The Cleveland Cavaliers won 64 games, finished atop the Eastern Conference and were viewed as a legitimate championship contender last season. Donovan Mitchell was piecing together an MVP season (and ultimately finished fifth), Evan Mobley established himself as one of the best defenders in the league and took home Defensive Player of the Year and the Cavaliers had enough depth to go toe-to-toe with just about any other top team.
They cruised through the first round of the playoffs against the Miami Heat, and then ran into a buzzsaw that was Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers. The Cavaliers were picked apart by Indiana’s fast-paced offense, having no answer for their pace or 3-point shooting. Things got out of hand quickly, and it wasn’t long before the Cavs found themselves on the wrong side of a 4-1 series loss.
It was a disappointing way to end an otherwise excellent season for Cleveland. But lost in all the discourse about the team is the fact that one of their two All-Star guards wasn’t fully healthy throughout most of the playoffs. Darius Garland was hampered with a toe injury that kept him out of the last two playoff games against the Heat, and the first two in the series against the Pacers. And when he did suit up against Indiana, he was clearly hampered.
The Conversation: With amazing opportunity in East, can the Cavaliers and Donovan Mitchell prove themselves?
James Herbert
It resulted in offseason surgery, to which Garland said, “It’s basically like a brand new toe.” He’s expected to miss the start of the season for the Cavaliers as he continues to ramp up his return to the court. Garland thinks if not for the toe injury, Cleveland would have been the ones hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy last June.
“I think we would’ve won it, I say that pretty confidently,” Garland said on SiriusXM NBA radio. “The talent with this group is just out the roof. The will that we have on both sides of the ball — we got the Defensive Player of the Year, I’ll say the second best defensive big [in Jarrett Allen] since we’ve got the Defensive Player of the Year already. With Evan [Mobley] and [Jarrett Allen] down there blocking shots and protecting the paint, I think that really helps us on that side of the ball. Evan growing, Donovan being Donovan of course, [De’Andre Hunter] was coming along, Max Strus was coming along, I felt I was pretty good in the first round. So yeah, I say that confidently that we would’ve won.”
The Cavaliers had the third-best net rating in the league last season (+12.7), anchored by the top-ranked offense led by Mitchell and a deep supporting cast. There was no doubt that Cleveland was seen as the biggest threat to the Celtics last season in the East, and Garland’s injury certainly meant that the Cavs had to adapt on the fly.
However, even if the Cavaliers got past the Pacers and a Knicks team that plays far more physical than Cleveland is accustomed to, it feels incredibly unlikely that they would’ve been able to beat the eventual champion Thunder. And that’s not to say the Cavaliers are significantly inferior to Oklahoma City. In fact, they would have matched up well with the Thunder’s length. But if the Cavaliers have great depth, the Thunder have even greater depth. There are players deep on OKC’s bench that would get regular rotation minutes on a handful of teams around the league. The Thunder not only have an abundance of quality players, but have a No. 1 scoring option who is an absolute headache to guard. Cleveland has great interior defense, but they don’t have someone who can stop — or slow — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
There’s a chance that if Garland was healthy, the Cavaliers could’ve made it past the Pacers and maybe even beat the Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals. But it’s hard to envision Cleveland faring well against a Thunder team that had virtually no weaknesses last season.
