{"id":1916853,"date":"2026-05-04T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T08:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1916853"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:00:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T08:00:34","slug":"cavs-werent-great-but-they-handled-the-relentless-raptors-can-they-rise-out-of-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1916853","title":{"rendered":"Cavs weren\u2019t great, but they handled the relentless Raptors. Can they rise out of East?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CLEVELAND \u2014 It\u2019s in there. We\u2019ve seen it in brief stretches. The defensive tenacity, the crisp ball movement, the aggression from the bigs. Whether the Cavs can sustain a championship level of intensity for 12 more victories has always been the biggest question.<\/p>\n

For now? For now, they\u2019re moving on. They weren\u2019t great in Sunday\u2019s 114-102 Game 7 win<\/a>, but they were good enough to beat a relentless Toronto Raptors team that lacked talent, health and shooting but made up for it with aggression and defensive pressure.<\/p>\n

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The optimistic side of all of this is that the Cavs managed to win not just a game, but an entire series<\/em> when Donovan Mitchell wasn\u2019t at his best. It wasn\u2019t long ago that this franchise went as Mitchell carried them, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

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He has a 50-point playoff performance and two games over 40 points since joining the Cavs, yet something seemed off with him in this series.<\/p>\n

He never looked comfortable interpreting Toronto\u2019s defense. He never quite figured out the patterns of the double teams or where help was coming from. He shot 33 percent from 3 and had a negative plus\/minus in four of the seven games.<\/p>\n

He never really looked like Don.<\/p>\n

Neither he nor James Harden had terrific performances in Game 7, and the Cavs won anyway.<\/p>\n

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They didn\u2019t need Mitchell or Harden at their best because Evan Mobley was terrific for most of this series, and Jarrett Allen was phenomenal during a third quarter that saved the Cavs\u2019 season.<\/p>\n

A series loss to the Raptors could\u2019ve been catastrophic to the future of this franchise, given what is at stake with contracts and with another summer of unknowns ahead. The team with the league\u2019s highest payroll going down in the first round to a heavy underdog is bad for business, but Allen changed the entire dynamic with his defensive aggressiveness and rebounding.<\/p>\n

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Allen had 14 points and 10 rebounds in the third quarter and 22 points and 19 rebounds for the game. He certainly has his share of playoff demons. The same player who was mocked for admitting the lights were too bright for the Cavs during a postseason series in New York a few years back, and was beaten up for not playing through a rib injury a couple of years ago in Orlando, produced the best quarter of playoff basketball in his life when the Cavs were struggling to put away the pesky Raptors.<\/p>\n

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Allen is well aware of his reputation. Nights like Sunday\u2019s Game 7 will go a long way in changing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always feel like in this league, when you get a certain label, it always sticks with you no matter what, no matter how hard you try to change it, it\u2019s always gonna follow you around,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that if I play on my mind with one major narrative that was placed on me about prior performances, that\u2019s gonna weaken my strengths going forward and always try to weigh me back. I\u2019ve always been the guy that always just moves forward. Things happen in the past that go my way, that don\u2019t go my way, it\u2019s just a part of playing basketball, being at the professional level.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If the Cavs get the Mobley who was on display for most of this series and the Allen who arrived in the third quarter Sunday, they might have enough to wipe out the rest of a reshuffled Eastern Conference \u2014 if Mitchell and Harden can reemerge.<\/p>\n

Their next opponent, the Pistons, have size, love to thump defensively, and will try to turn this series into a street fight. J.B. Bickerstaff has instilled the same defensive force in the Pistons that he once brought to Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Bickerstaff facing the Cavs is just another juicy storyline in the next round, and he will know how to guard Mitchell as well as any coach in the league. If he needs a second opinion, the Raptors\u2019 relentless pressure and unique attack angles on Mitchell in this series will give future opponents something else to consider, but only if they have the athletes committed to defending at a high level for the entire shot clock. The Pistons do.<\/p>\n

The Cavs will need the best versions of Mitchell and Harden to win a championship, but they didn\u2019t need them to get out of the first round. They tore through the Miami Heat in the first round last year, and we all know how it ended.<\/p>\n

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Coach Kenny Atkinson believes a test like this from the Raptors will make the Cavs better in Round 2, the dreaded round from which Mitchell has never escaped in his career. He gets another chance now with a new running mate in Harden and the Cavs\u2019 bigs playing some of their best basketball.<\/p>\n

With the Boston Celtics eliminated, the Cavs and Pistons pushed to seven games, and even the New York Knicks tested by the Atlanta Hawks, the East shouldn\u2019t look daunting to anyone. Each of the remaining teams should feel like the path to the Finals is open, regardless of how they performed in the first round.<\/p>\n

Atkinson called it a \u201ccleansing,\u201d this idea of survive and advance regardless of beauty.<\/p>\n

Allen cleansed himself in the process. The hulking center, the one who has often been criticized for being too passive, was caught on camera roaring \u201cGo home!\u201d to the Raptors late in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Between Mobley\u2019s emergence and Allen\u2019s bully mentality, the Cavs have enough to win the East if their stars play like stars.<\/p>\n

Their former coach is waiting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 It\u2019s in there. We\u2019ve seen it in brief stretches. The defensive tenacity, the crisp ball movement, the aggression from the bigs. Whether the Cavs can sustain a championship level of intensity for 12 more victories has always been the biggest question. For now? For now, they\u2019re moving on. They weren\u2019t great in Sunday\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1916853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1916853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1916853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1916853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1916853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}