{"id":484732,"date":"2025-12-20T12:30:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T12:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/484732\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T12:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T12:30:34","slug":"9-takeaways-from-cavs-136-125-loss-to-bulls-darius-garland-takes-positive-step-forward-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/484732\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Takeaways from Cavs 136-125 loss to Bulls: Darius Garland takes positive step forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> dropped their second-straight game<\/a> to the Chicago Bulls on Friday, 136-125<\/a>. It\u2019s their third loss in a row and their fifth in their last seven.<\/p>\n

Things are not going well.<\/p>\n

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Inconsistent performances from their top remaining players have been one of the key contributing factors to the team\u2019s struggles. Cleveland was without its two All-NBA players, Donovan Mitchell (illness) and Evan Mobley (calf). That meant that their remaining core pieces needed to step up in their absence.<\/p>\n

Darius Garland did. He turned in his best performance of the season. Jarrett Allen and De\u2019Andre Hunter once again didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Allen\u2019s play remains inconsistent at best. There\u2019ve been stretches, like the third quarter, where he\u2019s featured in the offense and makes a meaningful impact. Ten of his 14 points came in the third quarter when the Cavs briefly retook the momentum and the lead. But his impact seemed nearly non-existent throughout the other three quarters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing when Allen takes a backseat when he\u2019s the fourth or fifth option. Not having a consistent impact when he\u2019s one of the few remaining core players during this tough stretch is inexcusable. Allen needs to get himself more involved. And his teammates need to look to give him the ball more when they can.<\/p>\n

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Hunter remains completely lost. Last season was the best of his career by a wide margin. A regression wasn\u2019t out of the question. What we\u2019ve seen so far this season couldn\u2019t have been anticipated.<\/p>\n

Through 25 games, Hunter is shooting a career low from three (30.3%) and is having his second-worst shooting season from the floor (42.5%), which is only slightly better than what he put up as a rookie.<\/p>\n

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This has bled into other parts of his game. Hunter has taken a meaningful step back defensively as he\u2019s getting beaten consistently in transition and through backdoor cuts off-ball.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Hunter finished with just 11 points on 3-10 shooting while being a team-worst -11.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough to put together functional lineups around Hunter when he\u2019s playing this poorly. And the Cavs don\u2019t have enough available talent elsewhere on the roster to not afford to keep running him out there. The only hope is that he breaks out of this prolonged slump sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have wrongly prioritized offensive rebounding this season. Head coach Kenny Atkinson has repeatedly mentioned that he wants his team to win the possession game. The thought process is that if you have more shot attempts than your opponent, you\u2019ll have a better offense and a wider margin of error. Grabbing missed shots is one of the best ways to gain extra possessions.<\/p>\n

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There is a downside to doing this. Sending extra players to grab offensive rebounds leaves you susceptible to getting beaten in transition if you don\u2019t get the rebound. Every additional player that crashes the glass is just another one that isn\u2019t getting back on the defensive end.<\/p>\n

So far, the juice hasn\u2019t been worth the squeeze.<\/p>\n

Cleveland is 14th in second-chance points per 100 possessions<\/a>. Conversely, they\u2019ve been torched in transition. They were 24th in points given up in transition after opponent defensive rebounds per 100 possessions<\/a> going into Friday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

This issue was on full display again. The Bulls were able to limit the Cavs on the offensive glass while also using it as an opportunity to get out and run in transition. And in the end, Cleveland still lost the second-chance points battle 20-18.<\/p>\n

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This doesn\u2019t just affect missed shots, either.<\/p>\n

The Cavs once again gave up an easy basket after a nice Tyrese Proctor layup. This happened because two players were crashing for the miss, Proctor was driving in the paint to make the basket, Hunter got outhustled down the court, and Lonzo Ball didn\u2019t do much to make up for his teammates.<\/p>\n

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The Cavs have an overall energy and effort problem. Unnecessarily crashing the offensive glass and giving your opponent unneeded transition opportunities as well magnifies the issue.<\/p>\n

Teams that get out and run \u2014 like the Bulls \u2014 continue to give the Cavs issues.<\/p>\n

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Atkinson admitted afterward that they don\u2019t do well against teams that push the pace. The only issue is, every team is doing that against them now, after they showed they can\u2019t stop it against the Indiana Pacers in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The concerning part about this is that the Cavs saw this coming. They talked about needing to get in better shape during the off-season and training camp<\/a>. If they haven\u2019t found a solution to their poor transition defense after having seven months to do so, there aren\u2019t a whole lot of reasons to believe they\u2019ll find it now.<\/p>\n

As bad as the transition defense was, the half-court defense was the bigger problem against Chicago. The Bulls registered a 115.1 offensive rating in the half-court<\/a> (91st percentile<\/a>). They were able to easily get into the paint, which led to clean looks at the basket and open looks from the perimeter.<\/p>\n

The Cavs haven\u2019t been a defensive-first team under Atkinson. That\u2019s fine. But you can\u2019t show that little resistance in the halfcourt to a mediocre offense like the Bulls and expect to win.<\/p>\n

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Second quarters continue to bite the Cavs. They completely let go of the rope in the second frame as they were outscored 34-23. That turned what was a tie game into a double-digit deficit.<\/p>\n

This has been a recurring theme this season. Cleveland has now been outscored by an average of 3.3 points per second quarter<\/a>. That\u2019s the worst mark in the league.<\/p>\n

Injuries are a big reason why that\u2019s so. Most of the deep bench lineups see the floor in the second quarter. Even so, they need to be much better than this. There\u2019s never an excuse to be the worst in the league at something when you have this talented a roster.<\/p>\n

Garland putting together his most complete offensive game was one of the few bright spots. He looked more like himself than he has at any point since his initial toe injury last spring as he poured in 35 points and eight assists.<\/p>\n

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It isn\u2019t a coincidence that Garland\u2019s strong scoring game coincided with the Cavs\u2019 offense putting up 125 points. His threat as an on-and-off-ball scorer anywhere in the halfcourt, combined with how he can create angles for his teammates, just makes life easier for everyone.<\/p>\n

His toe has slowed him down so far this season. Garland said afterward that he\u2019s rediscovering his rhythm back and is feeling better than when he first came back. That\u2019s encouraging for a team that desperately needs something positive right now.<\/p>\n

Garland isn\u2019t the best player on the team, but he is the most valuable offensive piece given how his game unlocks everyone else on the court. The Cavs can\u2019t play the style they want to without him at his best. Friday\u2019s showing provided reason to believe that he can get back up to his multi-time All-Star level play again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Cavaliers dropped their second-straight game to the Chicago Bulls on Friday, 136-125. It\u2019s their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,920,919,329,3824,193,791,864,576,1235,126,1178,3627,4442,6,1038],"class_list":{"0":"post-484732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bulls","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-bulls","12":"tag-chicagobulls","13":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","14":"tag-darius-garland","15":"tag-donovan-mitchell","16":"tag-evan-mobley","17":"tag-hunter","18":"tag-indiana-pacers","19":"tag-jarrett-allen","20":"tag-kenny-atkinson","21":"tag-lonzo-ball","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-tyrese-proctor"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115751907750486644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}