{"id":535987,"date":"2026-01-14T12:28:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T12:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/535987\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T12:28:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T12:28:37","slug":"3-things-to-watch-for-in-cavs-at-76ers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/535987\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things to watch for in Cavs at 76ers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> are in Philadelphia for the first of two games against the 76ers. They beat Philly earlier this season in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Hunter has fallen into a month-long slump. A stretch so bad that everyone on the roster is trying to figure out how they can support him and get Hunter back into a rhythm.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to shoot a career low from the field. Everyone is allowed to go through cold spells. Especially after setting career-highs the year before. But this prolonged slump has been far below what\u2019s acceptable or expected. Hunter is too talented to shoot 30% from downtown.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the rest of his game can\u2019t afford to be this reliant on his shooting. Hunter isn\u2019t defending, rebounding, or playmaking at a level that would make up for his poor shooting.<\/p>\n

The Cavs really need him to get it together, even if it\u2019s only one step at a time.<\/p>\n

The Utah Jazz came into Cleveland and stunned the Cavs on Monday. This is in large part due to the Jazz routinely walking to the rim and spraying it back out to the perimeter.<\/p>\n

Cleveland has fallen to 24th in defensive rating since December 15. A mark that\u2019s staggeringly bad for a team featuring two elite rim protectors in Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.<\/p>\n

The problem has been at the point of attack. Cleveland isn\u2019t offering enough resistance on the perimeter \u2014 and they aren\u2019t successfully rotating back out to the three-point line when they give up penetration. This has to change.<\/p>\n

The Casv have one clear advantage in this game. And it\u2019s that Joel Embiid shouldn\u2019t be able to defend their pick-and-roll.<\/p>\n

Embiid has sadly fallen a long way since being an athletic seven-footer. He\u2019s now more vulnerable than ever from a mobility standpoint. That means Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell should be able to torch him in pick-and-roll, either shooting over the drop or burning him at the level of the screen.<\/p>\n

Mobley and Allen should have an advantage, as well. Setting firm screens and rolling hard to the rim could get them enough room for easy opportunities in the paint.<\/p>\n

If the Cavs want to get back on track, they\u2019ll have to win this matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers are in Philadelphia for the first of two games against the 76ers. They beat Philly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,64205,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-535987","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-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers-discussion","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115893456369905309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535987","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=535987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}