The Cavs have already shown both sides of the coin this season. One night, they look sharp enough to beat the Knicks. The next, they’re dragging through a 124-112 loss at Charlotte that looked and felt flat from the opening stretch.
That inconsistency is why Terry Pluto is looking past any one-player explanation and zeroing in on something simpler: energy. On the latest Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, the Cleveland.com columnist laid out a fix he believes could help Cleveland get through the nights when it just doesn’t have much juice.
His answer is an “energy unit.”
“I would create an ‘energy unit’ of guys to put in at different times in the game. Hubie Brown was one of the ones that would do this,” Pluto said, pointing to the longtime NBA coach and broadcaster as the model.
Pluto said Brown once explained the concept to him directly: gather about three bench players who play with real motor, then use them together at key moments. The goal isn’t always to win those minutes on the scoreboard. It’s to stir things up, crank up the defense and change the whole tone of the game.
Brown’s line stuck with him: “You want to get like three of these guys, you bring them in there and they cause chaos.”
Pluto also leaned into the practical side of it. If players sit at the end of the bench until garbage time, they tend to look like garbage-time players.
“If you have guys on the end of the bench and they just don’t play to garbage time, you get garbage play,” Pluto said. “So put them in.”
He already has a few names in mind for Cleveland. Meleek Thomas has impressed him most, and not just because of the scoring that turned heads in Summer League.
Pluto said Thomas has shown defensive effort he didn’t expect. Tyrese Proctor, in Pluto’s view, has made a meaningful jump.
Peyton Watson, meanwhile, brings the kind of scrambling, disruptive style that can tilt a game’s rhythm.
“When you have Meleek out there and you have Peyton Watson, you got these young guys scrambling all over the place ... I think it just gives a different vibe to your team,” Pluto said.
“And I would look at combinations like that. What guys can you put in just to bring more energy to it?”
The Charlotte game, Pluto said, was a perfect example of why this matters. He noticed Kenny Atkinson turning to some of those bench pieces in the fourth quarter and getting a little spark out of them. Afterward, Atkinson pointed to that group as a positive.
Pluto sees that as more than a throwaway note. To him, it was a clue.
The Cavs’ 6-6 start has also included a big night from James Harden, who dropped 32 points in the 115-107 win over the Knicks. But Pluto believes Harden’s best path to consistent production is a cleaner one. He wants to see more high pick-and-rolls with Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, where Harden’s passing still plays at an elite level.
What Pluto doesn’t want to see is the step-back threes and the awkward foul-hunting attempts that aren’t falling. When Harden gets stuck and can’t get all the way to the rim, Pluto said, “he just kind of flips it up there, and it’s got no chance.”
For Pluto, the bigger picture is still encouraging. He likes the talent on the roster and believes there’s plenty of season left. But he also thinks Cleveland needs to solve its energy problem now, before another sleepy night pushes people toward a louder reaction than the one the team has earned.
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