INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — The Cavs’ injury list has expanded following their Game 1 Eastern Conference semifinals loss to the Indiana Pacers.
And coach Kenny Atkinson isn’t happy about it.
“Indiana deserved that. They outplayed us. They were the more physical team,” Atkinson admitted Monday afternoon following the team’s walkthrough at Cleveland Clinic Courts. “But I will say there were two plays in that game that, I don’t think they were dirty plays, but I think it passed a line of physicality. That line we’ve kind of been talking about where it became excessive.”
The first came around the eight-minute mark of the fourth quarter, as All-Star forward Evan Mobley took a pass in the paint, dribbled toward the middle and flipped in a mid-range jumphook — a play in which Mobley landed awkwardly on Myles Turner’s foot, rolling his left ankle and hobbling the remainder of the game.
“Turner contests his two-point shot, comes clearly under him and shooters need space to land,” Atkinson said. “He is pushed off balance in our opinion and tweaks his ankle pretty bad. I think you guys saw him limping the rest of the game. There was a big push to get him out. He wanted to stay in.”
Mobley finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds. He did not score, attempting just one shot, after that ankle injury.
The next play came seconds later, with reserve forward De’Andre Hunter pushing the ball in transition and blowing past Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton before attempting a soaring dunk that was blocked by Bennedict Mathurin.
Atkinson challenged the play, angrily demanding a review. The three-person officiating crew of Zach Zarba, Sean Wright and Gediminas Petraitis looked at it multiple times, from multiple angles, and stayed with the call on the floor — a clean block, out of bounds against Cleveland, as the ball landed on Hunter while lying on the baseline.
“I’m just in shock,” Atkinson said, reflecting on that non-call. “I guess I’ve gotta know the rules better. Maybe I don’t know the rules. I felt he got absolutely obliterated.”
Hunter, who immediately went back to the locker room for a quick examination, suffered a dislocated right thumb that he told cleveland.com needed to be popped back into place.
“It’s unfortunate for us,” said Atkinson, who has watched both replays countless times. “I don’t think this is on Indiana. I have so much respect for how they play. They’re hard-playing dudes. I think that’s on the referees. Maybe they were missed calls or maybe I’m misinterpreting the rules. But I have a problem when we got two of our best players doubtful for tomorrow’s game, it’s hard for me to get my head around that. There were no calls on either one.
“I haven’t talked about referees all year. I think the referees in this league are phenomenal and they do a great job, and that was a darn good crew that did last night, ton of respect for those guys. But for some reason, it bothers me that we’re dealing with this. At least there should be some repercussions in terms of making the call.”
During his rant, Atkinson used both “questionable” and “doubtful” to describe the playing status of both Mobley and Hunter. Given those designations are drastically different, and oftentimes predictive of whether a guy will play, Atkinson was asked to clarify.
“That’s semantics, right? Questionable is questionable. Whatever. Let’s put it in that,” Atkinson said. “To me, in my world, doubtful and questionable live in the same world. So maybe I’m using, I should use the official NBA kind of thing. … I’m not going to expand on it. Obviously, a real concern.”
Hunter said late Sunday night that he would be ready for Game 2. Mobley admitted he would need to see how his ankle responded to treatment before thinking about the possibility of missing a critical playoff game.
The official injury report will be released Monday evening.
Cleveland, trailing the best-of-seven series 0-1, was already shorthanded entering this matchup.
Point guard Darius Garland missed the final two games of Round One after re-aggravating a toe injury suffered late in the regular season. He was ruled out of the semifinal opener about 30 minutes before tipoff and his status for Tuesday is still uncertain.
“We just did shootaround today, so it was tough to really gauge kind of where he is,” Atkinson said of Garland. “So yeah, he’ll be questionable, too, for tomorrow.”
Suddenly, this playoff run has become a battle of attrition.
The Cavs are losing that, too.