With the preseason winding down on Wednesday, the Cavaliers are running out of tune-up time and getting closer to the part that counts.
The biggest questions facing Cleveland are pretty easy to spot, and the first one has already shown up in the exhibition games: rebounding. Through their first two preseason games, the Cavs have been beaten on the glass 101 to 88, with the widest gap coming against the Celtics.
Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen have held up their end inside, but the frontcourt can’t carry that load alone. The wings have to chip in, too, and Peyton Watson, who will more than likely be the starting small forward, averaged right around five rebounds last season for the Denver Nuggets.
If Cleveland gets more help from the perimeter, that rebounding issue can shrink fast once the games start to count.
The other concern is on offense, where the Cavs have looked too stagnant at times. Too often, possessions bog down with the ball living in one player’s hands and the shot clock bleeding away. That’s something to watch closely in the final preseason game.
James Harden and Donovan Mitchell can both create offense, but there have been stretches where it feels like the possession belongs to just one of them, and the end result is a tough shot. Cleveland is at its best when the ball moves and everybody gets involved on a single trip down the floor. That was part of what helped carry them to the one seed a few seasons ago, and it’s the kind of flow Kenny Atkinson needs to get back if the Cavs want to stay competitive in a loaded Eastern Conference.
Then there’s the bigger-picture issue that has hovered over this team for the past few seasons: physicality. Atkinson has to sell a tougher style of basketball from the top, and Mitchell and Harden need to reinforce it as leaders in the locker room.
Even if the starters don’t play in the final preseason game, it should still reveal a lot about where this group stands. Cleveland enters the season with one of the more cohesive rosters it has had in a while, and now the challenge is turning that into results once the regular season begins.
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