Brian Windhorst Gives His Thoughts on the Cavaliers Turnaround This Season – Sports4CLE, 1/19/24

Brian Windhorst Gives His Thoughts on the Cavaliers Turnaround This Season – Sports4CLE, 1/19/24

Ryan Windor um National NBA reporter uh talking about Cav’s recent turnaround this again uh from five good minutes with Wendy they’ve gone from being a bottom seven or eight offense to being a top 10 offense when you look at this last 15 or so games they’ve been top

Five or six and so they are much better equipped to compete with a team like the bucks now than they were three four weeks ago the the big thing to me is um when you look at it happened they spread the flooor they take a lot of Threes

They really share the ball it’s really remarkable to watch how they um they really look for each other and they’re really focusing on moving away from the ball you can tell that they’re they’ve sort of you know understood and sort of bred into their thinking that they’ll

Get the ball if they work hard away from it and that’s not something that they were doing regularly over the last year they had a lot of success uccess using their guards as the initiators but this team has really learned how to play this way and it’s I think one of the big

Reasons is because they’ve had a consistent lineup for the last month it hasn’t been with the best players they’ve had on the roster but they have put out generally the same seven or eight guys and they’ve had a game plan they’ve followed it and that has enabled

Them to really unlock a lot of things so Sam the the question becomes how do you how do you keep the the floor spread and incorporate Darius Garland that’s easy to do but that’s not really Evan Mobley Evan Mobley is a guy that you know is is

An inside presence and um and who do you think loses minutes you got to you got to find a way to about 60 Minutes of playing time that are probably going uh away from guys that have had it the last 10 15 games yeah that’s you know look it’s

It’s the question of the season and uh the first sign of trouble I could tell you social media will blow up but uh I think it’s going to be you know it’s going to once the nice thing is it doesn’t sound like Garland or Moy are

Going to come back the exact same game you know so you’re gonna have some time to integrate Garland who’s supposed to be back from his jaw injury first and then Mobly a little bit after that so you’ll have some time to integrate these guys again slowly I don’t think it’s

Going to be that big of a deal it’s not like they’re new to the team or the franchise or any of that uh it’s it’s these are guys who have done this before they played together in the playoffs last season so yeah it’s going to take a

Little bit of a a rotation tweak uh and and I don’t want to predict who might lose minutes but you know the you you think and figure that usually the rotations eight eight guys maybe n a ninth guy gets you know 10 minutes or so

Uh but it it’s you know as you get geared up for the playf off you’re you’re really Whitted down to seven eight guys um obviously it’s really going to depend on you know the Cavs are a heavy uh analytics team as most NBA teams are it’s really going to depend on what the

Analytics and data shows who should be out there and all that but obviously you’re gonna have your starting five who you know you’re gonna have Carris lebert you’re gonna have Isaac uro I’m assuming you’re going to have Dean Wade so that leaves you know Sam Merill and Tristan

Thompson probably on the outside looking in a little bit Yeah and Merill is a guy that the way I believe he’s over 50% from three-point range and that’s that’s kind of tied to the success they’ve had so there’s a you know how do you how do you swing

That yeah you have to I I think you have to keep him in the rotation again even when he’s not shooting just his presence is creating a lot of opportunities for everybody else so I’m sure that’s something that you know if we see it the Cavaliers certainly see it so I’m sure

That’s going to be something uh to consider is that Merill remains in the rotation when everybody’s healthy

Dave Bacon and Sam Amico respond to what Brian Windhorst had to say on the Cavaliers’ turnaround this season and discuss how they adjust when Darius Garland and Evan Mobley return.

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