The rebuild is over; Cavaliers are a team to be feared across NBA
Published: January 26, 2022 US time
Publisher: the Athletic
Article author: Jason Lloyd
Article translated by de Gaulle
Coach Bixtaff, when talking about his team, still insisted that they were still a team that was "in the process of being polished". Veteran Kevin Love is also trying not to let his young teammates get caught up in the team's current achievements, and hopes that everyone will not think about how far they can go for a while.
There is nothing wrong with these two statements above, and they are also very appropriate statements at this point in time. After all, the NBA season is so long, no one can predict whether the Cavaliers will continue to suffer injuries or other unexpected effects in the near future, thus derailing them from the current track. But one thing is certain at the moment, that is, the Cavaliers' performance today is no fluke, and they deserve to be a team that is feared by the rest of the team in the league. Such a signal has been received by the entire NBA.
The most recent team to receive that signal is the defending champion, the Milwaukee Bucks. On January 26, local time, they were beaten by the Cavaliers on the road with a score of 115-99. What surprised the Bucks even more was that after they were reversed by the Cavaliers in the middle of the second quarter, they watched the opponent's back go all the way to the dust, and the point difference behind at most reached 21 points. Under the Cavaliers' extremely oppressive defense, the Bucks shot only 38% in the last three quarters.
With this victory, the Cavaliers became the third team in the East to win 30, and they are currently rising to no. 3 in the East, just 1.5 wins away from the Miami Heat. Whether it is the performance on the court, or the current record and ranking, the Cavaliers are a veritable strong team.
"I really don't want to know that," Loew said after hearing about the Cavaliers' current results, "because I want to seal everything that the team has achieved so far, so that I can continue to feel the extreme hunger of everyone." Nobody would have expected us to get to this point, so I like the hunger we feel and I want to play with that kind of state of being looked down upon. Everyone in our team has made sacrifices, there are always people who come forward, and everyone is really working hard and desperately every day. I know that all of us will continue to maintain this mentality. Still, I prefer to keep us out of the public eye and not to discuss where the limits of our team are. ”
Luck is probably going to be hard to come by this time, because the knight's excellence has begun to be widely discussed. After all, their performance is so good that it's hard not to get noticed. Currently, the Cavaliers' 100-game net win score is +5.1, ranking 4th in the league. Why this statistic is important is because NBA championship winners in the last 10 seasons are ranked in the league's top 5 in terms of 100 rounds of net wins. If this pattern is not broken this season, then the Warriors, Suns, Jazz, Cavaliers and Heat, the five teams currently in the top 5, will have the best chance of competing for the ultimate glory.
At this point in time, apart from die-hard Cavaliers fans, I am afraid that not many people will associate this team that has been sinking since 2018 with the championship again. However, one thing that cannot be ignored is that today's Cavaliers, compared to previous seasons, really show a "jump" trend.
In the last 2015-16 season when the Cavaliers won the championship, the team's 100-round goal difference in that season was +6.3. This season's Cavaliers, the gap between that successful team, is not very big. Also, it's important to note that the Cavaliers' 100-game goal difference last season was -8.3. In other words, it took the Cavaliers less than a year to improve their 100-game goal difference by 13.4.
No other team in the last 10 years has achieved such a big leap forward. James, who returned to Cleveland in 2014, did not lead the team to such a jump, and the Warriors, who won the championship for the first time in 2015, did not play a similar performance. A little further afield, the Heat, which brought in James and Bosh in 2010 and made up the Big Three, also didn't improve so much. Looking into the future, within the scope of the eye, it seems that no team can achieve such great progress in the next few years. Such a drastic change is so rare in the NBA world, especially this season's Cavaliers have not really joined the superstar, which makes their current results seem so incredible.
"They really have no fear," Bikstaff said of his team.
Indeed it is. So far this season, the Cavaliers have beaten almost all of the top teams in the East, and the Cavaliers' record is 5-4 against the Heat, Bulls, Bucks and Nets, which are currently in the top 5 in the East. Although Both Sexton and Rubio have said goodbye to the season early, and although Markkanen was missing 2-4 weeks at one point due to injury, none of this has affected the Pace of the Cavaliers' progress. Bixtaugh put up a "three-high" lineup that was contrary to the trend of the times, and never wavered confidence in this lineup and this concept. Facts have also proved that it is not that the times have abandoned the big man, but that the big man has not adapted to the times. Mobley, Aaron and Markkanen have shown that they can usher in a new era of their own.
In addition to improving the roster, the Cavaliers' potential rookie is also an element of the team's success that cannot be ignored. When it comes to Cavaliers newcomers, many people's first reaction is garland, Mobley and Sexton, who are high-ranking rookies, and it seems reasonable that they played well. But don't forget Dean Wade and Lamar Stevens, who have also played well this season, both of whom have been forgotten by other teams. The Cavaliers also gave them a chance and allowed them to prove that they were equally capable of playing on the NBA's high-level stage.
The combination of lottery rookies and unsuccessful rookies shows that the Cavaliers value not only the talent of young people, but also how they can combine when they form a team. So, against the Bucks, with Markkanen unable to play, Bixtaugh could not hesitate to let Dean Wade take his starting place to continue to maintain the "three highs" lineup.
By the time Mobley received Garland's unhurried pass and then completed a dunk and fouled up against The Alphabet's defense, the Cavaliers' youngsters had taken themselves to new heights. And, given the age of this group of players, the Cavaliers' core for the next five or even decades has been steadily built.
The man who built the Cavaliers' set today is the team's president, Kobe Altman, who is currently the number one favourite for "Best Manager" this season — an honor no Cavaliers executive has touched since Vin Embrey in 1998. And Bixtaugh, who led the Cavaliers forward, along with Grizzlies coach Tyler Jenkins, is seen as a strong contender for the "best coach" of the season. There's also Evan Mobley, who, as the 2021 Probing Show, has established himself on a strong Eastern Conference team and become an integral part of the team while he and the top runners are still struggling with their own team at the end of the league, which naturally makes him a popular candidate for "Best Rookie".
That's why the Knights made such a big leap forward without superstars. Although young people still make mistakes from time to time along the way, a stable structure can quickly get them back on track. Four years after James' second absence, the Cavaliers are finally back.
As Bikstaf said, the team is now fearless. The other opponents of the league have already felt the dangerous atmosphere they bring.