THE ONLY SIGHT more prevalent than the damp towels and discarded ankle tape strewn about the floor in the cramped visitors locker room at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday were the thousand-yard stares on the faces of the Cleveland Cavaliers following an unprecedented loss in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
The Cavs had led the hometown New York Knicks by 22 points with less than eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and lost by double digits, 115-104, at the end of overtime.
A shocking 44-11 run by the Knicks spoiled a series-opening upset bid by Cleveland, snapped the Cavs’ 27-0 record of leading by 20 points or more at any point in a game this season and represented the second-largest fourth-quarter collapse in NBA playoffs history (the Memphis Grizzlies blew a 24-point cushion against the LA Clippers in the first round in 2012).
Getting over the letdown is the latest challenge in a postseason full of them for Cleveland, which needed seven games to get past the Toronto Raptors in the first round (despite going up 2-0) and seven more to get past the Detroit Pistons in the second (despite leading 3-2 with Game 6 at home).
But it’s a challenge star Donovan Mitchell — who has taken the Cavs back to the conference finals for the first time since LeBron James led them to four straight from 2015-18 — relishes the chance to overcome.
“It has been worth it,” Mitchell told ESPN on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s Game 2 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN). “I would do it again in a heartbeat with this group, just because it’s been a pleasure to come into work while being able to deal with the ups and the downs.
“It’s not always the case to have such a great group while dealing with the playoff struggles … This group is great because we didn’t just come here to be like, ‘Hey! [We made it].’ You know what I’m saying? But we built to that point, right? I think I don’t know what that’s like four years ago. If we get to the conference four years ago, are we just excited to be there? I don’t know.”
Mitchell, 29, has shown a patience for the process that is rare for a seven-time All-Star still searching for his first ring. The Cavs organization has shown patience under president of basketball operations Koby Altman with a near decade-long rebuild since James left for Los Angeles. But now that Cleveland is knocking on the door for a title, how long will that patience last with this group if it doesn’t deliver?
AN HOUR BEFORE Game 1, in that same cramped visitors locker room at MSG, the Cavs players had been far more animated than they were postgame, with news quickly spreading that Jason Kidd had been let go as coach of the Dallas Mavericks.
Just two years ago, Kidd had coached the Mavs to their first NBA Finals appearance since 2011. Now, he was out of a job.
It was a reminder of the high-stakes nature of the series on which they were about to embark. Beat the Knicks, and the Cavs — who sputtered to a 17-16 start to the season — would complete an impressive turnaround and make the Finals a decade after that magical 2016 championship season. Lose, and they would have to not only suffer a second playoff exit in four seasons at the hands of New York, but have to grapple with an uncomfortable reality: After amassing the league’s third-most regular-season wins (215) over the past four seasons, Cleveland has only the sixth-most playoff victories to show for it, according to ESPN Research.
The teams above them in regular-season wins in that span — the Boston Celtics (238) and Oklahoma City Thunder (229) — have hoisted a Larry O’Brien Trophy, too.
Mitchell has done his part to get Cleveland to this point — even in the Game 1 letdown against New York, he had a team-high 29 points and six steals — but he sees his role as more than individual output. He takes responsibility for teammates such as center Evan Mobley and big man Jarrett Allen and forward Dean Wade playing their best, too.
“I don’t call it pressure, I call it expectations,” Mitchell said, who has made the playoffs all nine years of his career. “But ever since my second year in the league, really, that’s all I’ve dealt with is expectations. So it’s nothing foreign to me. I think my biggest thing has been getting the younger guys like JA, Evan … Dean … getting them to understand what the expectation is like. Getting them to understand why a three-game losing streak seems like the end of the world.
“Because now we’re at a point where you have so many vets and guys in JA and Ev and we’ve been through it so many times we’re like, ‘OK, we understand.’ But I think the biggest thing was, I knew what it was like. I knew not to trip, but you got to make sure the group feels it.”
Allen has contributed a couple of terrific Game 7s this postseason — 22 points and 19 rebounds against Toronto, 23 points and seven boards against Detroit — while Mobley has anchored the defense and grown as a playmaker (averaging a career postseason-best 4.1 assists), while Wade has become an important cog for the first unit (starting 12 out of the Cavs’ 15 playoff games, after starting in only one out of the nine he played in last spring).
“I think Donovan as a leader is all-inclusive,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson told ESPN. “And he’s a deferring leader. He defers to the group and gives everybody else credit, steps up when he needs to. It’s kind of like my speech in the locker room after the game in Detroit. Like, man, this guy when s— was 17-16, that was the dude that everybody looked to. Is he going to go sideways? Is he going to go south? Is he going to start questioning things? Is he going to start questioning what we’re doing? And he just stood above it all.”
Perhaps that’s because there was a foundation to stand on.
THE CAVS WENT through an organizational overhaul in 2018 when James left for a second time as a free agent.
“When LeBron left, we just fell flat on our faces because we just weren’t rooted in anything,” a team source told ESPN. “We weren’t rooted in anything foundational in terms of culture or team-building or player development.
“We were just rooted in the culture of LeBron.”
What followed were three painful seasons, going 60-159, before the climb began.
Altman, whose first year as general manager coincided with James’ last with the franchise, used the time to cement his philosophy for team-building, sources told ESPN. The Cavs would win again through player development, and through the collective spirit of finding players who looked at Cleveland as a preferred destination.
It took some time to settle in. Since Altman took over for his mentor, former Cavs GM David Griffin, Cleveland has cycled through the 10th-most rostered players of any team, according to ESPN Research.
1:39
How much blame does Kenny Atkinson deserve for Cavs’ loss?
The “Get Up” crew examines Kenny Atkinson’s role in the Cavaliers’ loss to the Knicks in Game 1.
“I think early on we were searching,” a Cavs team source told ESPN.
The voice of Andy Elisburg, the longtime Miami Heat senior vice president of basketball operations and GM, served as both a guidepost and a warning sign when Cleveland considered its rebuild.
“You’re in the wilderness,” the source said. “Andy Elisburg has this great quote: ‘Teams that go into the wilderness, it seems like a good idea at times, but if you never see yourself out of it, it’s really daunting.'”
They started to find their way back toward the path to contention in 2021. First in January, they traded for Allen, getting the future All-Star for a future late first-round pick and second-round pick. Then after having the fifth-worst record, they got lucky in the lottery and received the No. 3 pick, allowing them to draft the rangy, 6-11 Mobley. And then in August, they traded with the Chicago Bulls for Lauri Markkanen, who also would become an All-Star.
Those players, along with guards Collin Sexton and Darius Garland, whom they had already drafted, and Kevin Love, the lone holdover from the James era, helped them to a 44-38 record.
“The hardest part,” a Cavs team source told ESPN, “is when do you press go? Like, when do you want to really press go with a rebuild or with your assets?’ And it was that summer when we saw how good Evan was and how good our core three were: Darius, Jarrett and Evan.”
In September 2022, Altman was back in his hometown of New York City when he got word that the Knicks had extended R.J. Barrett, effectively ending their pursuit of another native New Yorker, Mitchell.
Altman pounced, putting together a trade to send Markkanen, Sexton and three unprotected first-round picks to land Mitchell.
And Cleveland took off from there.
“Four years without him, in the rebuild: one play-in game,” a team source said of Mitchell. “Four years with him: four playoff appearances, three second-round appearances, a conference finals appearance.”
IT WAS TIME to press go again in February.
Cleveland acquired former MVP James Harden from the LA Clippers for Garland, and Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroder from the Sacramento Kings for De’Andre Hunter.
“It’s what we needed,” Atkinson said. “We needed to change and that infusion is … I said it even before we won these two series. We’re a better team. I’ve been saying, ‘We’re a better team, we’re a better team, we’re a better team.’ And even though with James, it’s not perfect because we’ve only been together [for] two and a half months. …I’ll take the character and kind of toughness we added over that.”
Harden, who had 30 points in a Game 5 overtime win over Detroit, was part of the problem down the stretch in Game 1 against New York. Jalen Brunson shot 7-for-8 when guarded by Harden in the fourth quarter and OT.
“We’re literally figuring everything out on the fly, which is a good thing,” Harden said afterward. “And tonight was one of the feelings when it’s a bad thing. But we’ll watch film, get better and we’ve been really good at responding and coming back and bouncing back.”
How Harden performs the rest of the series could affect his contract this summer. He has a player option for next season worth $42.3 million, but he was acquired with both the Cavs and Harden’s camp interested in an extension, sources told ESPN.
Cleveland paid a luxury tax bill of $68.7 million for this year’s team, the most in the league and the first time owner Dan Gilbert has paid the tax since LeBron left.
Sources told ESPN that last season’s loss to the Indiana Pacers, spoiling a 64-win season, was devastating, with one saying it felt like “getting punched in the face.” It was then that they knew they needed that infusion.
Whatever happens against the Knicks — or in the Finals, should Cleveland advance — will inform the next wave of decisions.
The Cavs’ rebuild is over. They have found players who want to be in Cleveland and have developed players like Max Strus and Sam Merrill, along with their core.
The remaining goals for Altman, who is on his third extension since becoming GM and signed a multiyear deal after last season, sources told ESPN, is to build sustainable success and win championships — without relying on or planning for a third stint with James to make that happen.
“I’ve grown very fond of this organization because I’ve seen the steps toward winning both on and off the court and then it just feels peaceful,” Mitchell told ESPN. “It feels connected even through stressful times, even through last year’s loss [to Indiana]. Like, it was tough, but coming into this year it was like, ‘All right. Let’s do it.’
“When you’re all on one accord in that regard, it’s definitely easy. … Or easier.“
