GRADE: What Have the Cleveland Cavaliers DONE WELL? NBA Cup Game VS. Atlanta a MUST WIN?!
On today’s show, the Cavs are back in action tonight taking on the Atlanta Hawks. It is an NBA Cup game. Brad Rolland stops by as we talk Cavs and Hawks because couldn’t join the whipound earlier this week. So, we’ll do that. Plus, I’ve got a few mailbag questions like what letter grade did the Cavs get? Has Kenny Atinson done a good job this year. And did we put too high of expectations on Evan Moy? We’ll dive into all of that and so much more on today’s edition of Locked on Cavs. You are Locked on Cavs, your daily Cleveland Cavaliers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hi everybody and welcome into another edition of Locked On Cavs, a proud part of the Locked On podcast network, which is now the number one sports podcast network in all of America. I’m your host Danny Cunningham and I also cover the team over at my Substack the Inside Shot, which is right now 50% off all annual subscriptions. The link to that sale is in this episode show notes. You can find this podcast anywhere you get them. Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else. Be sure to give us a fivestar rating. Leave us a nice review. Be a friend. Tell a friend about Locked on Cavs. And if you’re watching on YouTube, do us a favor. Hit that thumbs up button for us. Click subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss the latest locked on Cavs content. And today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new FanDuel customers can bet just $5. If your first $5 bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use all across the app. Head to fanduel.com today to get started. Brad Roland and I could not link up this past weekend for the whipound episode. So, he’s going to join me in a second. We talked about Cavs, we talked about Hawks, we just the matchup that’s going to take place tonight. I I will say, however, we recorded this on Tuesday at about 6:00 in the evening, and there were some comments made in this upcoming conversation that alluded to the Atlanta Hawks beating the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night. We I I I I mentioned it in there and prior to talking Brad and I said, you know, like I don’t know that this conversation isn’t about the cup because the game does matter for the Cavs. The Hawks are eliminated because they lost to Washington. But Atlanta fell behind 18-2 in the first few minutes of that game. And I was just sitting there watching the game on my couch. This is my fault. The Hawks are losing this game to the Wizards because I said there’s no way they lose to the Washington Wizards. and they got absolutely they got their doors just blown off in that game. So, aside from that, everything else rings true from the conversation with Brad Roland. So, we’re going to play that right now and then we will get to some mailbag questions right here on Locked on Cavs. Back for the second time this year, Brad Roland, who does a great job covering the Atlanta Hawks over at Lockdown Hawks and the Cavs take on Atlanta in the third or in the fourth, excuse me, and final NBA Cup group stage game for the Cavs. That doesn’t necessarily matter. That’s not what we’re here to talk about. We are here to discuss the Atlanta Hawks because Brad, last time you and I chatted was right after Trey Young exited the lineup with a knee injury and Atlanta I think has gone through some ups and downs since then. What What have you seen from the Hawks without Trey Young over the last I guess at this point it’s been right around four weeks if I’m not mistaken? Yeah, it’s 13 games now. The Hawks have played without trying to be 14 by the time I get to Cleveland. And it’s been, I would say, better than expected, but also with some of the same um tentacles that you might have expected. Like offensively, there have been some shortcomings, although they’ve actually played better than I thought they would to be fair. Um and then defensively, they were always going to be better without Trey Young. That’s that was the reality situation and it’s come to pass that way. So, um, they benefited from a pretty easy schedule over this, you know, three and a half weeks now that they’ve navigated. They’ve lost their two most difficult games, one of which was to Cleveland in a game that I saw you at not long ago. Um, and they also lost to Detroit. But in the meantime, they’ve taken care of business against basically everybody else, which is not nothing. Like, you know, schedule stuff matters, but you got to be here. You gota be teams that are in front of you. And the Hawks have done that. Um, and kind of I would say for me more so than it’s like about what’s not going on with Trey Young, which definitely is a is a topic for good for good reason, but I would say it’s kind of bolstered the Hawks and what they did this offseason to try to like for the first time in Trey Young’s career build a team that made sense while he was off the court as well and they’ve kind of succeeded on that at least through three and a half weeks. So over the course of that stretch, as you mentioned, the schedule has not necessarily been the most difficult, but I I do think it’s worth noting like they are 11th in offense since Halloween, which was the first game that Trey Young missed. So what have you seen? Because building a team that makes sense without Trey Young is something that you do have to do whether Trey Young is in Atlanta for the long term or not. Like you have to be able to survive when he’s off the floor in a way that I do think it’s fair to say the Hawks have not been able to in previous years. Um, what has made this offense maybe not be elite, but what has made this offense tick without Trey? Yeah, it’s a few different things. I I would say a lot of it is that they have been able to kind of follow through on the theory of the case, which is basically to play really fast when they don’t have Trey Young because they know they can’t really score in the half court. That’s that’s too simplistic, but you know what I mean. That’s it’s a weakness of theirs without Trey Young. They’ve been able to play fast. They’ve attacked the rim very effectively. Jaylen Johnson leveling up as an individual part of that on a number of different levels, but that’s been the main thesis as well as just ball movement. I mean, I mean, Trey Young is the best passing guard in the league in my opinion or certainly in the top two or three and they’ve actually averaged just as many assists without them as they did with them because they’ve been moving the ball like crazy. Um, a lot of.5 basketball just the ball is not sticking anywhere. And the other thing is that I’m I’m not trying to pick on the Hawks for I think they’re fourth in three-point percentage over the time that Trey Young went down, which I don’t think is sustainable given the personnel they have. But that’s been part of this too is that they have kind of run hot. Very been on a heater, a guy that Cass fans probably don’t know anything about, but he’s been super hot recently. Jaylen Johnson’s making three-point shots the way he never has um down the line. So, it’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But, I think the the whole goal basically was to like be like maybe a league average offense, like at the absolute best without Trey Young. and they’ve been like you said 11th in the league and that is a number of different things but certainly it’s encouraging. So I want to talk about Jaylen Johnson because I think when you look at the the Hawks without Trey he has obviously been the best player that they’ve had on the floor and they’ve gotten good performances certainly from Nikil Alexander Walker. You know as you mentioned they’ve been shooting the lights out from beyond the arc. They’re shooting nearly 39% on threes without Trey Young which was not something that I necessarily would have expected. But Jaylen Johnson in the 16 games that he’s played so far this year, again, we’re recording this Tuesday evening before Atlanta plays their game on Tuesday. So, while by time you listen to this, these numbers might change a little bit, but Oh, like the the premise of this won’t. He’s averaging 22 points, just under 10 rebounds, seven assists on 56, 41 a half, 80 shooting splits. How real do you think those numbers are? I think the production is pretty real. like he was one of I think six guys in the league last year. He got hurt mid-season, so it was like 40 something games, but six guys in the league averaged 19, 10, and five last year and he was one of them. So like he he kind of his game is set up in a way where he’s going to get you points, rebounds, assists. Like he’s going to he’s going to do that. Um whether he’s going to average, you know, eight assists a game in a in a world with Trey Young back on the floor, I would say probably not. But six is not unreasonable. Like he’s he’s that kind of player where he’s going to have the ball and say he’s he’s a good passer. The rebounding is definitely real. He’s an elite rebounder at the four, like one of the best in the league at the position. And the scoring, you know, yeah, I think he could average 22 23 points a game, even when Trey is back. So, that’s all pretty much real other than maybe the inflated assists. The one thing that I am a little bit um more not worried about, but I’m skeptical of is the three-point shooting. Like, it’s 42% or whatever you saw. I think it’s 47% since Trey went down. That is not real. I’m pretty confident in that not being real, but that is real for nobody. Well, yeah. Ex. I mean, and also he’s a guy that it’s not a he’s not he’s not a non-shooter, but that’s been one of his questions about his potential like star upside is like, can he make enough shots on the perimeter? And I think this has been an encouraging run through that lens. But he’s always going to profile to me as a guy who’s like you’re hoping to get to like 36% on threes like on a decent value. That’d be a great outcome for him. And this is this is obviously well above that. But yeah, I mean I think him taking next the next step making an allar team. I picked the allar team for the season. Like I thought that was definitely going to be in the role of possibility and he needs team success to do that because he’s on that kind of fringy level of all-star where like you got your team’s got to win. But I think he can certainly average yeah like 20 10 and six over a full season. That’s very much in play for him. I don’t think the all-star conversation is one that should be foreign to him at this point. Like I think that he’s a great player. I think he has shown that. I think the only reasonable questions about him coming into this year just like how is how is he going to react after having shoulder surgery? because like I do think that is not nothing for a basketball player having to sort of go through that rehabilitation process. I just don’t think that that’s something that should be overlooked, but it’s it’s clear that he has rebounded about as well as you could have imagined from that. So, you mentioned it’s been around three and a half weeks and the first game that Trey Young missed was back on Halloween. So, it’s it’s been almost a full month and the the Hawks, I believe, put the timetable at he will be re-evaluated in four weeks, which never means he’ll be back in four weeks. means he’ll be back in like maybe 6 weeks, but we are getting closer to that date. So, what I’m curious from your perspective is how do you think when Trey is back because the Hawks are playing a little bit of a different style as you mentioned, how do you think they will be able to blend what they have done without Trey Young into bringing Trey Young back into the picture? Yeah, it’s a great question. I do think that there there’s some of the um and this is not surprising. You follow the discourse as well as I do across the league. Um, when something like this happens, it becomes the Hawks are better without Tro Young and that becomes the big headline, banner headline, and it’s just the record. And I I get I get it. I don’t think it’s true, but I I understand it. But a lot of the talking points around that have been that I think they’ve people just haven’t figured out what Trey Young’s already been playing a little bit differently the last year and a half, two years. Like, I think people are going back to like the the era where Trey and Luca and Harden were playing like the true heliocentric brand of basketball. And that hasn’t happened for the Hawks in a couple of years now. With Quinn Snder, he’s not played that way. So that’s part of this, too. Trey’s already done a little bit of this movement towards this more egalitarian nature. Obviously, he still has the ball in his hands a lot, but his usage has gone down the last two or three seasons in a row, and he’s in a more normal star usage now versus where he was before. But also, I think, you know, he’s been traveling with the team. He’s been seeing them play this way. Um, I think everyone’s saying the right things. I think I think he he’ll be bought into it. I think he last year he led legally an assist for the first time. He took he took fewer shots last year. He was was kind of doing more of that. But it’s more like, hey, now we’ve seen this for the first time in your career, Trey. We’ve now played this well for this long without you. We’re starting to build around. We’re starting to play the way you want to play to some degree, but it’s not going to be the Trey show. And it already wasn’t going to be, but now he’s seen the proof of proof of concept. So, that’s a long winding answer to say. I think he will be more like last year’s Trey where he’s averaging 12 assists a game versus averaging 30 points a game the way he used to three or four years ago. But also, um more player movement, more ball movement, and I think defensively he’s there’s a there’s a standard he has to live up to. And obviously, he’s not a great defender. He never will be, but there is a level he can get to when he plays harder on that end of the floor. And he’s flashed at times, but now it’s like, hey, we don’t need you to do everything else on offense that you used to do, which means now you have more energy to play defense. So, he’ll fit right in in the way that they probably hope he will, but it’s uh not going to be the way it was two or three years ago. For sure. Before we started recording, you asked me, you said, should we just like act as if the Hawks win this game tonight? Because it is an NBA Cup game, and I told you, you know, I don’t necessarily think that this conversation has much to do with the cup, but they are playing the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night. So, what we are going to do, not for NBA Cup purposes, but just for like the purposes of this next question, we are going to assume that Atlanta finds a way to beat the 1 and5 at the time Washington Wizards and move to 12 and seven on the year. Is that a fair thing for me to assume here, Brad? Um, they are 10-point favorites. They should win. I I I don’t like to assume things in the NBA. I’ve seen too many things happen to where I don’t want to do that. But, I think, yeah, they have a a good chance of winning tonight, Daniel. So saying that they’re 12 and seven again, assuming a win over Washington, which I think is a very safe thing to do. Has the start to the season for the Hawks made you change in any way what you expect of this team for the full season and into the postseason? A little bit. Um, but it’s complicated in that if you told me that I don’t know anything about injuries and the Hawks start 12 and seven, I would have been like, “All right, it’s kind of what I expected them to do. Like, I picked them to win 49 games this season. That’s like basically that pace if you start 12 and seven.” I would have been like, “Okay, that makes perfect sense to me.” If you told me Trey was going to miss three and a half weeks, I would have been, you know, dancing in the streets as a Hawks fan at 12 and seven. So, that’s the nuance here. Um I think that there is because because they were able to withstand an absence from the player that they basically can’t withstand an absence for the last several seasons that is that that gives you a little bit more confidence I think in the future about like how they might play when he comes back but also just individual players. We already talked about Jaylen Johnson Kong Woo all the Xander Walker has been fantastic with the Hawks this year. Um so yeah I’m a little bit more encouraged. Does that tell you anything about the way a playoff series might go? Maybe not because Trey hasn’t been playing this whole time. But as far as like racking up wins, this team has not been a 50- win level team in a long time. Even the year they made the conference finals, they weren’t that level team. So them tracking to that, especially when you factor in the injuries to Trey, Porzingis, etc., it’s uh it’s at least a half step ahead of where I thought they’d be. Well, that certainly is uh better than being a half step behind, I guess. And we will see the Atlanta Hawks again later on this year and potentially in the playoffs as well. And who knows, maybe this will be a big game with cup implications, but I doubt it because I just don’t know that it necessarily matters all that much to either squad on Friday night. But Brad, thank you so much for the time, man. If you want the latest on the Atlanta Hawks, locked on Hawks is the place to go. Big thanks to Brad for stopping by and we will get to some mailbag questions coming up in a second. But first, today’s show brought to you by Door Dash. The NBA season heating up and Door Dash has found the perfect way to keep fans in their bag all season long. Whether you’re watching for the highlights, your fantasy team, or just your favorite player, Door Dash makes every game night even better. Door Dash, the official on demand delivery platform of the NBA. And they’re celebrating with something called the Bagdrop. Every time an NBA player scores 50 points in a game, Door Dash drops 50% off your order with Dash Pass the very next day. And you’re automatically entered to win your chance at the ultimate fan bag. We’re talking playerinspired drip, exclusive gear, and stuff that you actually want. It’s not just food either. 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Had several good questions thrown in, but wanted to get to like three or four. just figured that’s what I would have time for after talking with Brad. And the first one comes from Ed. And Ed says, “At the quarter mark of the season, what letter grade do you give the Cavs for their record and efforts? Better yet, why that grade?” Well, I was not going to just go out there and list a letter grade and not give any rationale behind it. That would be bad podcasting. So, I give the Cavs a B minus. And as of right now, they are 12-7 or excuse me, they are 12-7 going into tonight’s game against the Atlanta Hawks. And the Cavs, I think, have done fine. I don’t think they’ve been great. I think there are things they need to be better. I think there are things that could certainly be worse. But given now if the Cavs were 12 and seven and Darius Garland had played like 15 games and they hadn’t had as many guys miss time for injury. Like if the health situation was different than what it is right now, the Cavs would have a worse grade. But I’m almost grading this on a curve because so many guys have been out because of injuries. I do think that is something that you have to factor in. And I talked about this at the end of yesterday’s episode. The Cavs have played Toronto three times and they’ve lost to the Raptors all three times. And Toronto is a good team. I don’t think they’re a great team. I think they’re a good team. And in those games, Donovan Mitchell missed the first one. Jared Allen missed the first one. Darius Garland missed the first one. In the second one, the Cavs were playing their fifth game in seven nights. And Darius Garland did not play in that game against Toronto. They were without several guys in that game as well. And then you go back to this past Monday’s game and the Cavs were without seven members of their rotation between Darius Garland, DeAndre Hunter, Jared Allen, Dean Wade, Craig Porter Jr., um Sam Merrill, Max Stru, like they were without so many guys that it’s hard for me to look at what their record is right now and say that’s a B minus. But when you factor in that, okay, well, they’ve missed so much, I think B minus is fair. I I think it’s actually probably a little bit closer to a a flat B as opposed to a C++ because of all the injuries. With that said, I think the Cavs can and should have been better to start this season with the way that they’ve played. Like, I do think that offensively they’ve not been good enough. I think Evan Mobley hasn’t been good enough. And I think those things certainly have to factor into any grade that you give the Cavs so far. But I look at their record and I just think it would be better if they were healthier. They’re 4- one in games Darius Garland has played. They’re 4-0 in games Darius Garland has come out of healthy. And with that in my mind, it it appears to me like there’s a great team in there still. I really do believe that. But the injuries I think are the biggest reason why they’re only 12 and seven right now. If they were healthy for them to get this grade, they’d have to be a few games better. And for them to get an A, I think they’d have to have a record somewhere around I I don’t know like 15 and what would that be? 15 and four. I think that’s kind of the team they should be right now. But given the injuries and stuff like that, I do think it’s fair to say, okay, like they’ve not been great. They’ve not been terrible. They’ve dealt with a lot of adversity. So because of that, I’m going to be a little lenient with a grade here and give them a B+. I I do think they can be better. I think they will be better. I think if we are gra grading them like quarterly and this is the first quarter grade, I firmly expect the second quarter grade for the Cavs to be much better than it has been so far in the first quarter. But thank you very much Ed for the question. Funible 1944 asks, “Do you think Kenny Atinson has coached wells to start the year? How much of the lows of the season so far do you think are due to schedule and injuries versus actual concerns about this team? So, I think Kenny kind of gets a grade that’s very similar to the one I just gave the Cavs for their record to start this season. I I think he’s been fine. I think there are some things he can do better. I think there are some things that have been outside of his control. Kenny Atinson cannot control what players are available to play on a regular basis. If it were up to Kenny, he would have 14 guys on standard contracts that are healthy and available to play every night. He would have three guys on two-way deals that are healthy and available to play every night. That has not been the reality of the situation. In Toronto, the Cavs had of the what is it 17 players on the roster that they have right now? They had 10 of them available and all 10 played 11 plus minutes. Like he is kind of doing what he can with what he’s been given. So, I do give him some leniency in that area. But that being said, this has by no means been, I think, a coach of the year quality job by Kenny Atinson yet this year. It doesn’t mean that he’s not going to improve. It doesn’t mean this team’s not going to improve because I do think again when he has a healthy a lotment of players, he’s going to look better as a coach. And I I can’t think of a coach typically that would look worse when the team is healthier. That that doesn’t happen. But the thing that I point to is one that I will talk about a little bit more in the the next segment coming up here is the way that Evan Mobley has been handled because Kenny Atinson made the decision to change the rotation this year to let Evan be on the floor alone without Donovan Mitchell knowing that Darius Garland would not be there at the start of the season. And that is something that I think in theory makes a lot of sense. And it didn’t go well. And Kenny decided, I believe it was the game against Houston over a week ago at this point that we are going to go back to what worked before. We’re going to go back to the rotation that last year was. And that was in a game that Darius Garland was not available because of his toe. And I think that decision probably came a little bit too late. And I think that the Cavs probably put a little bit more on Evan’s plate than he was ready for. And I wonder how much of Evan’s struggles so far this year have to do with the fact that he was asked to do so much so early. Could the Cavs have asked him to do because I think that they have asked him to do like 150% of what he did last year. If at the start of the season they were asking him to do 110% of what he did last year, would he have been more successful? If they would have gradually given him more responsibility as opposed to throwing all of this on his shoulders all at once, I wonder how that would have looked different. I wonder if that would have changed things. like would we be looking at Aban Mobley in a different light if at the start of the season he wasn’t being asked to do as much as he is right now and would have been able to sort of get things going, find a groove, find a rhythm into the season and then add more and more as you go because I think that is now the path the Cavs do have to take moving forward. I think they have to take some responsibility away from from him and it’s almost like you’re a kid trying to earn trust from your parents. Like he has to earn that responsibility back with his play on the floor and I think he’s more than capable of doing it. I do anticipate that he will do that. But I look at this and just say I wonder if they would have handled that situation a little bit differently to start this season if things would look different for Evan and would look different for the Cavs. So, I think that to me is like the biggest issue that falls on Kenny Atinson’s plate so far this year. Rotations haven’t been perfect. He has experimented a lot. I think a lot of the things that he has done will be good in the long run for the Cavs, for individual players on the Cavs, and for the team as a group. But I also look at this and just say I it’s hard for me to be too hard on the guy when he’s not had anywhere close to a complete roster this season. like it’s not his fault. He didn’t ask for that. Um, nobody wants that. I think he has done a good job, not a great job, a good job with the tools that he has been given so far, but the Evan Mobley one is the thing that I think is the is most worth looking at as maybe the biggest gripe to have. Now, I’ve got a couple more questions about Evan Mobley because he came into the season with expectations that were sky-high. Were they too high? We’ll talk about that next right here on Locked on Cavs. But first, today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel is, of course, the NBA’s official sports betting partner, which makes it the best place to get in on the action because the NBA season is continuing to thrive on. We’ve got a full night tonight of NBA Cup action. The Cavs are taking on the Atlanta Hawks. I’m recording this on Wednesday, so I have no betting line for that game. But, as I said on yesterday’s show, I’m going to look at Ohio State Michigan. As I record this right now, Ohio State is favored by 10 and a half points over Michigan. I think that is a spread they will cover. I think they’re going to win this game by at least two touchdowns, maybe maybe even two touchdowns and a field goal because I think Ohio State is very good. I don’t think Michigan is great. And I am not an Ohio State fan saying this. This is not some Buckeye homer saying, “Yeah, gonna going to really give it to Michigan this year.” No, I I I don’t have a dog in the fight. Neither of these two teams are teams I would consider I’m a fan of. But I think Ohio State is just much much much more superior than Michigan this year. But hey, I guess anything can happen as we learned between these two teams last season. So maybe that sounds good for you. Or maybe the Cavs tonight on the road against Atlanta could be the thing that you want to dive into. And FanDuel has it all. Plus you can even combine live bets into a same game parlay for your shot at a bigger payout when the game is going on either tomorrow or maybe even tonight. Right now, FanDuel giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Yeah, 300 bucks in bonus bets. When that first $5 bet wins, so just head to fanduel.com. That is fue.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Thank you again for making today’s edition of Lockdown Cavs your first watch on YouTube. If you are watching right now, do us a favor, hit the thumbs up button for us, click subscribe, and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss the latest lockdown cavs content. Bobby Shenanigans, one of my favorites, asks, “Were expectations set too high for Evan Mobley this year?” And my initial answer to this is no. Evan Mobley last year was second team AllNNBA. He was the defensive player of the year in the NBA. He was an all-star. He was awesome. We have gotten to the point where Evan is showing up in the top 20 of NBA player lists. He has been somebody that you know when you reach that stature when you have also too like it matters where you’re drafted in this conversation. If Evan Mobley were the 27th overall pick and we were talking about him in year five like this then okay maybe expect maybe like the ceiling’s just not as high as we might thought but he was the number three overall pick way back when and he has shown every year I think that he’s gotten better right he has taken some years it’s been steps other years like last year I think it’s been leaps forward as a basketball player so he has to the question underwhelmed this season. Evan Mobley has not been as good as anyone expected him to be, but I don’t think we were wrong with setting our expectations. I think Evan Mobley is capable of doing all the things that we expected him to do this year. That’s what I think makes this underwhelming. If this is just who Evan Moy was always going to be, which I still don’t believe that to be the case, but if Evan’s only capable of being this, then yeah, expectations were set too high. I don’t believe that to be the case though. I think Evan Mobley can be much better than he is. I’ve seen, in fact, Evan Mobley be better than he has been so far this season. We all, if you’ve watched the Cavs last year, you have seen Evan Mobley be better than what he’s been this year. So, I don’t think it’s been an expectations thing. Like, I think the world because it wasn’t just me, Bobby. It wasn’t just you. It wasn’t just the Cavs internally. It was everybody expected. Okay, Evan Mobley, what we saw last year is real and he’s going to be better. And I do believe that what we saw last year from him was real, but he’s not been better. He has underwhelmed. And I think that when somebody underwhelms the way Evan has, it’s easy to look at, well, expectations were just set too high. And I would disagree with that. I just think he hasn’t met the expectations that I still believe were fairly set for who Evans showed to be as a basketball player last year. And then the last question of this show gonna come from Whoopy Hell on Blue Sky. Can the Cavs develop Evan Mobley and shoot threes like this? I think so. But I do think the question is a fair one because maybe you and I think when when you say shoot threes like this, you are talking about the volume of three-pointers that the Cavs are taking because they are a team that takes a lot of three-pointers. That’s not a new thing. They took a lot of three-pointers last year. They’re they’re taking a lot of three-pointers this year as I record this. They lead the league in three-point attempts. That is subject to change because they don’t play um on Wednesday night. So, like maybe, you know, someone could pass them, but they’re taking almost 45 threes a game. I do think Evan can develop in that system. I think what matters is the guys taking three-pointers and how good they are because right now the Cavs don’t have the most shooting on the floor that they can possibly have. I mean, credit where it’s due. I think Naqucoin Tomlin has been awesome in the minutes that he’s played, but he’s not going to be respected as a shooter from the outside. And I think that if the Cavs are going to play this style, they need guys that are going to give Evan Mobley space. And they have not been able to do that. And I think that really shows up because the Cavs are first in three-point um attempts. They’re just 22nd in percentage. And I think that they when they’re fully healthy have a roster that is much better than 22nd in percentage, but it hasn’t shown because they’ve not been healthy. And I think that is one of the things that that’s not Evan Moy’s fault. I think it has impacted him as a basketball player, however. So that’s going to do it for today’s edition of Locked on Cavs. You can find this show anywhere you get your podcast. That means Apple, Spotify, that means anywhere else. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. Cavs take on the Hawks tonight. It is an NBA Cup game. I believe they are still alive. Again, I’m recording this before the games on Wednesday night, so I don’t actually know, but I believe that they are still alive. So, the Cavs do have to win in order to potentially advance as a wild card team in the NBA Cup. The point differential will matters. I would expect the Cavs to try and really blow out the Atlanta Hawks in this game, but we will have to wait and see what happens. And of course, I will have you covered right here, wherever you’re listening to this, Apple, Spotify, anywhere else, YouTube as well, tomorrow morning to talk about whatever happens between the Cavs and the Atlanta Hawks tonight. So, as we get out of here on YouTube, do me a favor, hit that thumbs up button for me, click subscribe, and hit that notification bell. And I will be back tomorrow talking more about the Cleveland Cavaliers.
On Friday’s edition of Locked On Cavs, Danny Cunningham is joined by Brad Rowland of Locked On Hawks to look ahead to the Cavs game against Atlanta with a potential advancement in the NBA Cup on the line for Cleveland. Next, Danny fields listener questions about the team including what grade should the group be given through the first quarter of the season.
Check out Danny’s Substack, The Inside Shot: https://theinsideshot.substack.com/
Email the show: LOCavsmailbag@gmail.com
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