What Cleveland Fans Can Expect From The New-Look Cavs
Training camp is over with, the NBA regular season is upon us and the Cleveland Cavaliers are preparing to open their 2023-24 campaign against the Brooklyn Nets on the road. Weeks of preparation and preseason reps have led to this point, and the games will finally begin to count in a pivotal year for the wine and gold that starts Wednesday night.
Everybody who was on this squad last season is eager to get the bad taste of the New York Knicks playoff series out of their mouths and start anew, while the fresh faces are optimistic they’ll fit like a glove with a talented core.
Changes to the team were aplenty. The Cavs addressed a lack of consistent shooting by bringing in a dangerous moving shooter in Max Strus and a lifetime 40-percent three-baller in Georges Niang. Depth was prioritized with the signings of Ty Jerome and Tristan Thompson. Even first-year talent has the building abuzz with two-way rookies Emoni Bates and Craig Porter Jr. joining the fold.
Last year’s version of Cleveland was built around its identity being a defensive juggernaut. The offense was inconsistent at times and pick-and-roll reliant with isolation as essentially the only other wrinkle, holding the slowest pace in the NBA.
This time around, with more options alongside the Core Four of Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, the Cavs are adamant on picking things up and moving faster.
“I’m hopeful the ball movement is there and people can see it,” Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said Monday after practice. “[We] want to have a thrust and an explosiveness from the defensive end to the offensive end. But there’s a feel when that ball is just zipping around and defenses continue to have to chase that we want to create offensively.
“And that’s something our fans can see and that leads to more open shots, whether they be threes or driving closeouts and getting layups. But we want our offense to be more dynamic and then we still have to hang our hat on the defensive end, and that can’t change for us.”
Apr 15, 2023; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45), right, celebrates against the New York Knicks in the fourth quarter of game one of the 2023 NBA playoffs at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
Consider Mitchell a fan of the philosophical change as well.
“For us the biggest thing is just building off last year,” Mitchell said. “You look at the team we were last year, not to totally reflect in the past, but we did a lot of really good things. Now you [have] the additions, we only look to continue to build.
“We've made some different schemes and different ways to approach our offense. I think that's something that'll really open up lanes for myself, Darius, but it'll also be able to free up Ev, free up Max and Vert [Caris LeVert]. So different ways to attack. On a given night, just [defenses] choosing whether to take away the three, to guard the paint, the lob. So a lot more versatility for sure.”
Cleveland will be able to put its new-look squad to the test in less than 48 hours at the Barclays Center in Game 1 vs. the Nets.
