat and said he got into his house at eight thirty in the morning.
Oh my goodness.
Shouts to Jimmy if you're in the everyone else in the chat, please please give some love to Jimmy. Every beautiful pick, almost every beautiful picture you see the Cavs sweet out, a lot of them are coming from Jemmy, So big, big shouts to big shouts to Jimmy. Happy to see him in the chat. Can't believe he's not in a coma right now after that roach trip.
He's trying to stay awake so that he can fall asleep tonight at a normal time and start getting that internal clock back on track.
Jimmy says who says, I'm not in a coma. Yeah, yeah, you can do that. You can lay you can you can be listening to the podcast laying down.
I think I think that's been reflected in our review sometimes, where people say they listen to us and they feel like they're.
In a coma. But yeah, I mean to get us back on topic, Ty and DeAndre uh definitely were very good. I messaged you during the game yesterday. I was just like, what is DeAndre kind of the mid range prince that was promised that you know, we wanted from Caris, you know, because even when Karis were as best, I always I never really felt like we got that the the MIDI king that we thought we were getting. We thought we're
going to get the tough shot seventeen footer guy. And I always felt like Carris's best games were when he was killing it at the rim and from three, and like, I'm sure that. I mean, that's almost always going to be the case with your best games. But it feels like DeAndre is able to use that extra height, that extra size to take the bump, get set and have a really clean look at the rim on some of these midies.
Yeah, and I think it's a real benefit to have someone that's that long and capable of getting that shot off, because that's that's a playoff shot like that, that mid range kind of pull up. You need to be able to have someone that can take and make those because often that's what the defense is giving you. And thinking back to those finals teams that we had with the Cavs, that was a big part of, you know, the shot
diet for Kyrie. Kyrie being that mid range assassin helped reopen up the paint, It helped open up the perimeter. And having someone that has the length that DeAndre Hunter has to hit those tough shots, that is something that gives me confidence heading into the playoffs. That's something that we haven't had in the past where you know, you really were relying on two shorter guards to generate all
of the offense. And you know, if Mobiley was being passive or Jared wasn't having a good game, he just didn't have that front court initiation. So to have DeAndre Hunter capable of doing that and then Ti Jerome who's just going to take shots no matter what, like that's those those are two archetypes that when I think back to teams that have won the championship, that have contended for championships. Those are really really important archetypes. Those are
things that I can point back to. I can think of, you know, Jason Terry having those Ti Jerome type games, and you know the fact that he's done it for the entirety of this regular season with you know, a few shooting lalls, but the continued confidence throughout. I think that that's a really really encouraging sign.
Brother.
I don't know what A significantly tougher shot diet for Ty Jerome looks like like he's like I remember earlier in the year he was in ninety ninth percentile for like difficulty of his shots, and like it looks like it. Yep, numbers match doesn't feel easy, Nope. And one thing I'll say on DeAndre just a reminder, just because we haven't really talked about it since the trade, he has been a playoff riser, you know, which is the kind of
guy you really want. He's averaged sixteen points in five boards in his playoff career, slashing a forty eight and forty eight from the field and forty from three. Like, he is a player who has done well in that setting in tough matchups. So really excited to see how he kind of fits in to this rotation as they move into the kind of end of the postseason.
Yeah, I'm I am very curious about you know. I continue to keep an eye on how he's fitting into the rotation because the one thing that's really surprised me is that he is playing primarily as a power forward, even with him coming in off the bench. I kind of expected a little more even if he's coming off the bench that it would be with Dean Wade. Right, Okay, we're going to have them as our three to four. We're going to play a more versatile defensive lineup, but
we're still going to maintain size. And one thing that Kenny has been talking about in the post games is that he wants to continue to have an increased emphasis on the possession battle because so often that it is one of the most important factors in the postseason. When you go into a series against the Boston Celtics, that's going to be something that really matters. One of the ways that you can mitigate any talent gap that exists or experience gap that exists, is by mitigating those mistakes
by making sure you give yourself those extra possessions. And the thing that I find really interesting about him playing primarily as a power forward is I think that that
does kind of work against that rebounding goal. DeAndre Hunter has had times where he's rebounded well, but he is not a particularly starrong rebounder, and when he playing as the power forward, the trickle down effect of that is you're playing smaller everywhere else throughout the lineup, and particularly when you look at the fact that he's played more
minutes with Ty Jerome than anyone else. We've already talked about how playing tie means alongside one of the guards means that you know, you have two guys that are susceptible to being attacked by perimeter players offensively. But with Sam continuing to play as much as he is, you're playing three guard lineups with the power forward that isn't
particularly strong on the defensive glass. And that gets into what we were talking about before, where Jarrett gets a disproportion amount of the blame when he's playing with a power forward that is in a particularly strong defensive rebounder and three guards on the perimeter.
Yeah, you're right, and it's a little concerning the Calves on the season are down to twenty second in defensive rebound rate. Prior to the All Star Break, they were eighteenth. After the All Star Break, they are twenty fifth. And you know, we went into that New York series two years ago and we did say we're confident going into the series, but one thing that could really hurt us
is the boards. You know, you know, at that point New York was the best offensive rebound rate in the league, in the best offensive rebound rate team in the league. My brain just collapsed on itself. And the Cavs were after the All Star Break by a mile, the worst defensive rebound rate team in the league.
And like they're not that.
You know, the difference between twenty fifth and in seventeenth or fifteenth is like a percentage point or two. So it's not like disaster town. But you know, you look at their peers post All Star Break in terms of bad defensive rebound rate, Philly, Washington, in San Antonio, Brooklyn, Portland, or Lando, Atlanta, New Orleans, Charlotte, those are their peers in the defensive rebound Those are the people around them
in the defensive rebound rate. So like this is I think I'm willing to say it is like a real concern, not a death knell, you know, burn it all down, we're screwed. But it is a thing that you really want to see them figure out a way to address, whether it's in the lineups they're playing to your point or just playing better.
Yeah, And to me, the primary concern is that I like, when I look at the most likely opponents, that's not a strength for any of them, right, Like the New York Knicks are not a big offensive rebounding team like they used to be, even with the return of Mitchell Robinson. Boston Celtics are in particular really strong there. The Oklahoma City Thunder aren't going to make you pay there, So I don't think it's going to materialize in the same way.
But the concern to me is I do believe that this is something that can be changed with personnel decisions by playing a different lineup. I think DeAndre at the three and mor Dean at the four does feel like the if you had to do a one sentence solution, it's probably that, right, yeah, right, And even if you're talking about all right, well, we're going to play some hunter at the four. But we're going to have Icycle Corra out there, and we're going to have Maxters out there,
right the guys that are high energy guys. I've loved how Ocoro has been hitting the glass. That's different than playing that three guard lineup. And I do think, you know, the tension point here continues to be Sam Merrill, who you know. Kenny Atkinson inserted him in the starting lineup against Portland. I thought it was very similar to what he did with Wade in the starting lineup against Sacramento, where Wade had been in a bit of a slump. Sam has been in a slump lately and that really
got them going. And the tough thing is, boy was Sam good?
By the way? Sam?
Oh my gosh, Sam was terrific. And you know, the tension point is at someone that deserves minutes. That's someone that's been playing really well. When you look at the lineup data, like as much as I'll say, you know from a theory, from a theory standpoint, and how it feels on paper, the three guard lineups, I don't love it. When you look at the actual lineup data, terrific. Defensively,
the numbers with tiderome are phenomenal. I look at the offensive rebounds allowed with Sam Merrill at the two versus Sam Merrill at the three, and it's a less than one percent difference. It's not like that has been kind of the thing that's driving it. If I look at DeAndre Hunter at the three with Jared Allen and Evan Mobley, it's very small sample. It's under one hundred possessions, but they're in the zero percentile in terms of offensive rebound rate.
They give up a lot of them. If I add Dean Wade to the.
DeAndre Hunter minutes, it's two hundred and ten possessions. It's only in the eleven, sorry, the seventh percentile in offensive rebound rate. It's not like Dean automatically fixes that issue. But my issue truly is that I just don't think that we have a lot of minutes with these guys. I think that we can play different styles. I think, particularly when it comes to things like defense, understanding rebounding assignments, those sorts of things, you need to have familiarity, you
have to have continuity. It requires communication, and without the necessary reps in the regular season, I don't think you can necessarily build that and you're just running low on games, so you're stuck in a tough situation where, you know, I don't envy Kenny Atkinson. You're dealing with someone that's
very deserving of minutes. Where the lineup data is all phenomenal when it comes to Sam Merrill, but then when you're trying to anticipate potential pain points in the playoffs, it may necessitate going into a different direction with the rotation. It's a really really tough thing to balance here.
They're I.
The case seems very very easy on paper. In reality, and particularly when you're talking about a coaching staff that does, you know, value the data. The data makes it so much harder because it just works every other way.
Yeah, And it's almost so I think it's almost one of the spots where the Cabs are a little punished by how easy this season's been. Yeah, where it's really really hard to find high minute lineups that get their ass kicked. Yeah, on either end of the floor. Like even like, oh, that offensive that lineup isn't so good. They only posted a one fourteen offensive rating, and if they'd made two more threes it would be one seventeen offensive ratings. You know, like so like everything kind of
flattens out. You know, I've talked a lot about how, you know, it's easier to analyze things from this seat, and probably from a coach's seat too, when you lose because you have a dead body to autopsy. It's a lot harder when all these lineups have been serving you really really well this year. So it's funny, we've we've had so much fun justin extolling the virtues of our forty eight minutes of hell and how it sucks to play us because every lineup we play is good.
Well.
Now when we're starting to get really really playoff focused, we don't have good data to make to base our opinions on or or we don't have different data. It's not to say the data is not good just because it's not what aligns with us, but it's really really hard to to, you know, to you know, try to like split the hairs on on these opinions when the data set is so samey.
And here's the other tricky thing.
When we're talking about trying different things right, whether it's moving DeAndre Hunter to the starting lineup, which you know, I continue to talk about how good the Max Strus lineup is but just to get minutes with DeAndre Hunter and the core four like that seems to be the only way you can go with it. Whether it's that as an example, whether it is changing up the rotation to give icycle choral more minutes, or plane Dean Wade along with DeAndre Hunter so that you have more size
in the front court. Anytime you're talking about one of those changes, you're talking about moving away from a lineup combination that's worked really well, that yields consistently good results at a time where the team overall is struggling, where you know, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell have been going through slumps, and you know the things that you can traditionally count on to work are no longer you know,
supporting you as a backbone. So you're saying make or we're saying, make these adjustments, make you these tweaks experiment for the postseason at a time where hey, this canoe is starting to leak a little bit of water here and we're tired.
We're not I'm not in the mood to experiment.
Let's let's let's stick with some bread and butter here. Let's make it through the cold hard winner. And then you know, when when when you have the postseason, let's let's mess around in the first round. We have a warm up series basically that we we can you know, go through and maybe make some of these tweaks. It's it's a it's a tough, tough ask, and I just want to communicate that I understand it's a tough, tough ask.
And I don't think that this stuff is as straightforward as it feels even in my own head.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And I do wonder now that they have given up ground that will likely be hard to reclaim, and the overall ones race, and you know, obviously, and Boston's right on their heels, all of a sudden, they're they're they're five games back. Thank god, the haves won to get them back to five games. And I looked at that stands as I saw four and a half, I was like, oh my gosh, because it just felt so over in. Still really should be. It would be really
really bad to be to be caught. But I do wonder if once the one seed is confirmed, you know, let's say they go win their next three games or something like, and and Boston loses one, and it's like all but done. I wonder if that's where we see an actual change in their strategy the rest of the year, or if they're just still trying to win games and just get through see if they're trying to get to
that wins record and all that stuff. I just I wonder where their priorities are going to lie now that one piece of the puzzle, which is the number one overall seed, feels pretty out of reach.
Yeah, it's going to be really interesting, right, Like, I think this falls into the category of us continuing to learn more about Kenny Atkinson, and you know, I continue to really really appreciate how transparent he is in these postgame availabilities because we're not only learning about Kenny Atkinson, we're learning what he's learning, right, Like, he's really communicating, Hey, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, this is you know, this is the thought process behind what I'm doing. I
just really really appreciate that insight. And you know that when it comes to DeAndre Hunter, yes, I'd love to see him start, just because I want to get those reps with the starters. The limited sample that we have on that is great, but you know, it's fifty three possessions. It's not even really worth you know, discussing the results
when it comes to that. We do have some you know, continued data on how it's working in the staggered pairings, because obviously with him coming off the bench, he's playing a lot of minutes with Darius, He's playing a lot of minutes with Donovan. That lineup with with Darius, Jared
and DeAndre is kind of the core three. There has a one to twenty six point six offensive rating plus fifteen point five and two hundred and sixty three possessions, so a pretty healthy sample there, with Donovan and Evan not as good on eight point three offensive rating and only a plus one point four net, so the defense is really struggling in those minutes in two hundred and twelve possessions. You know in theory that that combination of
Donovan and Evan has been phenomenal defensively this year. It's been you know, considerably better on the defensive end than the Darius and Evan or sorry, jaredt one. So adding DeAndre Hunter shin't make it worse defensively. So I think
that's probably a shooting variants kind of thing. But you know, DeAndre is someone that you can plug into a whole bunch of lineups, and I think continuing to go to that well of playing him with ty Jerome has been one of the things that they can really count on, particularly in a time where the starters haven't been as consistent as they have or as they were earlier in the season.
Yeah, man, it's uh, it's gonna be a fun end of the year. Man. I think I went from uh, I've gone through quite an emotional game, and I feel like the last couple of weeks of like, everything's great, I have nothing less left to learn too, Oh crap, Like are we are we falling off in a way that is meaningful or is this just a we're not in the good you know, we're just not in the
right headspace kind of slump. And now it's like, I'm just looking for playoff indicators wherever I can, you know, looking looking for any canaries in the coal mine that will tell me something about this team three four weeks from now, and you know, time will tell. I still would love to see them go for that wins record, you know, for the franchise record, but I think it's probably more important that they that they're healthy whole and you know, generally trending up on the way in.
Yeah, totally agree.
It's it's remarkable, man, Like it's the season's kind of flown by. You know, maybe time flies when you're having fun. But it's crazy that there's only ten games left and by the next time we podcast only be seven games left.
Man.
We got three games and four nights all over again, man, and travel between all of them. I again, I can't believe that after this road trip we have a travel back to back, and not only that, after the travel back to back, you have an afternoon Mattine game on a Sunday against the Clippers.
What have we done us?
Adam Adamm Silver? What have we done to you? Why? Why do you do this to us? I want to know, I really really want to know.
You know, when we talk about the wins record, if we go three and ozero over this stretch, I'm going to feel a lot better about what we're capable of pulling off those last seven games. So hopefully they can get the win again.
First, for what, for what is worth? Before I know you're getting ready to wrap us, But for what is sworth? On the Evan Mobley agenda. He got one, two, three, four national games left in these final ten. You know, these are going to be the kind of things that can turn the tide. Like we saw Mobiley move from second behind JJJ to a definitive favorite for Defensive Player of the Year after he sunned him on National TV. They're going to have a marquee matchup with the Knicks
on April second. I don't know if Brunston will be back by then, but uh but uh yeah, I mean it's a great, great opportunity for the for these guys to put one final stamp on what's been one of the best seasons in the history of the of the franchise.
Yeah, and you know the sweet thing about the awards race when it comes to then Mobley winning Defensive Player or really any as awards is you know, you just know that the Cavs have to work five times harder to win any of those awards. If Evan Mobley has one bad defensive play in any of those National TV games, that's going to get held against them.
That that. You know, Draymond can.
Get cooked for a game against BAM out of bio, he can get cooked in any game. But all it takes is one play for for the odds to shift in a big way. You know what, I have a real takeaway though, Carter Evan Mobley, come on the podcast, because apparently complaining on the podcast is all you need to do to win an award.
To see you herev come on over.
You know, maybe maybe I should be advocating for podcast awards. Maybe I should be complaining more about that kind of stuff and speaking that into existence, getting us some awards, Carter.
Our accolades, God, we need them, yeah, really do.
Yeah?
You know, my my my ego is totally in check as is so I'm baby. I'm sure it would stay in a healthy, healthy place if we ever did win an award.
But you know, so, no problem, very very true.
You know, the only award I need, the only accolades I need, is the awesome support we get from our listeners. They appreciate you. Everyone hanging out in the chat on YouTube. Make sure you guys like and subscribe. Click that notification bell so you know when we're going live. If you're listening via podcast and you want to support us, leave us a rating, be a review, subscribe unsubscribed, resubscribe and help cook those books you want to be part of
Chased on the exclusive discord chat Sydney Screenshaw. There review to Chase down pot at gmail dot com. However you choose to support us, we really do appreciate it. Make sure you guys are staying safe out there. Until next time, yoking