{"id":489895,"date":"2025-12-23T00:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/489895\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:24:13","slug":"kenny-atkinson-is-buying-the-cavs-dip-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/489895\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny Atkinson is \u2018buying\u2019 the Cavs\u2019 dip"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> have been struggling this season, especially over the last few weeks. They\u2019ve lost three straight, four out of five, and five of their previous seven games.<\/p>\n

Injuries are a significant factor in this. And even though they don\u2019t explain everything that is currently wrong with this team, it\u2019s something that can\u2019t be ignored, according to head coach Kenny Atkinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe healthier we get, the better we\u2019re going to be,\u201d Atkinson said before Monday\u2019s game against the Charlotte Hornets<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from pretty much the healthiest team in the league to pretty much [the most injured] team in the league. [These are] facts. Sixteen different starting lineups\u2026I believe tied for first in most different starting lineups.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. The above shirt can be bought at the link HERE<\/a>. Homage\u2019s entire Ohio State collection can be found HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have only had four games this season where their entire core of Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen have all been available. And when they\u2019ve all been on the court together, the team has been quite good, outscoring opponents by 25.9 points<\/a> per 100 possessions (100th percentile<\/a>). What you want to make of that sample size is up to you, given they\u2019ve played less than 60 minutes together. Then again, this team\u2019s whole problem is that they can\u2019t stay on the court together.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the returning players are still trying to find their form. That goes for Garland, who turned in his best game of the season on Friday<\/a>. He scored a season-high 35 points and eight assists in the loss to the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis evolution is to be expected,\u201d Atkinson said about Garland\u2019s recent good game. \u201c[He was] out for four months, no offseason, no training camp. [He] obviously didn\u2019t start the season. The ramp-up has been slow. So we knew there was going to be a runway.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ramp-up has indeed been slow. Garland is shooting 49% at the rim<\/a> (15th percentile<\/a>) and a career low from three (32.2%). His turnovers are also up from last year, while his assists are down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the quarterback that comes back from that injury,\u201d Atkinson said, \u201c[how he\u2019s moving] is what you\u2019re looking at. The accuracy becomes better as they get healthier. I just give the kid a ton of credit. I think he\u2019s playing through some stuff, and this is part of that injury. But he\u2019s been a soldier. It\u2019s great to see him have a DG game the other night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting Garland back to his All-Star self would go a long way in helping the Cavs turn it around this season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to get frustrated with this recent stretch for the Cavs. Their losses \u2014 especially their latest ones to struggling teams \u2014 point to issues that are more than just injury-related. At the same time, it\u2019s understandable that Atkinson is preaching the need for patience.<\/p>\n

Even though things have gone about as poorly as one could expect for the Cavaliers this season, they still find themselves one game over .500. They haven\u2019t buried themselves yet in the standings and are more than capable of turning things around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you guys asked me, \u2018Well, what kind of grade [would you give for the season], I gave a B,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cI\u2019m buying this dip because I know what we\u2019ve got coming. And I love our leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers have been struggling this season, especially over the last few weeks. They\u2019ve lost three straight,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,147,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-489895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cavs-news","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115766039149863878","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489895","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=489895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}