{"id":727954,"date":"2026-05-07T09:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/727954\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T09:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:57:27","slug":"the-cavs-have-a-dean-wade-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/727954\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cavs have a Dean Wade problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> have played some of their best and ugliest basketball with Dean Wade on the court in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Offensively, the floor has looked far too cramped, as defenders can cheat away from Wade, making it difficult for Cleveland\u2019s backcourt to find driving lanes. Defensively, Wade has been their best player. He\u2019s made it difficult for Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes, and now Cade Cunningham to get to their spots on the floor. Limiting their offensive impact and the team\u2019s as a whole.<\/p>\n

On one hand, the Cavs can\u2019t live without Wade. On the other hand, they can\u2019t live with him.<\/p>\n

Wade is limited offensively. He\u2019s a good rebounder and a serviceable outside shooter, but those are the only skills he brings on that end.<\/p>\n

Things can fall apart when the outside shot isn\u2019t falling. Once he loses confidence, he becomes far too hesitant to take threes. This allows his defender to cheat off him entirely, disrupting the spacing on an already cramped court when he\u2019s playing alongside two centers in Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. This is one of the factors that has led to the high volume of turnovers<\/a> we\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

Below is a good example of that. Tobias Harris \u2014 his defender \u2014 is standing in the paint, even though Wade is on the wing. This gums up Donovan Mitchell\u2019s driving lane and forces an Evan Mobley three. Shots like that are wins for the defense every day of the week.<\/p>\n

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Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. You can also shop all of Homage\u2019s Cavs gear HERE<\/a>. The link to the 2016 championship shirt HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The issue isn\u2019t necessarily that Wade isn\u2019t a capable shooter. He\u2019s a career 36.7% outside shooter, which is good, even if he\u2019s run into a cold spell in the postseason. The problem is the lack of attempts.<\/p>\n

Wade is taking just 5.3 shots per playoff game in 25 minutes of play. This translates to a 9.5 usage rate<\/a>, which is the lowest for anyone in the playoffs at his position<\/a>. If you aren\u2019t a threat to beat the opponent with any facet of your offensive game, there\u2019s no point in actually covering you.<\/p>\n

The lack of shooting was an issue in the first-round series. This caused head coach Kenny Atkinson to start Max Strus \u2014 who\u2019s more than willing to take the outside shot \u2014 in Wade\u2019s place. This move helped the offense, as the Cavs have scored 6.2 more points per 100 possessions offensively<\/a> in the playoffs with Strus on the floor. However, it was still a net negative because of the defensive ramifications.<\/p>\n

Wade is the only Cavalier who has the size, strength, and speed to hang with premier wings in the league, which is important considering most contenders have elite wings. He does this extraordinarily well, which makes him the perfect player to guard Cunningham with.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a great example of what Wade brings as an individual defender. Here, he stays with Cunningham through a screen, remains connected on the drive, and uses his active hands to force a turnover.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t stop a player as skilled as Cunningham with one defender. It takes a team effort, but it\u2019s easier to pull off when you\u2019re strong at the point of attack.<\/p>\n

Cleveland made it difficult for Cunningham to catch the ball in Game 1, and once he did, they were funneling him toward the bigs.<\/p>\n

Wade executed that game plan well, as seen here. He makes Cunningham work for the ball, momentarily pokes it away, which disrupts the timing enough for Mobley to put a clean contest on the drive.<\/p>\n

Plays like this are why the Cavs are much better defensively with Wade on the floor. However, how much better they are points to a much wider issue.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have needed Wade to be on the floor in the postseason to be passable. Through eight games, they\u2019ve registered a dreadful 116.2 defensive rating<\/a> when he\u2019s on the bench (22nd percentile<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Playing Mobley and Allen together doesn\u2019t help those numbers; it actually makes it worse. The Cavs have a 134.1 defensive rating<\/a> (0th percentile<\/a>) when Mobley and Allen are playing without Wade in 84 possessions<\/a>. There\u2019s no situation you can win when the defense is that bad.<\/p>\n

The eye test backs this up. When there isn\u2019t someone who can easily stay in front of their opponent\u2019s best wings, the whole defense can get caught in rotation, leading to far too many openings to attack the basket and hit open threes.<\/p>\n

In the end, the Cavs are left at the mercy of whether Wade is hitting or even willing to take his outside shots.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers built the most expensive roster in the league, but have done so while allocating surprisingly little capital on the wing. They\u2019re overly reliant on an imperfect role player who has a somewhat limited offensive skillset. And have even more imperfect options to replace him if he doesn\u2019t have his outside shot going.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t how it should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers have played some of their best and ugliest basketball with Dean Wade on the court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,1236,1215,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":["post-727954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-basketball","tag-cavaliers","tag-cavs-analysis","tag-cavs-playoffs","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116532704397969494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727954","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=727954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}