{"id":1949314,"date":"2026-05-22T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1949314"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:00:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:00:46","slug":"cavaliers-insist-our-process-was-right-amid-errors-losses-in-east-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1949314","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers insist \u2018our process was right\u2019 amid errors, losses in East finals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NEW YORK \u2014 Kenny Atkinson and his players are on the same page.<\/p>\n

The right page? Mmm, that\u2019s a whole other story.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur process was right tonight,\u201d Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell said after the Cavs were taken apart by the New York Knicks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals.<\/p>\n

Over and over again Thursday night, after a 109-93 loss<\/a> that dropped Cleveland to 0-2 in this series and 8-8 in the playoffs, the Cavs said something like this. Their \u201cprocess\u201d is not why they were beaten.<\/p>\n

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Jarrett Allen, the last of the group to speak to reporters, at least did the rest of us a solid by saying this \u201cprocess was right\u201d line came from their postgame talk in the locker room. \u201cYou\u2019re going to hear it over and over again,\u201d he said. \u201cWe truly believe in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s start there, with him. Allen finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds on 10 shots. He attempted five of them in the first quarter, and his frontcourt mate Evan Mobley scored 10 points on six shots in the first frame. Cleveland led 27-24 after one quarter, and it was by far the team\u2019s best offensive period.<\/p>\n

The Cavs\u2019 best games in the playoffs have come when they establish Mobley and Allen, then continue to feed at least one of them. You need to think no further back than Game 7 of the last series, when owner Dan Gilbert suggested to Atkinson that Allen would be a key to the game, and he followed up by dominating.<\/p>\n

Mobley did not shoot in the fourth quarter. At all. Allen took one shot. Keep in mind that the Knicks had committed their fifth foul of the fourth quarter with 9:19 left, meaning the Cavs would get free throws for every foul committed thereafter. It\u2019s an invitation to attack relentlessly. Instead, they went 1-of-6 from 3-point range, almost completely ignored their tone-setters and were outscored by seven points the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

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So, how was the process right?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely the right process,\u201d Mobley said. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a few possessions you want back and a few turnovers and stuff like that, but overall, I feel like we played a pretty good game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think getting away from the process, it happens,\u201d Allen said. \u201cThe other team starts making shots; everybody\u2019s trying to make something successful happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, about the Knicks\u2019 shooting. Game 1, of course, especially the end, was dominated by Jalen Brunson. You\u2019re well aware, either because you read The Athletic<\/i> or watch the wall-to-wall coverage of Brunson\u2019s eruption on the network, or both, so no need to dwell on it again.<\/p>\n

But for Game 2, the Cavs chose to force the ball out of Brunson\u2019s hands by throwing multiple defenders at him simultaneously. Josh Hart, a 41 percent 3-point shooter this season, was left wide open as a result, and he buried the Cavs with a playoff career-high 26 points on five 3s. Brunson, a willing passer, finished with 14 assists and ended up with 19 points after a 10-point fourth quarter. Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns combined to shoot 16-of-24.<\/p>\n

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For two days, Atkinson said the debate in the coaches\u2019 room was whether they should have changed strategies on Brunson \u2014 allow him to get into the paint and take tough 2-pointers, and if he made them, so be it. They obviously chose not to go that route, deciding to make sure it was not Brunson who beat them on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

So you might argue, then, that the Cavs\u2019 process led to everyone else on the Knicks beating them soundly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta pick your poison; that\u2019s what the playoffs are about,\u201d said Atkinson, who, like his players, also uttered the \u201cprocess\u201d line in his postgame remarks. \u201cYou gotta pick players or (a) player you gotta help off of, so those are the choices you make in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is more to nitpick. The Knicks reeled off 18 consecutive points in the third quarter. This, after coming back from \u2014 have you heard? \u2014 22 down in the fourth quarter of Game 1. What about this sound process is permitting the Cavs to be so vulnerable to massive scoring spurts that they haven\u2019t been able to answer?<\/p>\n

Cleveland is now a .500 team that has been outscored in the postseason, which is hard to do and reach the conference finals. The Cavs are now 2-7 on the road in the playoffs. They have endured nearly inexplicable losses with late-game blunders away from Cleveland, with the worst coming Tuesday in Game 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy because we really didn\u2019t let Game 1 affect our mental (approach),\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe still came with the right intention, did a lot of positive things. And now we have to go home and handle business.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cavs believe they lost Game 2 because they missed open shots. Atkinson said those were quality shots that weren\u2019t falling, and the combination of James Harden (6-of-15), Max Strus (1-of-7) and Sam Merrill (1-of-8) all missing as they did surely had an impact. Mitchell said everything \u201clooks worse and feels worse when we\u2019re not making shots, open shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo that\u2019s why, for us, for me, I\u2019m not sitting here scrambling trying to figure things out,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe make some shots, we\u2019ll be in good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This team deserves credit for refusing to make excuses during this up-and-down postseason. Mitchell, who led the Cavs with 26 points on 8-of-18 shooting, seemed to be struggling to move at top speed in the first half, but he had no interest in entertaining the idea that he might be hurt. Nor did he allow a questioner to suggest the Cavs are battling fatigue after playing every other day through an entire seven-game series in the second round and two so far in this series, while the Knicks had eight days off.<\/p>\n

The Cavs also get credit and some benefit of the doubt because this is not the first time they\u2019ve trailed 2-0 in a series, nor the first time they\u2019ve dropped consecutive games on the road in a series. They\u2019ve survived those deficits and defeats and won two Game 7s. We have to allow for the possibility that they have the right mindset and, yes, the right process to endure again and make this series interesting when it switches to Cleveland on Saturday.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday\u2019s off day, after a film session and light walk-through, Atkinson said, \u201cYou live between misery and awesomeness in the playoffs.\u201d For those Billy Joel fans out there, it sounded darn close to the former Madison Square Garden resident entertainer\u2019s \u201cSummer, Highland Falls,\u201d in which Joel crooned, \u201cIt\u2019s either sadness or euphoria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Misery or awesomeness, sadness or euphoria \u2014 yeah, that sounds like the Cavs this postseason. Never mind that the Knicks have now won nine in a row or that the Oklahoma City Thunder lost for the first time this postseason when they dropped Game 1 of their conference finals against the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s \u201cprocess\u201d has led to eight wins against eight defeats, with some especially bad stretches on the road. The rules allow for this; just find a way to win four times out of seven, and you\u2019re good to go.<\/p>\n

The Cavs left the Big Apple believing in their process and confident they\u2019ll again be rewarded for sticking to it.<\/p>\n

Sadness, then euphoria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Kenny Atkinson and his players are on the same page. The right page? Mmm, that\u2019s a whole other story. \u201cOur process was right tonight,\u201d Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell said after the Cavs were taken apart by the New York Knicks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. Over and over […]<\/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-1949314","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\/1949314","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=1949314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1949314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1949314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1949314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}