The Cavs defense hopes to look the same
Cavs news and links for Wednesday, October 16.
The Cleveland Cavaliers take on the Detroit Pistons later tonight. Here’s your news and links of the day beforehand.
The first sip
Kenny Atkinson’s goal has been to reshape the offense, not the defense.
“When you look at a team, the first thing you do is, [figure out] their number one strength,” Atkinson said during training camp. “I think to go away from that is a mistake. . . . And then [we want to] build the offense bit by bit. I don’t want to lose that [defensive] identity. We’re going to double down on that.”
As of now, they aren’t planning on doing anything different there.
“The defense is going to be very similar,” Evan Mobley said after practice Tuesday. “We’ve been playing the same defense since we got here my rookie year. We’re going to try to keep it the same and keep growing from that.”
Their defense has been great the past three seasons because of their ability to funnel teams to their bigs waiting for them at the basket. This block from Mobley is exactly the type of play we’ve seen over and over again from this team.
Patrick Williams thought he had a step on Jarrett Allen once he turned the corner, but Allen’s lateral quickness closed the gap. That forced Williams to finish with his left hand which is exactly what Mobley was waiting for him to do.
The Cavs haven’t run the most complicated defense over the last few seasons. But each player knows what their role is and is capable of executing it. That, and having two of the best defensive bigs in the game, is why it’s been so successful.
WNBA schedule
- WNBA Finals, Game 3, New York Liberty vs. Minnesota Lynx, 8 PM, ESPN
NBA preseason schedule
- Cavs vs. Pistons - 7 PM
- Nets vs. Sixers - 7 PM
- Haws vs. Heat - 7:30 PM
- Timberwolves vs. Bulls - 8 PM