Don't be fooled by the Cavaliers' slow, shorthanded start
CBSN
Despite its record, Cleveland is already looking more dynamic than it was last season
The Cleveland Cavaliers' season unofficially began when Jarrett Allen lobbed the ball to Evan Mobley late in the the fourth quarter against the Golden State Warriors last Sunday. Big-to-big passing has been a staple for the Cavs since drafting Mobley in 2021; his two-hand throwdown didn't just put an exclamation point on a comfortable 115-104 win, it issued a reminder: This is the type of team that can force the Warriors to go small, then push them around.
That the alley-oop was Allen and Mobley's first such connection of the season should tell you how much to read into Cleveland's 2-4 record coming into the game (and its 3-5 record now). Having started severely shorthanded, the Cavs have hardly been appointment viewing on League Pass. Revisit the losses in a little while, though, and they might play like early episodes of The Simpsons. The Bart-plays-KWYJIBO-in-Scrabble moment came all the way back in the preseason, when Mobley and newcomer Max Strus introduced the Indiana Pacers to their surprisingly refined two-man game.
Undrafted in 2019 and cut twice prior to joining the Miami Heat's out-the-mud club, Strus arrived in Cleveland via sign-and-trade on a four-year, $62.3 million contract. The team didn't arrange for a throng of season-ticket holders to greet him at the airport, like it had for Donovan Mitchell the previous summer, but, by virtue of his skillset, it could have justified a welcome party. "Exactly what I do is what they needed," the sharpshooter said the morning of the season opener in Brooklyn.