Kendrick Perkins & Brian Windhorst on Where the Cavaliers Stand in the East – Sports4CLE, 2/16/24
Cavs and the rest of the NBA on the All-Star break Kendrick Perkins NBA Today crew talks about the Cavs and where they feel they stand in the Eastern Conference Donovan Mitchell he scored 30 points the Cavs rallied from down 17 to beat the Bulls Cleveland is now 18 and
Two in their last 20 games so perk are we sleeping on the Cavs playoffs Outlook no the simple fact that we’ve seen this movie before with a Donovan Mitchell lead team we we watch Donovan Mitchell and Utah have great regular seasons and all of us sudden they dropped the ball
In the postseason so we got to see this in the postseason with well Donovan Mitchell would agree with you so let’s take a look at the standings right heading into Allstar break the Eastern Conference it looks like this plenty of teams sort of bunched up after the
Celtics the top the standings the Cavs they’ve made a furious push ahead of the Bucks the Knicks the 76ers and we know the Celtics are all the way at the head of the pack right now you have a couple of teams that are sort of lurking the
Knicks we talked about their injuries a little bit but as you look at the second half of the Season Brian your biggest question is what yeah obviously there’s a fight for the two seed because that pack of teams is pretty close together talent wise and you want to get the home
Court and you want to get the playin team in the first round and then I think it’s going to be a fight for the three seed because if you’re the four seed that means you got to face Boston probably in that second round you want to avoid the Celtics who are playing
Brilliant basketball right now Tom that that’s um a fair assessment but you know relative to Donovan Mitchell and the Cavs I I don’t know about you I think the additions of Max stru and George Nang they had a physicality and an intensity that I think was missing from this team in the
Playoffs so I I I’m a little more optimistic about what version of the Cavs you’ll see come playoff time this year yeah I’ll go a little further than that Dave I think the way Jared Allen has really upped his game and obviously you know the Moy injury had a lot to do
With that but I think you know the way Allen has really has really stepped up and become more physical I mean it’s pretty well documented what happened to the Cavs last year in the playoffs you know they they just got they got beaten up by the Knicks it was um it was not
Pretty and I know that sat with a lot of those guys um during the off season and it sat with JB bicker staff and and I think to your point Dave they did a nice job of going out and get a couple guys that you know are No Nonsense players I
Think both stru and yangang you know have that background and and you know as we as we learned early in in uh training camp this year you know they’re as talkative as anybody on this team too it’s a very it’s a young team it’s kind
Of a quiet team in some ways and I think that infusion of energy and a little bit of toughness has gone a long way but listen it’s at the end of the day this is about Donovan Mitchell and this is about how far he wants to take this team
I think and this is not a knock on Darius Garland or Evan Mobley by any means but I think we saw when those guys were out what Donan Mitchell can do and he you know he has played as well as he’s played in his entire career he’s
You know he’s averaging 28 points a game you know six assists five rebounds two steals he’s had career highs in every single department and I think I think he genuinely seems to be happy here I think he realizes that um you know last year was embarrassing to to both him and the
Cavs the way they played in the postseason but I can’t get too far away from what Perkins said you know it is all about what this team does in the postseason and I think you know not only getting to the playoffs this year but getting out of one round and maybe even
In two rounds now is what the bar should be for this Cavs team yeah and to your point you know Donovan Mitchell with the ball in his hands he he was I mean he he’s Elite you saw he minus two of your three best players you saw just how good he is
Dave Bacon and Tom Withers respond to what the NBA Today crew had to say about the Cavaliers at the All-Star Break.
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