The Cavs and Clippers both face huge, similar questions in the NBA playoffs

Before I move on to other things, I’m not comparing Jarrett Allen and Michael Olowakandi or the Cavaliers’ Shawn Kemp and the Clippers’ James Harden, but I’m not comparing the Cavaliers and Clippers throughout their history ( There’s something to be said about how similar they are (excluding LeBron’s Cleveland days). . Both have built high-quality teams over years of struggling with overpaid, hapless veterans and talented but undercoached young talent. The players on the 1998 roster are not franchise players, but history seems to be repeating itself.

However, things weren’t always this bad for the 2024 versions of each team. At one point, the Clippers had a record of 31 wins and 8 losses from mid-November to early February. This is a win rate of nearly 80% and the equivalent of nearly 65 wins for the season. During that period, LA’s net rating was +8.0; celtics (ridiculous) +11.3. Their 124.2 offensive rating seems to speak for itself, but for context, their highest single-season offensive rating is 123.3. Despite their reputation, the Clippers have once again convinced the world.

During the same period of the season, the Cavaliers lost just two of 20 games. They did it without point guard Darius Garland or franchise cornerstone Evan Mobley. Jarrett Allen had 17 double-doubles during that span.Donovan Mitchell was in the conversation for a real, real MVP. — Or at least a true MVP conversation Buzz. If the Cavs could reunite the two missing stars, it looked like they would be one of the few teams in the East that could challenge the Celtics.

Instead, both teams found themselves as low as possible. The Clippers fell off a cliff at 15-14 after the All-Star break, halting their climb to the top of the West. Even more disastrously, the Cavs sat below .500 in five games during that same period, and all that momentum disappeared after the return of two star players that would have boosted their playoff chances.

Despite both the Clippers and Cavs continuing to play at a high level, their respective eras are coming to an end. There are already rumors and speculations, Departure of Paul George and donovan mitchell. Harden and Mobley are two players at very different points in their careers, but both will likely be looking for long-term extensions.

For these teams, the only way to create the future that that stretch glimpsed is, paradoxically, by recapturing the very heights they reached. It either returns to its original form or ceases to exist in its current iteration.

In a playoff world full of do-or-die scenarios, there’s no more do-or-die scenario than this one.

So how do you recover to achieve your own expectations? How do you reinvent yourself when you only have 4-7 games and only a week to figure out your identity? Would you like to discover? How do you switch quickly when you can’t attend for the season?

For the Cavs, the good fortune of playing a team without the same offensive talent in their first-round series against the Orlando Magic was partially self-inflicted, and may help cover up some of their shortcomings. unknown. But I would like to see Cleveland return to their strengths: strong guard play, defensive tone-setting from the bigs, and small forwards that allow for near-constant pivots in their playstyle during games. A very versatile rotation.

However, the most obvious changes are easier said than done, but much more difficult to implement. Simply put, Darius Garland needs to be better. His 16.6 points and seven assists per game aren’t bad, but the Cavs’ death lineup of Garland, Mitchell, Strus, Mobley and Allen has been mediocre since Garland returned on January 31st.

Rather than comparing Garland’s current impact to his pre-injury self, it might be worth comparing it to the lineup that replaced him during his absence. The aforementioned five have played together for 368 minutes this year, but he’s only +1.4 across his six hours of gameplay. For the second-most minutes, 232, just replace Mobley with sharpshooter Dean Wade and Garland with versatile slasher Isaac Okoro. This lineup was at the heart of Cleveland’s remarkable run, posting an outrageous net rating of +19.6. Their 121.4 offensive rating would rank among the top three in the league. Their 101.8 ERA would blow the rest of the teams in the league out of the water.

But the Cavs don’t have a time machine and will never be able to give up their franchise point guard. So how can you make your garland work?

Garland’s strongest five-man team is better than Mitchell’s Tetris. Replacing Allen’s bruise-screening and rolling with Mobley’s stretch-and-switch style of play and reshuffling the wing lineup to feature Caris LeVert and Okoro resulted in a net plus of 23.1. But most notably, it makes Garland’s job easier. Garland’s positive his five-man lineup each has his one consistent stat. That said, the faster the pace, the better the splits.

There are other issues Cleveland has faced all year. That includes, obviously, Mobley’s disappointment. led to comparisons to Derrick FavorsBut getting Garland back up to speed will help further strengthen an offense that the defense is keeping afloat.

Photo by Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images

And while the Cavs have the youth to rebuild Mobley, Garland, Okoro, and other talent, their mirror image in other conferences’ No. 4 seeds will see young stars rediscover their potential. The problem is a little more complicated than you would expect or to learn to unite more harmoniously.

These Clippers know who their star is, and they’re potentially giving it their all, not just on their last legs, but on their last toes.

It clearly doesn’t help that Harden has spent the past two months shooting less than 40% from the field. Over 30% from deep. The fact that he’s -62 in the last 24 games since the All-Star break doesn’t make it any better. But his role remains the same. As a playmaker, Harden continues to maintain his utility.

Kawhi Leonard will certainly bring the team back to its previous level, but his status for Game 1 against the Mavericks is still very much in doubt. Obviously, players outside of the top five or top 10 will help the team win. You don’t need to read basketball analysis to understand that. But given Leonard’s questionable status and the reality he’s been playing; No games in Aprilthe Clippers may need to look in a different direction.

So while the question for the Cavs was how to redefine their identity with improved talent, Los Angeles needs to find an identity that goes beyond just “out-talenting” other teams. Russell Westbrook and Paul George have led this team to competent basketball, so Westbrook is the starter. As suggested by a prominent NBA podcasterit’s certainly possible.

Or maybe the answer lies in buyout acquisitions. The buyout acquisition was reduced to an essentially storyless position because there was so little forewarning.

Perhaps the answer for the Clippers is Daniel Theis.

Theis has quietly been the best big man on the roster since the trade deadline passed. At just 17 minutes per game, Theis’ dimension as a non-zero shooter (even by league average!) shows his value beyond classic centers like Ivica Zubac and Mason Plumlee. There is.

But these are all small adjustments. What the Clippers really need is to stop being the Clippers. This Cavs era is yet to be defined. The corresponding era in The Clippers fills in every part of the sentence, from participles to appositives. Playoff failure after playoff failure, midseason championship after midseason championship, the only thing missing at the end of this era is punctuation.

Every generation of Clippers basketball, from the awful ’90s teams to Lob City, has participated in trickle-down self-destruction. The Clippers are on the verge of a move to Inglewood, but their final quest for legitimacy and consistency remains in downtown Los Angeles. Even if the reputation remains, this era probably will not reach their new homeland.

But while it’s worth comparing these two teams because they’re so similar to the naked eye, in the end they’re both trying to do the exact opposite of each other.

One is to try to save the team that has been there for several months and return to the established standards. The other is fighting to avoid not only the natural tendencies of its roster, but also the historical nature of its franchise. The February and March champions, who were always second best and always came up short, returned home in May.

Two fourth-seeds are in the playoffs, but both are barely surviving in the short or long term. This postseason, they’ll either be on life support or brought back from the brink with a defibrillator.

Either way, success comes from accepting the past. By overcoming this, any future will be born.