CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cavs can talk all they want about being different. Through two games, they’ve mostly been different in the same old ways.
That’s the uncomfortable truth hanging over a team that spent the offseason insisting it had changed. President of basketball operations Koby Altman said the 2026-27 roster is more talented and dynamic. Kenny Atkinson sounded just as sure of it before Thursday’s opener in Philadelphia.
“The belief is we’re good enough to take another step,” Atkinson said days before Thursday’s season opener in Philadelphia. “Conference finals last year, so our job and our belief, our internal belief, that’s not enough, we want more.
We just have a belief in this group. We have our great core guys, but we’ve added some exciting pieces too.
We’re excited to take that next step.”
And on paper, there is a real case for that optimism. The roster looks different.
Peyton Watson, Mario Hezonja and Meleek Thomas are in. Dean Wade, Max Strus, Dennis Schröder and Keon Ellis are out.
Watson brings a more polished offensive game than Wade, the defense-first small forward who started 38 games there last season. He’s also a more capable and more impactful defender than Strus, whose shooting has always come with some risk on the other end against elite wings.
Hezonja, listed at 6-foot-9 and 255 pounds, has already given Cleveland a new kind of physical presence. Atkinson has called him a “diesel train,” and that description fits what he’s shown in the first two games: power, force and size that can flatten smaller defenders and create mismatches in the post. In his debut, Hezonja even waved off Donovan Mitchell to take on a matchup he liked, then finished the possession with an isolation basket.
The departures have also pushed Sam Merrill and Jaylon Tyson higher in the pecking order. Second-year guard Tyrese Proctor has logged 16 minutes through the first two games after playing just 545 total minutes as a rookie.
So yes, Cleveland is different in some real personnel ways.
But the bigger issues? Those have looked alarmingly familiar.
The lead against Philadelphia vanished Thursday, when the 76ers stormed back from 29 down to hand the Cavs a crushing season-opening loss. Two nights later, Brooklyn nearly pulled off the same kind of escape, forcing Cleveland to sweat until Merrill hit two clutch free throws in the final seconds.
The defensive problems were there again. On Thursday night, Philadelphia piled up 69 points in the second half of the comeback. On Saturday, Brooklyn put up 41 in the fourth quarter alone, including nine made 3s, and sliced a 22-point Cleveland lead down to two with 8.1 seconds left.
The turnovers keep showing up too. No team has turned it over more than Cleveland through two games, and that was a postseason problem as well, when the Cavs ranked second worst in that category.
Atkinson has also kept circling back to the same frustration: opponents are beating Cleveland up physically, disrupting the flow of the offense and making the group uncomfortable.
Then there’s the late-game issue with Evan Mobley. He finished Saturday with 20 points and 10 rebounds, but only had four points in the fourth quarter and took just two shots after halftime. Through two games, Mobley has attempted 17 shots in the first half and only eight in the second.
The mental side of all of it keeps coming up too.
Thursday’s collapse brought back memories of the Eastern Conference finals opener, when the Cavs blew a 22-point fourth-quarter lead and never fully shook it before getting swept by eventual champion New York. All summer, they talked about that pain, what it exposed and how they planned to grow from it.
Saturday’s home opener looked uncomfortably similar. Fans groaned late as Brooklyn - a team that likely ends up with one of the conference’s three worst records - kept chipping away.
Lost focus. Lack of urgency. No killer instinct.
Bad habits.
It’s still October, so nobody’s ready to make sweeping judgments. But 48 hours after one meltdown, the Cavs were back in the same kind of fire drill.
They led by 14 at halftime, by 16 entering the fourth, by 22 with 10:11 left and by 17 with four minutes to go. It was a chance to show they had absorbed the lesson, that they could handle the messiness better this time.
Instead, it turned into another tense finish.
“Ninety percent of the game I thought we played really well,” Atkinson said. “Shared the ball.
Played great basketball. These are the best teaching moments.
Execution to close out games. Situational basketball.
All that. It’s great.
We got a ton from the Philly game, and we will have a ton from tonight too.”
The turnovers were part of the problem again. Cleveland finished with 23, and eight came in the fourth quarter.
“It builds character of a group,” Mitchell said. “You find out what you’re made of.
But also, no disrespect to Brooklyn, it’s not Philly. You know what I mean?
Understanding that like there’s certain things that we were able to get away with because they’re young, they’re figuring themselves out too.
“Understanding that it’s a mental battle. Just continuing to push through that mental.
I always tell y’all, it’s not going to always be perfect. But I think for us, having these first two games and different ways, similar, but different ways, I think is definitely going to help us in the long run.”
Before the opener, Jarrett Allen was already addressing how little respect the Cavs usually get when the league starts handing out attention.
The spotlight that night was on the new-look Sixers, on Jaylen Brown arriving in a trade from Boston, on LeBron James’ first regular-season game in his new palace and on Philadelphia’s title hopes. Cleveland was there too, even if it wasn’t the center of the conversation.
“We’re always an afterthought,” Allen said. “Just how Cleveland sports are.
Nobody puts Cleveland at the top of the pedestal. But we know what we’re capable of and we know we are going to go out there and fight to the best of our ability no matter how anybody looks at us.”
In Other News...
Mario Hezonja Already Gives The Cavs A Bench Weapon They Needed
Mario Hezonjas first game back in the NBA came with the kind of confidence the Cavaliers have been looking for on the bench. After six years away, he stepped in for Cleveland and immediately looked comfortable attacking mismatches, giving the offense a different look and providing support around the teams top scorers. Hezonja described his job simply enough: help teammates like Donovan Mitchell and James Harden by making life a little easier for them.
For a Cavs team trying to balance immediate results with bigger-picture health, that kind of presence can matter. Head coach Kenny Atkinson singled out Hezonjas performance as a positive even in a loss, which says plenty about the early impression he made. Cleveland does not need him to be a headline act, only a usable bench option who can change a stretch of a game, and his debut suggested there may be more there than a one-night cameo. [Read more 🡒]
Cavs Win Couldnt Hide A Late Problem Fans Already Fear
The Cavaliers opened their home schedule with a 125-121 win over the Brooklyn Nets, and for most of the night it looked like a comfortable one. Cleveland built a sizeable halftime cushion behind strong work from Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, then spent much of the second half trying to keep Brooklyn from turning the game into something messier than it should have been.
Instead, the fourth quarter brought the sort of nervy finish that can linger for a team with bigger ambitions. The Nets kept letting fly from deep and made a real run at erasing the gap, forcing Cleveland to answer possession by possession before the Cavs finally steadied themselves at the line in the closing moments. The win counts, but the late wobble is the kind of early-season warning sign fans notice right away. [Read more 🡒]
Cavs May Have Found An Off-Bench Option Sooner Than Expected
Mario Hezonjas second game of the season gave the Cavaliers a small but encouraging glimpse of a possible off-bench spark. Against the Brooklyn Nets, he filled a limited role with points, rebounds and a steal, and he looked comfortable enough to fit into the flow without forcing things. The shot-making was part of the appeal, too, as he buried a corner 3-pointer and showed enough creativity to make a few possessions feel a little livelier than they might have otherwise.
For a Cleveland team heading into matchups with Minnesota, Washington, Atlanta and Milwaukee, those kinds of minutes matter, especially when the rotation is still taking shape. Hezonja did not need a featured role to make an impression, and the Cavaliers will now have a quick chance to see whether that early feel carries over as the schedule stiffens. [Read more 🡒]