Think of the best starts in NBA history. They tend to look pretty similar. The Golden State Warriors kicked off the 2015-16 season with 24 consecutive wins, They were a defending champion with an MVP hitting his prime in Stephen Curry. The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls kicked off their season with a 41-3 stretch. They had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.
Most of the time, we’re talking about teams with championship track records and legendary players. Often, those starts follow the acquisition of a major new piece. The 2003-04 Lakers started 18-3 after adding Gary Payton and Karl Malone to Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. When the 2016-17 Warriors added Kevin Durant, they lost on opening night and then lost only two more regulation games before Christmas. The story was similar for the 2019-20 Lakers. They lost on opening night and then won 24 of their next 26 with Anthony Davis alongside LeBron James. Most of the teams that start out this well recently added Hall of Famers, and the rest already had them.
That’s what makes what’s happening in Cleveland right now so unique. Donovan Mitchell is the only player on the Cavaliers roster to ever make an All-NBA Team. He’s only done so once, and it was a Second-Team pick, not a First-Team selection. They didn’t add a notable player this offseason. In fact, they barely added anyone. They have played 3,600 minutes so far this season. They have thus far allocated 3,563 of those minutes to players who were on their roster last season. The remaining 37 have gone to Jaylon Tyson, a first-round rookie that has played 26 minutes, Luke Travers, a two-way player from Australia who had previously been on their Summer League team that has played nine minutes, and their lone veteran free-agent addition of the offseason, JT Thor, who has played two minutes. This is more or less the same group of players that went 48-34 a season ago. To win only 48 games this season, Cleveland would have to play sub-.500 basketball the rest of the way.
The notable change here came on the bench. Kenny Atkinson replaced JB Bickerstaff as Cleveland’s head coach, and suddenly, the Cavaliers are unbeatable. The question here is why? What has Kenny Atkinson done to take a good team and make it perfect? Why exactly are the 15-0 Cavaliers so dominant?
Now seems like a perfect opportunity to answer that question because the Cavaliers are about to face the biggest test of their young season. On Tuesday, they will travel to Boston to face the defending champs. Cavaliers vs. Celtics has become one of the biggest November NBA games in recent memory. While it would be unfair to draw meaningful conclusions from a single game, this game does represent a great opportunity for Cleveland to measure itself against the best of the best. We’ll have a much cleaner idea of how real the Cavaliers are after they’ve faced off with the Celtics, so in preparation for that heavyweight clash, let’s dive into what has made this Cleveland team so special thus far this season.
So… why are the Cavaliers winning so much?
Well, for starters, it’s really hard to find a weakness here. They’re technically below average in rebound rate, but that’s due to a conscious choice to eschew offensive rebounding. They rank eighth in defense rebounding rate. They’re generating 2.7 more turnovers on defense than they’re giving up on offense, and they’re taking one more free throw per game on average than their opponents. They’re borderline invincible late in games thus far with a staggering plus-70.8 clutch net rating and a 7-0 clutch record. You have to look hard to find flaws here. They’re just about as good as they’ve ever been at the things that were already going well, and they’ve improved significantly in the areas that weren’t. There’s no simpler way to explain that than through their offense and defense.
DONOVAN MITCHELL GAME-WINNER 🕷️@cavs go perfect on the week and remain undefeated at 7-0 ⚔️#LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/ubG0Wathzi
— FanDuel Sports Network Cleveland (@FanDuelSN_CLE) November 3, 2024
The Cavaliers of the past few seasons were a defense-first team that tried just about everything to jumpstart a sluggish offense. Since drafting Evan Mobley, they have ranked fifth, first and seventh in defense. Right now, they again rank seventh. The difference is that unlike in the past, the offense is dominant. The Cavaliers currently have the best offensive rating in the NBA at 122.1, which would represent the second-best figure over a full season in league history behind last year’s Celtics.
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How is their offense this good?
If we were to distill it down to a single word, that word would be balance. No Cavalier plays more than 31.1 minutes per game, and none of them rank in the top 60 in the NBA in terms of touches per game, according to NBA.com tracking data. Is some of that due to blowouts getting their best players off of the floor early? Sure… but as of this writing, two-way wing Brandon Boston Jr. of the Pelicans is touching the ball more than any Cavalier. Amongst the top three Cavaliers, though, the distribution is remarkably even. Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley all touch the ball between 61.1 and 57.9 times per game. That represents meaningful sacrifice on Mitchell’s part. He was above 79 touches per game a season ago. Now? He’s taking his fewest shots per game since his rookie season.
That communal mindset has unlocked Garland and Mobley. Mobley is averaging a career-high 18.1 points per game. Garland’s volume numbers haven’t jumped, but his efficiency has skyrocketed. He’s making 58.2% of his 2-pointers, seven percentage points above any other season in his career, and 45.5% of his 3-pointers, six percentage points above his previous high. Life is easier for all three of them because they’re all pulling their weight. The offense is remarkably egalitarian, but not necessarily in the ways you’d expect.
Cleveland plays fast. The Cavaliers rank seventh in overall pace and fourth in offensive pace. Yet for a team based on balance and speed, there isn’t a lot of ball-movement. Only the Mavericks and Rockets make fewer passes per game than the Cavaliers do. That doesn’t necessarily match the eye test, and it conflicts with the offensive principles Atkinson brought from his previous stop in Golden State. The Warriors lead the NBA in passes almost every year. Yet despite that low passing volume, only four teams are generating more points off of assists per game. The Cavaliers rank near the middle of the pack in both potential assists and secondary assists. How are they doing this on a such a low number of total passes?
It’s because the passes they do make are crisp and decisive. Cleveland doesn’t pass much because the bulk of its offensive setup is happening in two places. Cleveland’s speed is most evident off of the ball. NBA.com tracking data shows that the average Cleveland offensive player moves faster than the average player on all but six other teams.
That movement is designed to maximize what is happening on the ball. Only the Thunder, the Grizzlies and the Trail Blazers drive more times per game than the Cavaliers do. Here’s the catch: none of them are shooting better than 50.1% on drive shots. The Cavaliers are at a preposterous 57.5%, a figure that comfortably breaks the tracking era record. Speaking of tracking-era records: Cleveland is generating 7.9 assists per game out of drives. This is drive-and-kick basketball at its finest. Cleveland ranks fourth in the NBA in points in the paint, but is also lapping the field in terms of 3-point percentage. They’re making 41.9% of their triples. Nobody else is making more than 39%. Garland, Mitchell and Mobley break down the defense and create shots at the rim. If defenses overcommit to stopping them, Cleveland’s array of shooters kills them for it.