With 11 victories and zero defeats, the Ohio franchise achieved the best start in its history, touching up several records: thanks to a coach who until last year was Steve Kerr’s assistant. And today he is showing off his great basketball
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Once in gear, coach Kenny Atkinson also disbanded. “Somehow it’s a magic number. And it’s more than something, for a franchise like ours.” Today his team’s score Cleveland Cavaliers, 11 wins and 0 lossesmade them one of the 12 best teams in NBA history. The only one to score ten games in a row with at least 110 points on average. The only one to hit 11 with at least 105. Looking at the pure numbers, it seems that this summer in Ohio they set up the roster of the century and no one noticed. In reality only the coach has changed. And although it is terribly early to shout about sporting achievement – an eighth of a season is worth half a penny -, the records remain. And they will stay. The crowd at the old Q Arena hadn’t dreamed like this since the days of the best LeBron James.
The problem, when there is someone involved who suddenly no longer loses, is that sooner or later he will have to do it again. So the whole NBA sucks. He’s been waiting for the Cavs for weeks. Mitchell and his teammates sprint, surprise, then two very tense challenges against Milwaukee – the seventh and eighth W – seem like the prelude to the inevitable first stop. Around the corner is Golden State, also in great shape. Ideal candidate, but no: Cleveland dominates, reaching +41 at the end of the first half. A steamroller. Even when it’s not evening: Sunday night, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the hosts were down 13 against Brooklyn. Then Evan Mobley‘s wall went up – 23 points, 16 rebounds, 10/11 from the field plus a decisive block – and yet another exclamation point. At least until the next match.
The strength of these Cavaliers is in the collective. And in a balanced distribution of roles. Starting from his “big three”: during the roster, the best scorers four times each were Mitchell and Garland, for the remaining three Mobley. A dosage that is also found in coach Atkinson’s long rotations: ten players are playing at least 15 minutes per game, but none more than 30. The result is textbook efficiency. Symptom of a fresh, lucid, concrete team: Cleveland shows off the best attack of the tournament – over 122 points on average -, the best field goal percentage (52.8 percent) and the best three-point shooting (42.2). It is method, not transitory euphoria.
Honorable mention to the coach, in fact, who arrived this year to raise the bar of a group that in the last two seasons had shown great things in regular season only to then melt away in the playoffs. In the last four years, Atkinson has studied instead. First as deputy on the Clippers’ bench, then in the same role at Steve Kerr’s Californian court: an enormous experience, complete with a ring, which judging by the ex’s match a few days ago he was able to absorb in every detail. “Cleveland is the ideal place for a coach like Kenny, and he has already put his touch on it,” recognizes his teacher at the Warriors. “He reminds me of myself when I came to Golden State.” Here you are. Given that Atkinson also has a remote parenthesis in Naples, as a point guard, he will have learned well that at this point conjurations must be made. How do you say tiè in English?
