An NBA season can end in many ways.
For about half of the league, the season ends without ever really beginning. Teams that finish in the lottery or lose in the Play-In Tournament never had much on the line.
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Losing in the actual playoffs can vary. A hard-fought exit for a young team like the Toronto Raptors is still encouraging. A brutal 3-1 collapse from a title contender in Boston is harrowing, but they have enough championship DNA to feel good about running it back.
But then, there are the teams that get humbled. The ones who have to swallow some reality pills.
It’s hard to feel good about anything that comes on the wrong side of a sweep, and that only gets worse the deeper you go in the postseason.
For the Cleveland Cavaliers, I’m not sure a clearer message could have been sent in the Eastern Conference Finals: This team isn’t good enough.
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Let’s start by adding context.
Getting this far is hard
Making it to the Eastern Conference Finals is an achievement. It’s not the ultimate goal, of course, but an accomplishment nonetheless. This was only the ninth time in 56 years that Cleveland made it to the final four. That means something.
It’s more impressive considering this team was put together on the fly. Darius Garland, De’Andre Hunter, and Lonzo Ball were all supposed to be key contributors to this team. All of which were shipped out in February, leaving the newcomers only a few weeks to acclimate themselves to Cleveland.
Teams that make a blockbuster move at the deadline rarely go deep into the playoffs. Inserting James Harden into the lineup and managing to go this far in the postseason is an anomaly. Again, that’s worth something.
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But it still wasn’t good enough.
The Cavs hit the ground running in round one. They surged to a 2-0 series lead over the Raptors, riding the momentum of Donovan Mitchell and James Harden. The two-shot creators looked ready to rewrite the narratives around their playoff shortcomings and hit no hitches in their first two playoff games together.
That didn’t last.
Mitchell and Harden hit a wall in Toronto. They struggled to generate quality offense without turning it over or relying entirely on the outside shot. This would prove to be the theme throughout the rest of the playoffs, causing them to play seven games against a Raptors team that was missing multiple starters and then later failing to close out a reeling Pistons team.
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“I tell you what didn’t help was losing those two Game 6’s,” said Kenny Atkinson. “I’ve been in this a long time, and you have to take advantage of those opportunities.”
Overcoming adversity and winning two Game 7s is encouraging. It’s a step forward for this squad. But it was also a sign that this team isn’t as close as they should be. Good teams don’t play with their food.
The Eastern Conference Finals confirmed that.
Shut Out by New York
The Cavs had to battle through two grueling seven-game series to get here. That begged the question, how much gas would they have left? The answer, after blowing a 22-point lead in Game 1, was none.
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“We didn’t give ourselves a chance,” said Mitchell. “You can’t play with your food. We had an opportunity to close both [previous] series and give ourselves a rest.”
Cleveland jumped out to an early lead and then gradually played worse as the series went on. New York controlled every facet by the end, working harder, playing smarter, and providing solutions for anything the Cavs threw at them.
Conversely, the Cavs had nothing to fall back on. They aren’t an elite defense, falling outside of the top 10 this season for the first time since emerging as a playoff team. They also took a step backwards offensively, finishing the season 13th in three-point percentage after being a historically efficient squad last year.
That all rang true throughout the series as New York blew the doors off offensively while the Cavs failed to ever muster up a counter punch.
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“I don’t think we even had a chance, not giving our best punch,” said Harden. “We didn’t even play a quarter of Cavs basketball.”
They were defeated through and through. I’m not sure holding on in Game 1 would have made a meaningful difference.
“Go through the other games, and look at the totality of it, and they pretty much dominated,” said Aktinson.
New York has won 11 straight playoff games. They’ve done it with the greatest offensive stretch of basketball in postseason history. That didn’t happen just because they shot the cover off the ball (they did), but because they properly adjusted to every moment of adversity and had an identity to fall back on.
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Jalen Brunson and the Knicks don’t need three-pointers to beat you. They can get downhill, score from the mid-range, get to the free-throw line, or punish you with their passing. And while Brunson, for example, isn’t a great defender, the effort he puts into not being picked on was far greater than either Mitchell or Harden showed. That gives you a higher floor to work with.
That wasn’t true for Cleveland. The Cavs, who finished 13th in three-point percentage, launched over 150 three-pointers in this series and converted on fewer than 30% of them. That’s an indication that no one knows what this team is supposed to turn to when things get tough. They just kept firing away from deep, praying the results would change.
Again, how you end a season can tell you a lot.
The Cavs didn’t just get swept; they were run off their home floor in an elimination game. A night that was over almost as soon as the jump ball was thrown into the air. Championship-caliber teams don’t do that.
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Season Conclusion
This type of exit means more than Cleveland’s previous losses. They weren’t injured. They didn’t underperform against a team that’s going nowhere. They measured themselves up against a legit contender and found out they don’t even come close to meeting the mark.
The writing was on the wall for most of the season. Cleveland wore their weaknesses on their sleeve and stayed committed to a process that no longer matched the personnel on the roster. They never came close to finding the joy, pace, or unselfish ball movement that defined their success a year ago. That finally led to their end versus New York.
The individual talent on this roster allowed the Cavs to overachieve in many ways. They made it farther than most. But the cohesion and willingness to adapt are what made the Knicks a significantly better basketball team. You can’t fake what they had — and the Cavs clearly didn’t have it.
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Perhaps this is another stepping stone towards the end goal. That’s what the Cavs are hoping, anyway. Harden and Mitchell both ended their media availability by re-committing to the franchise and each other.
“I’m sorry for the city of Cleveland, for it to be like this in a sweep,” said Mitchell. “We have unfinished business. The city deserves a ring.”
It will take a whole lot of work to back that up.
