As Cavaliers inch closer to clinching East, Jarrett Allen and Isaac Okoro look to playoffs

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CLEVELAND — The Cavaliers have insisted throughout this rather impressive season that they wanted to be playing their best headed into the playoffs, and, collectively, it appears they’ll fall short of that one.

If you’ve been watching them lately, you know they’ve been maybe a step behind where they were at the height of their powers, and though there are still 1 1/2 weeks before it’s time to put the pencils down, they’re probably going to be slipping into full rest mode very soon. That’s because they beat the New York Knicks 124-105 on Wednesday night, and the Boston Celtics lost at home to Miami, which means Cleveland has a five-game lead for first place in the East with six games to play.

I wrote it just the other night — there can be no complaining about 60-win teams until May. So consider these merely observations. The Cavs went 11-5 in March, a pretty good month for just about any team, unless that team had previous winning streaks of 15, 12 and 16 games, had the NBA’s top record overall for most of the season, and was 56-10 at one point, good enough for the fifth best record in league history through 66 games. Four-game losing streaks aren’t good for anyone, and Cleveland suffered through such a skid, and endured a briar patch of five losses in eight games.

Beyond all that, Donovan Mitchell had a few rough shooting nights, as did Darius Garland. De’Andre Hunter regressed a little from how he’d been after coming over from Atlanta in a trade, where he seemingly didn’t win a shot and the Cavs won their first 15 games with him in the lineup. Dean Wade had a couple of tough nights playing the five, Evan Mobley and Mitchell have rested nagging injuries, and Ty Jerome’s balky knee has kept him out of four consecutive games.

The defense has shown some holes. Shot selections and ball movement have waned, perhaps. Rebounding has come and gone. Then again, keeping this within the context of the Cavs are still the East’s top team record-wise, and with all of these little bumps, they have still won five of the last six.

A few trends are developing that bode well for Cleveland’s planned deep playoff run. Maybe the Cavs won’t quite get back to their team dominance until the postseason starts, but there are some individuals rounding into form and that is cause for excitement.

Mitchell, who scored 27 points with six rebounds and five assists, is one, but he gets enough press. Let’s talk about Jarrett Allen and Isaac Okoro, who both impressed against the Knicks and have been trending upward.

JARRETT ALLEN, THE CITY OF CLEVELAND LOVES YOU. #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/zSoGYECv7T

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) April 3, 2025

If the Cavs get the best versions of Allen and Okoro in the playoffs, they probably have enough to beat Boston and whichever team comes out of the West in the NBA Finals. The catch is, the playoffs have been kind to neither player.

As for the here and now, Allen went for 21 points, eight boards, a steal and tomahawk dunk, and one of the blocks of the year on Karl-Anthony Towns. Okoro added 11 points and six boards off the bench, but it was his on-ball defense against OG Anunoby in the second half (after 19 points in the first, Anunoby managed just 4 in the second) that was a reminder of what a firing-on-all-cylinders Okoro could mean for Cleveland in a playoff series.

“Just doing the little things that nobody wants to do,” is how Okoro summed up his potential impact.

Okoro is 24 and in his fifth pro season — and his numbers are way down in terms of top-line production and minutes. This is also the deepest team for which he’s ever played, with, all of a sudden, a number of wings who can be counted on.

In the past two playoffs for Cleveland, Okoro was supposed to be that player — but he couldn’t quite cut it. He couldn’t shoot well enough to stay on the floor, or, if he was out there, to make the impact the Cavs needed. Last year’s run was particularly tough for Okoro — he shot just 26 percent from 3-point range in Cleveland’s two playoff series.

Okoro’s shooting it well enough this regular season (36.5 percent from deep), but he’s battled injuries, and not only Hunter, but Sam Merrill and Jerome have eaten into the regular-season minutes Okoro is used to (to be fair, Okoro started quite a bit early this season while Max Strus was out with a badly sprained ankle).

Okoro’s last five games for Cleveland have been steady, and his hustle plays and defense stood out against the Knicks, to the point where coach Kenny Atkinson said Okoro was the first player who came to mind as he thought about which players’ trajectories he was excited about heading into the playoffs.

“He had a lull, you know, we weren’t getting him a ton of minutes and now I feel like he’s catching his groove,” Atkinson said.

There’s an advanced stat floating around from Basketball Index that, full transparency, I don’t understand. But it’s a ranking of “screening talent” in the NBA and Okoro ranked second, behind only Boston’s Al Horford. Mitchell is in the same boat — not with Okoro, but with me and anyone else who doesn’t quite get what Basketball Index is measuring. We don’t need to know, though, to make the point. It’s the point Okoro already made. When he’s at his best, he can impact a playoff series by doing the things other players don’t want to do necessarily, like defending the other team’s top scorer, chasing after offensive rebounds, or setting screens to get teammates open.

“I’m like, man, you’re No. 2 in the screen index — I don’t know what the hell that means, but you’re the No. 2,” Mitchell said. “So I was like, just keep doing that great job of that.”

Allen’s contributions are perhaps more pronounced. They register in points and boards and blocks. In this recent stretch where Cleveland has won five of six, Allen has been somewhere between good and awesome in each win — with signature performances against San Antonio (29 points, 15 boards), the Clippers (25 points, 12 boards) and Wednesday against New York.

Of the Cavs’ core four — Mitchell, Garland, Mobley and Allen — Jarrett was the only one not to be an All-Star this year. He saw his minutes reduced after the Hunter trade because Atkinson was using Hunter as the fifth player on the court next to the other four starters to close games. Atkinson insisted his rotation would change and Allen would find his way back to the court in the closing minutes, depending on matchups, and he was right.

But as the Cavs sunk a little with that four-game losing streak and are trying to rise as a group, Allen has been one of the players pulling the rest of the team upward.

He is also the only player on the team to have appeared in every game this season — a goal he set after missing most of last year’s playoff run with broken ribs. He’s played in 76 contests with six to go to hit all 82.

“I told him like hey, sit down a game. He just won’t do it,” Mitchell said. “There’s some nights where he’s just tired. I have no doubt … he’ll be ready to go (in the playoffs) on a consistent basis. We all know he’s going to be there for sure.”

If Allen is this playable in the playoffs, Atkinson will have two (approximate) 7-footers in his starting lineup with Allen and Mobley, whom he can interchange as he goes to his bench so that at least one is on the floor at all times. Mobley has turned into a 3-point threat, but Allen can play the perimeter defensively if he has to; he’s also a rim runner and finisher on offense who can catch a pocket pass, dunk or finish with a short jumper or hook out of the pivot.

But Allen’s entire reputation in the NBA was impacted by a tough performance two years ago against the Knicks, and his ensuing reaction to it when he admitted the lights were too bright for him and his teammates. And then last season, he missed the entire second round against Boston and most of the first round against Orlando with busted ribs.

Allen was one of the first transactions that truly turned the Cavs around in their rebuild from the LeBron years. Cleveland snuck into the James Harden-to-Brooklyn trade and acquired Allen for very little. He has been a fan favorite, and his teammates call him the best guy in the locker room. He would relish the chance to impact a playoff series, playing like he’s been playing lately.

“I feel like every year I’ve had something happen in the playoffs to me whether it’s hurt or, yeah, it’s always getting hurt,” Allen said. “I’m just ready to showcase what I have to offer.”

Allen and Okoro are playing their best at the right time. Mitchell is getting there. The Cavs can’t be far behind.

(Photo of Jarrett Allen: Ken Blaze / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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