Cavs, Donovan Mitchell fall hard again in playoffs and a soft core could be to blame

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CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell grappled with all of the stages of grief in a span of eight minutes at the podium late Tuesday night. Still dressed in his full uniform, bypassing the fashion and sunglasses commonly seen on NBA podiums, Mitchell was clearly struggling to process how the Cavaliers — the 64-win Cleveland Cavaliers — could be eliminated yet again in the second round. 

Denial: “Couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it, don’t want to believe it.” 

Anger: “Y’all gonna write us the f— off, man.”

Bargaining: “Getting beat down like this, y’all are gonna write some s— about us, man. And that’s gonna be fuel.”

Depression: “Let the city down, man. This place is special. This place is really special. We didn’t get it done, especially at home. That’s what hurts.”

Acceptance: Well, maybe not yet. That’s what the next five months are for.

Let’s get this part out of the way: Mitchell has been in the league for eight years and still hasn’t made it out of the second round. But it’s hard to blame him for what happened in this series. Mitchell didn’t shoot it well but still averaged 34.2 points in this series on one leg. 

Donovan Mitchell is seventh all-time in playoffs points per game average at 28.19. He has made the postseason every year of his eight-year career.

Despite this, Mitchell has yet to make a conference final appearance in his career. pic.twitter.com/vB8Vmj92f3

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) May 14, 2025

I don’t know how to frame this postseason as anything other than a disaster in Cleveland. Losing in the second round, injuries or not, is a woeful underachievement for a team that raced to the top seed in the East during a regular season that doesn’t much matter anymore.

Sixteen teams in NBA history have won 64 games or more with an average margin of victory of at least 9 points, according to Stathead. The Cavs and the Oklahoma City Thunder are two of those 16. Of the other 14, all but one reached the NBA Finals. Twelve of the 14 won championships. 

We’ll see how the Thunder finish. For now, the Cavs are one of just two teams that have had that level of success in the regular season and did not make it to the Finals.

There is a toughness factor to this team that is painfully absent. The Cavs have been called soft in various ways for a few years now, but the chorus is only growing louder. 

From the way they handle injuries to the way the Indiana Pacers pushed them around in this five-game series, there’s a necessary level of nasty that is missing from this team. 

This is the third postseason in a row Jarrett Allen has been a complete ghost when the Cavs needed him most. The Knicks pushed him around two years ago when he conceded the lights were too bright. His ribs were injured last year in the first-round series against the Orlando Magic, and he missed the rest of the playoffs, frustrating members of the organization in the process. His combined stat line from the last two games in this series: 11 points and six rebounds. In two games. 

The Cavs told you with their actions that the problem last year was coaching. 

They fired J.B. Bickerstaff, brought in Kenny Atkinson and kept the entire roster intact. For seven months and 82 regular-season keg parties, they were correct. 

There’s no denying Atkinson’s incredible impact on this roster, his unlocking of the real Evan Mobley and how he revamped what was a stagnant offense. 

Nevertheless, this ending looks awfully similar to years past: pushed around physically, overmatched and overwhelmed by what was supposed to be an inferior opponent. The Pacers are really good, they play really fast and they are guided by one of the league’s best coaches. They’re going back to the conference finals for the second time in as many years. They were clearly the better team in this series. 

THE DAGGER FROM TURNER 🔥

THE WAVE FROM HALIBURTON 👋

THE PACERS ELIMINATE THE CAVS‼️ pic.twitter.com/NMf2QA0WTE

— ESPN (@espn) May 14, 2025

The Cavs did nothing to help their cause. They regressed from the second-best 3-point shooting team in the NBA to the worst in these conference semifinals. The drive/kick/swing offense that carved teams up during the regular season became little more than the isolation/wait for Mitchell to bail them out that it was in previous years. 

“The mental part, we gotta get over that,” Atkinson said. “We got another jump to make with our mental strength.”

There will be more demands made this summer to break up this core four of Mitchell, Darius Garland, Mobley and Allen after three consecutive postseason failures, but it’s not that easy anymore. The die has been cast. This is who they are. Acquiring DeAndre Hunter at the trade deadline ensured the Cavs will be a second-apron team next season, barring some drastic subtractions. 

That makes adding talent extremely difficult. At best, they can retain Ty Jerome, whose stock crashed considerably in this series. He remains a better option than most anyone else available in free agency since the Cavs are primarily relegated to league minimum free agents as a second-apron team. 

Making major changes now comes with major obstacles, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t at least be explored. I don’t know how Allen can return. I wondered whether he could come back after the way last season ended. The Cavs wanted to see this through. They wanted their four key pieces to have another run. To be fair, it’s not even a question of whether Allen and Mobley fit alongside each other anymore. It’s an attitude adjustment that feels necessary. The Cavs need to get tougher. 

Watching this team toward the end of the regular season, I wondered if they would just have to wait out Boston for the Eastern Conference to open. Even if the Cavs couldn’t conquer the Celtics, big changes seem to be heading toward Boston just because of the crippling tax bill ahead of them. Then Jayson Tatum crumpled to the court in Madison Square Garden and the more painful reality is the Cavs may have missed a chance at a championship. This second-round exit may have cost them a ring. 

With Tatum out for an entire season, the East truly is open next year. The Celtics could pivot and try to duck the tax entirely. Giannis Antetokounmpo could be traded. 

The Cavs can still be a strong contender, but they’ve bankrupted public trust in regular-season currency. No one will believe them until they see it in the playoffs.

Before the start of this postseason, Cavs chairman Dan Gilbert loved the idea of the “Cavalanche,” so much that he paid more than $500,000 to install fake snow machines in the arena’s ceiling that could blast confetti throughout the arena’s bowl when the Cavs went on one of their patented offensive tears. 

The Cavalanche machine went off exactly once in the entire postseason. 

It will be a dark, cold summer in Cleveland. 

(Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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