In the rematch against the Thunder last night, the Cavaliers did not see the light of day. Kenny Atkinson’s men were dominated in all areas of the game and showed their limits when it came to facing athletic wingers.
With Jalen Williams, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort and Co., the Thunder have a host of outside players capable of doing great harm on both ends of the court. Cleveland experienced this last night during the big defeat in Oklahoma City (134-114, 21 turnovers!), despite being deprived of Isaiah Hartenstein in addition to Chet Holmgren.
After the match, Kenny Atkinson paid tribute to the Thunder and their ability to take the Cavs out of their game.
“They were more aggressive. We had the impression of having seven pit bulls in front of us, not five, but seven” declared the Cleveland coach. “Their speed and athleticism cracked us up. It’s that simple. It’s their identity. They did it to a lot of teams. They dominated in all areas.”
Getting dominated by the Thunder’s defense and ability to create chaos on the outside lines has happened to a lot of teams this season. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, especially for a Cleveland team that’s having a sensational season and recently beat Oklahoma City by 129 points.
What is more worrying for the Cavaliers is that their six defeats this season have come against teams that all have physical, long and athletic exteriors: Boston (Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown), Atlanta (Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels , and even Zaccharie Risacher), Miami (Jimmy Butler, Haywood Highsmith, without forgetting Bam Adebayo thanks to his versatility), Indiana (Pascal Siakam, Andrew Nembahrd) and therefore Oklahoma City.
A trend that Chris Fedor of cleveland.com underlined in the post-match press conference, and which Kenny Atkinson validated.
-“It’s very fair. These teams can put our backs under pressure (Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, editor’s note), they can take us out of our spots, push us around, hinder us on penetrations through their wingspan. […]
This is the formula for good defenses in today’s NBA. We have to find solutions to combat this.”
Can these solutions be found internally, or will the Cavs recruit an impact winger before the deadline to deal with this problem?
Response within three weeks.
Text source: post-match press conference
