What we learned this week: Max Strus is finding his footing
The Cavs continue their winning ways.
The Cleveland Cavaliers can’t stop winning. They’ve won 10 straight by 10 or more points which included four victories this past week. Here’s what we learned.
The Cavs have made winning look easy
Even good Eastern Conference teams struggle during Western Conference road trips. It’s just a fact of life in the NBA.
The Cavs continue to defy norms as they easily won in Golden State and Los Angeles on consecutive nights without breaking a sweat. Before that, they ran Denver and the MVP frontrunner off the floor in their building. The Cavs even avoided the first home game after a long road trip pitfall by quickly dispatching the Charlotte Hornets in a contest that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
“The way we approach every day here, the way that our guys have gone to work every single day, no matter the scenario is, we just approach it with a championship mindset,” said Max Strus. “Taking it one day at a time. One game at a time.”
It’s easier to say that than to actually do it. The Cavs play with a level of connectedness and purpose that is present every night even when the shots aren’t going in. Their relentless pursuit of playing their brand of “ethical” basketball continues to overwhelm teams.
Anyone in the NBA will tell you that winning is hard. But if you just followed the Cavs this season you wouldn’t know that as they have separate winning streaks of 15 and 10 games even though they’ve only played 35 times.
Jarrett Allen is proving his worth
It’s been a weird season for Allen, but he’s turning it around in a meaningful way. He outplayed Anthony Davis in their win over the Lakers and followed it with an impressive 19-point showing against the Hornets.
Allen isn’t going to receive a high percentage of touches on this team. He needs to make use of the ones he does get by playing forcefully and aggressively within his role. That’s not something that he’s consistently done this season.
The Cavs have been good with Allen on the floor this season (+9.9 net rating, 87th percentile), but they’ve been considerably better without him (+18.2 net rating, 99th percentile). Part of that is due to just how much Evan Mobley has grown as a player. It’s also partly because his assertiveness waxes and wanes.
This team is at its best when each player is playing aggressively within their role. That’s difficult to do when you’re taking more of a backseat to an emerging star like Mobley, but it can be done as seen this week. Mobley took more shots in Cleveland’s last three games, yet Allen found a way to still be impactful.
It’s difficult to be consistently good when you aren’t getting the ball as much as you might deserve. That’s something every basketball player understands. It’s easier to say “just play more forcefully” on fewer touches than it is to actually do it. This week was proof that Allen is capable of playing this way.
Max Strus is fitting in even if he can’t find his shot
Strus said after the win over the Hornets that he “hoped the shots would start falling.” That certainly hasn’t materialized so far as he’s converted just 27.8% of his three-point looks in his seven games back. However, that hasn’t kept him from being effective.
The Cavs have outscored opponents by 14.8 points per 100 possessions with a 124.9 offensive rating (98th percentile) when Strus is on the floor. His movement off-ball has allowed him to seamlessly fit into what the team is doing offensively. As was the case for most of last season, it’s what Strus does aside from being a three-point shooter that makes him so valuable.
Strus’s best attribute is how he uses his skills in concert with each other. He’s a solid ball handler and finisher, but it’s how he uses his reputation as a shooter to create looks for himself and others that makes him dangerous.
In both of the below plays, Strus recognizes that his defender is overcompensating to take away the three-point shot. In each instance, he immediately puts the ball on the ground to get past his defender for the layup. Other shooters might pump fake and go. Strus just goes.
His ability to quickly read and react to how defenses guard him allows him to make the same impact as a playmaker. In the first clip, he creates the layup for Georges Niang by seeing the switch was just a little late and threading an excellent bounce pass for the basket. In the second, he continued to move off-ball in a two-man game with Allen until the threat of his outside shot created an advantage he could exploit.
It’s only a matter of time before Kenny Atkinson inserts Strus back into the starting lineup. The force, activity, and awareness Strus plays with on both ends is an ideal pairing for what Atkinson wants to do on both ends.