CLEVELAND, Ohio — Greatness isn’t a sometimes thing.

Following a Game 1 showing that was not at all representative of the player he has become — a first-time All-Star and most likely an All-NBA selection — Cavs youngster Evan Mobley was determined to atone.

So, he went to work.

For the two days between games, a sweat-soaked Mobley was the last player to leave the practice court, hoisting countless shots — 3-pointers, touch shots around the rim, pick-and-pop jumpers and simulated post moves — alongside assistant coach Jordan Ott, who has been overseeing Mobley’s evolution since Ott arrived from Los Angeles with a reputation as a player development ace.

One source who spoke with cleveland.com prior to Wednesday characterized Mobley as “angry” about the playoff opener — even though it was a Cleveland rout.

The 23-year-old phenom took that out on the Heat.

“He was great. I thought he met the moment,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said following Wednesday’s 121-112 Game 2 escape. “I knew. I saw him working on his game these last two days. He worked twice as much as anybody. He’s got that something. He’s desperate to be great.”

Expectation is a star’s burden. Mobley is learning that.

Playing with more ferocity and focus, Mobley finished with 20 points on 7 of 10 shooting and 3 of 6 from 3-point range to go with six rebounds in 34 minutes while also neutralizing All-Star counterpart Bam Adebayo. Cleveland leads the best-of-seven series 2-0. Teams with home-court advantage who go up 2-0 in the first round are 94-5.

“Just trying to get better, just trying to be as prepared as possible for whatever’s thrown at me,” Mobley said humbly. “I feel like I played pretty good, knocked down the shots I wanted to. Missed a few, but overall I feel like I made the right plays most of the time.

“I didn’t really feel like they guarded me much different. I just feel like the ball movement just happened to go to me and I was knocking my shots down. That’s just how the game goes sometimes. Sometimes they find you. Sometimes it doesn’t. Just got to play the right way every time.”

With Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Ty Jerome carrying most of the offensive load in Game 1, repeatedly attacking Miami’s drop coverage and hunting weak link Tyler Herro, there wasn’t much room for Mobley.

An essential afterthought on offense, trying to pick his spots and avoid disrupting the flow, he finished with just nine points — the fourth single-digit scoring game in his 19-game playoff career and just the ninth time doing that all season.

“When you have an All-NBA, Defensive Player of the Year willing to take a backseat in the first round of a playoff game, that’s big time,” Mitchell said. “I think we kind of looked at it as, ‘Oh, he wasn’t aggressive.’ He was just like, ‘Y’all are rolling, so go.’ That speaks to the person and the player he is. This is who he’s going to be. But for him, he’s always being unselfish. Then when his time comes, being ready for it, and this is just the first of many games of him continuing to be dominant for us.”

So, could Mitchell sense something different within Mobley going into Game 2?

“I see nothing different because he’s been doing this all year,” Mitchell explained. “He takes his shirt off, gets to work, acts 250 pounds. You see a look in his eyes and it’s really the first initial bucket. Like, ‘Alright, he’s going.’ You can kind of tell. My biggest thing is just the mindset. You can kind of see it. He just knew. Game 1 wasn’t even a bad game. It was just him allowing others — same way we’ve done all year as a group — to flourish. So, for him to come in and set that tone is big time.”

On Cleveland’s third offensive possession, Mobley sprinted across halfcourt, took a pass from Max Strus, dribbled from the top of the key, plowed through helpless rookie Kel’el Ware, pivoted into the lane and dunked with two hands. Mitchell pumped his fist. Garland roared and flexed.

It was a tone-setting play. And Mobley did it at both ends.

His primary defensive assignment was Adebayo, limiting him to 11 points on 3 of 9 shooting.

According to NBA.com matchup data, Mobley has spent double the amount of any Cavalier guarding Adebayo. In those 17-plus matchup minutes, Mobley has held Adebayo to 15 total points on 5 of 14 shooting.

Just another illustration of Mobley’s possession-to-possession impact — and why he could be named Defensive Player of the Year Thursday night.

One of three finalists for the prestigious honor, Mobley will receive a $45 million bonus over the next five years if he wins the award and triggers escalators in his contract that will take the guarantee from $224 million to $269 million. That’s part of the maximum contract he signed — as if he needed any more desire to win it.

“He’s done it all year in many different fashions,” Mitchell said of Mobley. “He’s done it on guards, bigs, wings. He’s our anchor down there, him and J.A. I don’t know what the numbers are. I really could care less because y’all saw when he didn’t play this year, we lost games, so you look at his impact to our group and I’ve been telling y’all all year this is the worst he’s going to be. And if the worst is All-NBA and Defensive Player of the Year, we’ve got something special.

“This will be his first award. Him and Victor (Wembanyama) will be battling it out for years. Bam’s a high-level player. I know Bam. Bam’s gonna be aggressive next game and he’s going to be ready. It’s going to be a great challenge for Ev and for us as a group. But obviously with Ev out there, it changes us completely and takes us to where we’ve been all year.”

The next step is doing it consistently — on offense and defense, for all 48 minutes.

Despite his two-way dominance through the first three quarters Wednesday, Mobley vanished again in the fourth — shades of Game 1.

He didn’t attempt a shot in nine fourth-quarter minutes. His only two points came at the free-throw line — a pair of clutch ones that helped thwart Miami’s gutsy rally in which it trimmed a one-time 19-point Cavaliers lead to just two with less than five minutes remaining, causing tension and anxiety in the arena and requiring Mitchell’s late-game heroics to seal a win that seemed certain.

“End of the game, it’s a little bit … it’s a guard, it’s a perimeter game,” Atkinson explained when discussing Mobley’s lack of involvement. “Sometimes he gets lost in the mix a little bit. But I thought he was outstanding on both ends tonight.”

Game 2 had a little bit of everything, including the kind of playoff pressure that this team is starting to savor. As Miami mounted a furious comeback and the game felt like it was slipping away, the Cavs didn’t overreact. They remained poised and unbothered, leaning into Mitchell’s shot-making brilliance, never letting the Heat reclaim the lead.

Atkinson said he was “proud” of the group’s composure. Mitchell spoke about benefitting from a postseason matchup that came down to crunch time.

“We wouldn’t want it any other way. We wouldn’t want to come down to Miami winning by 20 again. This is what it’s gonna be,” Mitchell said. “We responded. We had to really find a way as a group. I think for myself, I’ve seen so many different things in different moments, positive and negative in the fourth quarter, so for me, it doesn’t do anything for you to get worried or get high or get low. You have to stay even keel. That’s my job as the leader for the group.”

In many ways, Wednesday showed why the Cavs are championship contenders and why there are still plenty of doubters. It showed the good and bad. It showed why they are the superior team in this series. It showed why having a superstar capable of rescuing a team from doom remains a springtime necessity. It showed the mental toughness built through two years of playoff failure. It showed where the Cavs need to improve ahead of Game 3.

And it showed that this version of Mobley — the determined, confident, physical, intense, two-way force — helps elevate the Cavs to a different level.