Cleveland Cavaliers parting shot: After collapse against Pacers, ‘respect’ isn’t the issue

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CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell may be among the shrewdest, most aware stars in the NBA.

A six-time All-Star in eight seasons, Mitchell’s talent is a given. What has stood out to me about him, dating to when I first met him in the summer of 2019 with USA Basketball, extending through the Disney Bubble in 2020, to his now three seasons in Cleveland, is all the “other stuff” — beyond nasty dunks and clutch 3s. 

Mitchell commands respect in any locker room and knows how to hold teammates to account, directly or indirectly. If he doesn’t like a coach, he can undercut him without being accused of it. He has applied pressure to front offices, held his own against bigger men in physical altercations on the court. He also understands the media’s role and how to help himself by how he treats reporters.

As I’ve listened to Mitchell speak (and read his further comments when I wasn’t there) in the immediate aftermath of the Cavaliers’ total collapse against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, all these words about a lack of respect coming to his team because of what happened, I’ve decided not to take what he’s said at face value. 

When Mitchell said “everybody’s gonna write us off,” or, “y’all are gonna write some (expletive) about us,” or, “y’all are gonna say a lot of (expletive),” or even, “we could go 82-0 (next season) and no one would care,” I’m betting this is not him bemoaning the predictable fallout from a heavily favored No. 1 seed losing in five games — including three losses at home — to a No. 4 seed in the second round. It was probably him encouraging specifically harsh coverage, perhaps even naming some names and calling out itemized reasons the Pacers dominated this series, so he doesn’t have to do it.

But just in case I’m wrong, I want to use my parting shot on the 2024-25 Cavs, after spending much of the last few months around them, to say that what happened this season, and what happens in the next, was not, nor will it be, about respect.

“We can sit here and talk about it all we want, but until we do it (go deeper in the postseason) no one is going to give us that respect,” Max Strus told reporters during an exit interview Wednesday.

Depending on your point of view, you might say the Cavs were either underrated or disrespected coming into this season. After getting bounced in five games by the Boston Celtics in the second round last May, the team made no roster changes. The Cavs fired coach J.B. Bickerstaff and replaced him with Kenny Atkinson, a move that didn’t inspire confidence in Las Vegas or among people who have my job to think Cleveland would do much better than the No. 4 seed and second-round exit it posted in 2024.

Oddsmakers set betting lines for the Cavs’ predicted win total at 48 ½ wins (after a 48-win season in 2024). NBA schedule makers (the league and its network partners) placed Cleveland on national TV 16 times, good but not great. 

We all know what happened next: 15 consecutive wins to open the season, a 30-4 start, three winning streaks of at least 12 games and a franchise-record 16 in a row in February and March.

While the Cavs were reeling off 64 victories, posting the NBA’s best offense, shooting it better — from all over the court — than anyone for most of the season, pounding the bad teams, and splitting series with the Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder, their players talked often about being disrespected.

At some level, they can only answer the questions asked by the media assigned to cover them, and maybe a few of the questions about a lack of national TV games, or All-Star candidacies, or season awards were slightly misguided. But all year the Cavs’ players campaigned hard for their teammates to make the All-Star game, to win awards, and for networks to pay attention.

They appeared not to notice that they got exactly what they demanded.

The Cavs ended up with three All-Stars in Mitchell, Darius Garland, and Evan Mobley — more than any team.

I actually don’t have a final count for you on this, but they were placed on national TV way more than 16 times (at least 24 by my count, including an incredible stretch of four consecutive games on national TV and something like five out of six).

Atkinson won Coach of the Year. Mobley, Defensive Player of the Year. Ty Jerome was a finalist for top sixth man. Mitchell and Mobley will almost surely be part of All-NBA teams, to be announced in the coming weeks.

All of these things are a result of the respect they earned from national media by playing so great, for so long. Which is why what happened against the Pacers was so stunning.

Cleveland was heavily favored to win the series at the outset. For instance, DraftKings set the line on the conference semifinals for the Cavs to take it in six or fewer games. They were also favored to win each game individually, even though they were down 2-0 and 3-1 in the series. Talk about respect.

As the players head into the offseason, they should not be concerned over what is said about them. They should be thinking about why they could not execute the offense, at home, in the fourth quarters of Games 1 and 2 — in which they held leads both times.

They need to consider why they shot 29 percent from 3-point range for the series, why they could not match the fast pace maintained by the Pacers throughout the games, or why they couldn’t hold the line on the perimeter. They need to do some soul searching about what happened in Game 4 — trailing by 41 at halftime in a game like that was unacceptable. 

And yes, they need to ask themselves why, collectively, injuries seemed to derail them in the playoffs, yet again. Bad luck can only be blamed for so long, and as I’ve discussed at length over the last week, the organization goes out of its way to protect players during the regular season. It seems like this is an issue in which the front office should address with cultural changes, and the players also by trying to push through discomfort earlier (Mitchell did this — playing the entire series with calf and ankle injuries). We wouldn’t be talking about it if this May was the first time Cleveland players missed playoff games while being listed as questionable on the injury report.

To be fair to Mitchell and to Strus, whose words have been called out here, Mitchell called the series loss an “embarrassment” and said the Cavs “let the city down” by losing all three home games. Strus called it a “disappointment” and said “we gotta get tougher” — amen to that.

In his postgame address, I thought Atkinson laid it out well. He said, “Listen, there’s, you know, Evan, we still have some young players that it takes time to get to this level, this intensity. 

“And you know they (the Pacers) have a vet squad that’s kind of done it,” Atkinson said. “We just have probably a small group of guys that need to take a jump. And they will, it doesn’t, like, all of a sudden happen. It’s a process. Evan’s gonna get a little better, Darius is gonna get a little stronger, Evan is gonna get a little stronger, those guys are gonna get better and that’s part of getting over the hump.”

Well, OK, see, Atkinson went a little further than I intended to go here with the specifics. Mitchell probably approves.

Just, keep in mind that the two players Atkinson mentioned are All-Stars.

The respect is already there.

(Photo: Megan Bridges / Getty)

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