The Cavs will keep playing great basketball even if the national media isn’t paying attention: ‘They don’t like us bro’
The Cavaliers aren’t getting the respect they deserve for playing at a 73-win pace.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have won 31 of their first 35 games. That’s something that’s only been done seven other times in league history. They’re on a 73-win pace and currently have a better net rating than the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors team, who actually won that many games.
The Cavs aren’t just winning, they’re blowing teams out of the water. They’ve won 10 straight by 10 or more points. It’s a level of dominance rarely matched in NBA history but they aren’t getting the recognition they deserve. You might disagree, the Cavs don’t.
Dean Wade didn’t get a chance to answer why his team doesn’t get the recognition they deserve after Sunday’s beatdown of the Charlotte Hornets. Ty Jerome cut in to interject from the locker over.
“Tell ‘em, Dean, they don’t like us, bro.”
Jerome’s annoyance wasn’t isolated. The question was repeated throughout the locker room with more than a few players voicing their frustration with their lack of praise.
“I don’t know what it is,” concluded Wade when finally given a chance to give his opinion.
Garland seemed to take Cleveland’s lack of attention more personally.
“I don’t know why,” said Garland when asked why this team isn’t getting their respect. “I wish I had an answer to that because I think we deserve to have the recognition for being the best team in the league. ... I guess a small market. That’s the only thing I can really think of, to be honest with you.”
Market size plays a part, but that doesn’t explain it entirely. It’s not like the Cavs were ever overlooked when LeBron James was in town.
No, this is something else. It’s just difficult to completely contextualize what makes this Cavaliers team great. We simply haven’t seen a team win in this way.
The 73-win Warriors are the only contemporary comparison for a team winning at this rate, but the comparison falls flat.
Hornets head coach Charles Lee was asked if he saw any similarities between Cleveland and the Golden State team. He played along with the question, but it was easy to tell he wasn’t buying the comparison. Lee chose his words carefully but the tone in his voice might’ve given away his true thoughts.
“You definitely had a lot of fear when [that Warriors team] walked into the building, but how they played is a little bit different than how this Cavs team plays.”
Other historic regular season teams changed what we thought about the sport, or at least challenged it. The Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns redefined the pace basketball should be played. The James Harden Houston Rockets made us question whether you can get by without any type of center. Last season’s Boston Celtics challenged how far they could push the three-point revolution. The Cavs don’t have any sort of stylistic calling card that makes it easy to categorize them. They just do almost everything well.
The Cavs are just an amalgamation of great teams that came before, but without a style or feature that’s uniquely their own. Atkinson hasn’t been shy about how he’s lifted things from the Warriors. So much so, that Draymond Green recognized it and gave this team credit for copying it.
The Warriors aren’t the only team they’ve borrowed from. Cleveland plays at a pace that’s the natural evolution of those Suns teams. Instead of abandoning their centers like the Rockets, they’re playing two and trying to push one of them into being a seven-foot wing. And while they don’t take the number of threes the Celtics did last year, they take over 40 a game and hit them at a better percentage than Boston ever did.
The result is a cover of a song you’ve already heard, but Atkinson’s remix. It’s great, although not completely its own thing.
“I don’t think we get the respect and say we deserve because, as a group, we haven’t accomplished anything,” said Donovan Mitchell last month. “At the end of the day, you’re judged on wins in the playoffs, you’re judged on championships.”
This is where the Cavs fail.
First impressions are important. They flunked theirs in the 2023 playoffs against the New York Knicks. The Cavs proved to have all the drawbacks of a team with a small backcourt and an oversized frontcourt with none of the benefits. Their answer wasn’t to drastically change who they were, but slowly tweak the edges of how they played until they eventually became a different version of that same team.
The Cavs need to prove that those tweaks can carry over into the playoffs. Nothing they’ve displayed so far in the regular season would make you think that they won’t. If you can’t recognize that, it’s because you probably aren’t watching.
Continuing to win at this pace may earn the Cavs begrudging respect, but adoration or hyperbolic praise might never come. Just ask the Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs teams that won multiple titles but are mostly remembered for being the foil in someone else’s story. The lack of recognition doesn’t diminish the greatness of those Spurs teams. And to a much lesser extent, it shouldn’t take away from what the Cavs have accomplished through 35 games.
The Cavs are winning at an almost unprecedented rate and have their best chance of winning a title since 2016. And you know what? That isn’t a bad consolation prize all things considered.
Still, there is something sad about one of the best stretches in the history of the sport going nearly unnoticed. If you take a second to turn away from the inconsequential Jimmy Butler trade rumors or the dumpster fire that is the 76ers, you might actually witness greatness for a change. At the very least, you’ll have fun watching ethical hoops.
“The brand of basketball that we play, I think it’s really exciting,” Garland said. “I think it’s fun. I think it’s actual great basketball. And it should be shown a lot more.”