Three Things NBA Preview: Cleveland Cavaliers
As I detailed a couple weeks ago, I’m once again re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2025-26 campaign.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows:
- Sept. 1-5: Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR)
- Sept. 8-12: Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL)
- Sept. 15-19: Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS)
- Sept. 22-26: Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC)
- Sept. 29-Oct. 3: Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA)
- Oct. 6-10: Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS)
So without further ado, let's get to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were summarily sent packing in the second round of the playoffs by the eventual Eastern Conference champion Pacers.
Minutes, managed
The Cavaliers were one of the most aggressively minutes-managed teams in the league last season. As I wrote after they were eliminated from the playoffs:
In the podcast I did with Mo Dakhil after Game 1 (please subscribe!), I criticized Cleveland's rotations after Mitchell played only 34 minutes and Mobley played just 36 in what was a one-possession game heading into the fourth quarter. I did the same after Mitchell again played 36 minutes in a 1-point Game 2 loss where he was +13 when on the floor. Kenny Atkinson talked about how guys were gassed even at those minute totals, and boy did he look right by the end of the series. Whether it was injuries or the physicality with which the Pacers play, the Cavs were dragging ass through Games 4 and 5 and their best players did not look like they could handle 40-plus minutes of playing time. Nobody averaged more than 31.4 minutes per game during the regular season — some of which obviously had to do with the fact that the Cavs were 64-18 and many games were not competitive in the fourth quarter — and maybe that's something that needs to change a bit next season. Maybe they should be up in the 33-34 minutes a night range next year so that when they have to ramp up, it's not as big of a change.
I went back and looked at the number of high-minute games each team had throughout the regular season and found that the Cavs gave a player 40-plus minutes in a non-overtime game just once all season. (Donovan Mitchell did it one time.) That was tied for the fewest number of high-minute games among all NBA teams, with only the Warriors and Jazz also handing out just one.
I am normally a big proponent of managing minutes during the regular season, especially for teams that know they're going to the playoffs and whose season's success or failure will be determined by whether they get to the conference finals or beyond.
But I think it's possible that the Cavs did go a bit too far in managing the minutes last year, as evidenced by the aforementioned breakdown in that series against the Pacers. Their top five players in minutes per game averaged almost three fewer minutes per game (28.36) during the regular season than did those on Indiana (31.04), and it seemed to show on the court.
So maybe, like I suggested in the Have A Good Summer post, we see guys like Mitchell and Darius Garland and Evan Mobley play 33-34 minutes per game this season, and creep up into the high-30s or maybe even 40s on occasion in important games.
