The Cleveland Cavaliers won 64 games last year and largely cruised to the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 playoff seed. However, the Cavs’ season crashed down in the Eastern Conference semifinals because of injuries and the sensational play of a tenacious Indiana Pacers team led by clutch superstar Tyrese Haliburton.
Understandably, the Cavs’ shortened playoff run didn’t sit well with six-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell, who said missing the Finals “kept me up at night” in his diary for Andscape, as told to Marc J. Spears.
“What has kept me up at night is honestly not just making the Finals. You could say the conference finals, but if we lost in the conference finals the same way we lost in the second round, 4-1 or got swept, or if we lost 3-2, I wouldn’t be sitting here smiling and happy about it. I’d still be up late at night thinking about, ‘Man, we’re one game away or one series away.’ The fact that I haven’t made it to the Finals and won a ring is really the only thing that I’m like, ‘Man, that’s that hurdle.’ And I do believe my time is now.”
Mitchell made the Western Conference semifinals once with the Utah Jazz and the Eastern Conference semifinals twice with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Last year certainly looked like his best chance to make the conference finals (and NBA Finals), but it wasn’t meant to be.
On paper, though, the Cavs might be the strongest team in the conference. Cleveland has the third-best odds to win the NBA Finals this year at 7-1, per FanDuel Sportsbook. That’s ahead of every other Eastern Conference team, with the 12-1 New York Knicks leading the rest of the pack.
Mitchell said he believes his “time is now.” He very well may be right, and on paper, the Cavs do look like the frontrunners for the Eastern crown alongside the Knicks. We’ll find out shortly how this season goes, with the Cavs beginning the season at New York on Wednesday.