The Cleveland Cavaliers have been chipping away with better performances amid a healthier roster over the last couple of weeks, but when the Detroit Pistons won the possession game by 10 in Sunday afternoon's 114-110 defeat, it showed that the wine and gold's got work to do to get where they want to be. And though Donovan Mitchell saw positives from it, the Cavs have work to do to reach that level.
“We have the talent. We have the capability. We know what we have. Now, we've gotta go out there and do it,” Mitchell said postgame. “And we have been, but, you know, nights like [Sunday], it stagnates you. And obviously, progress is not linear, right? You're not just gonna jump straight [there]. You're gonna have these hurdles and all those different things. But I think for us, we've gotta be consistent.
“Can't get laxed. We started off well. That's an energy changer, right? And then you've gotta play catch-up. I think whether it's communication, coverages, rebounding, whatever that is, we've gotta come out better in the second quarter and then finish the half better.”
The Cavs came out of the gate with purpose defensively until allowing 47 second-quarter points to Detroit, 21 of which came from a red-hot Daniss Jenkins, which gave the visitors a bunch of momentum.
“Sometimes it gets away you from quick,” Sam Merrill said. “We had a bunch of turnovers there. Didn’t rebound very well in the first half, think it was a little better in the second half, but that was the big thing, those turnovers.”
“Daniss Jenkins is a hell of a player, and I'm not saying this to disrespect him in any way, but him having seven of [10 shots] [from the field] on our mistakes; some of them, he hits those shots, and credit to him. I had one, I think Craig [Porter Jr] had one, DG [Darius Garland] had one. That's nine points right there, right? So that's tough.”
Poor play in that particular period has been a trend this season.
“Something we've got to look at,” Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson said. ‘Look at the combinations. Maybe we keep two of our stars out there at the same time. We've gotta help them. We started Sam, and that obviously hurts the bench. So, we've just gotta figure it out. It's definitely hurting us, those minutes.”
The meeting was a back-and-forth affair that never got out of hand either way, featuring physicality and defense from both sides. The Cavs trailed by 13 with five minutes left and made a run, but didn't finish the comeback. Even when they got a big stop toward the end of the game, there was a missed box out on Ausar Thompson, who tipped in a miss to put the Pistons up by four late.
Mitchell feels that this was a matchup Cleveland should've won and didn't because of mistakes that “killed you,” and “that's on us.” He brought up the Pistons' identity as a prime example of who they are every night, in contrast to the Cavs, who have abandoned theirs too frequently. While part of that is because they're not always whole, that can't be the case in winnable situations such as this one.
“We're a defensive first team that gets out in transition when we're at our best,” Mitchell said. “I mean, Evan [Mobley] had four blocks tonight. We did a lot of things well, but we just didn't either convert or we just didn't stay locked in for 48 minutes.”
Asked whether or not it feels like they're a defensive team, Mitchell responded with transparency.
“At times, and I think that's the issue, right?” Mitchell said. “There are times and the stretches where it's like, ‘Man, this is who we are. Stops and run.' And then, there are times where we don't, and that's part of the inconsistency. And that's correlated to so many things, right? There's so many things that go into that, but we're doing a lot of things [better]. We're trending upwards.
“But at the same time, I'm always the guy who's like, ‘Look, 9, 10, 11, 12 games, let's continue to hammer that.' [Sunday] just wasn't that. But, you know, we're getting there. We're hanging in there, and we're continuing to find ways to improve.”
Atkinson relayed that Detroit was “the better team” in that matchup.
“I know we competed to the end and we came, but it didn't feel like we were right there the whole game,” Atkinson said. “I felt like they deserved this game. They had the advantage most of the game. I thought we made a hell of a run at the end, and we've got a super competitive group, and I take the positive. But as far as kind of who outplayed who, it was definitely them.”
Sunday stung for Cleveland, a group that is feeling much better with how it's played as of late.
“I think we have all the talent, all the skill set,” Merrill said. “And I absolutely feel like we're not playing on the level that maybe they're playing right now — you are what your record says you are at this point — but I do think we are starting to play to a level that we know we're capable of.
“And there's ups and downs in the season, and sometimes the downs are a little longer than we’d like, but I feel confident about where we're going and feel like we're doing a lot of the right things, and we'll just continue to grind and think we'll hopefully keep getting better and better.”
