CLEVELAND — The Cavaliers won’t start this season with a record of 15-0 like they did last year — they are 7-3 — but coach Kenny Atkinson and his staff are flirting with another version of 15-0.
Through the Cavs’ 128-122 win over the Chicago Bulls on Nov. 8 at Rocket Arena, Atkinson had gone 10-0 on coach’s challenges this season.
Atkinson explained he relies on Cavs assistant coach Andrew Olson to decide whether to challenge a call. Olson served as the team’s shooting coach the past seven seasons and received a promotion last month, according to the Cavs media guide. Now Olson is the man with his eyes on a screen, studying replays in real time. In other words, he’s the secret weapon to the Cavs reaching a perfect 10 on challenges through their first 10 games.
“I hope he’s not going to come to my office looking for a bonus,” Atkinson quipped.
The Cavs entered their game against the Bulls 9-0 on challenges and tied with the Phoenix Suns for the most challenges won in the NBA this season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Then the Cavs moved into the league lead when they won their 10th challenge with 2:16 left in the first quarter against the Bulls (6-3).
It happened when Cavs center Jarrett Allen blocked a shot by Bulls forward Matas Buzelis, causing the ball to go out of bounds. The officiating crew ruled Allen had touched the ball last, but it actually deflected off Buzelis before going out. After the Cavs’ challenge triggered a replay review, the call was overturned, and Cleveland took possession.
“We cheer on the guy that makes the final call to challenge it,” said Allen, who scored 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field against the Bulls. “It’s just a big uplifting thing that we just go off of and build off of.
“Credit to [our coaches for] staying levelheaded. There’s a lot of emotion in this game. There’s a lot of, ‘I feel like I have the right call. I’m going to make the right move.’ And sometimes it just doesn’t work out. But they’re levelheaded.”
The reigning NBA Coach of the Year, Atkinson described issuing a challenge as a collaborative process.
“Some of it’s feel,” Atkinson said. “I do look at [Olson] and look behind the bench. And then there’s the players. I think we’ve won two on just player challenge, where the players have just said, ‘No, challenge this one.’
“When they do that, with our team, I can trust pretty much every guy. I’ll challenge it. And then I think I had one where it was just me feeling it, like I am challenging this one just because I felt it and I saw it. So, it’s kind of multifaceted.”
Last season, the Cavs won 43 of their 64 challenges for a 67% success rate. So far this season, Olson has led the way to 100%.
“He looks at the replay, and they have all these different camera angles available, so he can look at different camera angles,” Atkinson said. “Now, he’s got to make a split-second decision, so [he] usually looks at one replay. If he’s got time, two.
“But I think there was one [Nov. 7 at the Washington Wizards] he wanted to challenge, and I was like a half a second too late, and they’d already gotten the ball in. So there’s that, if you wait too long. The referees are usually pretty good about allowing you a little grace period. But [in Washington], they weren’t.”
Regardless, 15-0 remains a possibility for the Cavs, albeit a different type of 15-0.
Nate Ulrich is the sports columnist of the Akron Beacon Journal and a sports features writer. Nate can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.