Seeing the Cavs lose has been a rarity this season. With 56 wins, they sit comfortably at the top of East standings, and will likely stay there till the end. But their recent struggles have started raising some concerns. Last night, the Cleveland franchise lost their fourth straight game—this time against the tenth seeded Suns. And head coach Kenny Atkinson was clearly not pleased with the team’s performance. Of course, the biggest question mark was the disappointing outing of Donovan Mitchell.
Unlike most nights, ‘Spida’ struggled to find his rhythm and finished with only 7 points on an abysmal 2 of 18 shooting. However, Atkinson defended his superstar during the post-game interview, highlighting how he has carried the Cavs all year: “You know he’s been batting 400 I’ll use that, you know he’s been Ted Williams all year. And you know you’re just gonna have moments like this during the season. We’ve been running him hard, third game in four nights and it’s just this is the reality of the NBA.”
Yes, the head coach compared Mitchell to Red Sox legend Ted Williams. Well, Donovan has been the Cavs’ best player all season, averaging 24.1 points and nearly five assists. Last night was just not his night. Atkinson continued, “Even the great ones, I mean I’ve seen it happen to KD, I’ve seen it happen to Book, it’s just part of it.”
However, Kenny sent a stern message to the locker room on how they should support Mitchell during his off nights: “In these moments, I feel we gotta lift him up. We need people to come and help him. And again, that’s what I did like about the bench and that’s why we went to it early. We had to find some juice and some energy somewhere else. We can’t expect him every single night to have that. He’s there 98% of the time, we’ll take that.”
While Donovan Mitchell scored in single digits, his teammates did not do much better either. No Cavs player crossed the 20-point mark and three starters finished in single digits. Not what you’d expect from East’s best team. Apart from the weak offense, Atkinson also addressed the harsh reality of the Cavs’ performance on the defensive end.
Kenny Atkinson urges the Cavs to “Do Better” as he points out “Mental Mistakes” vs Suns
While the Cavs struggled on offense, the Phoenix team had a field day shooting the ball. Sure enough, Atkinson was very critical of his team’s underwhelming effort on defense after the embarrassing loss: “Oh man, you know again, energy wasn’t great. We’re kind of just in position, but we’re not impacting plays. Against elite shooting teams, that’s not enough.”
Apr 12, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) and guard Darius Garland (10) talk in the fourth quarter against the Indiana Pacers at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
Well, Atkinson’s team had no response for Kevin Durant’s offense, as he got to the basket any way he wanted. KD dropped 42 points and single-handedly led his team to victory. And Atkinson detailed where the Cavs went wrong in guarding him, “What I don’t like and I said this pregame, I said I don’t like the mental mistakes you know. Not closing out on a hot shooter or jumping for a pump fake on a non-shooter. Like we’re having too many mental breakdowns. Those are the ones that you’re like ‘Man we control this. We can do better here.’”
Of course, there are still twelve games remaining in the regular season and the Cavs have a five-win cushion over the second-seeded Celtics. Hopefully, their four straight losses will work as motivation for the team and they will be able to work on every issue that Atkinson pointed out and prepare better for the playoffs. Do you think they can regain their groove in the next game and snap their losing streak?
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