4 takeaways from Cavs Game 1 victory over Heat

The Cavaliers were able to pull out a convincing win despite one of their best players having an off night.

The Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Miami Heat by 21, but it felt much closer than the final score indicated. Let’s take a closer look at what we can take from the Game 1 victory.

The Cavs’ guards are built for the playoffs

Miami did a good job of grinding Cleveland’s offense to a halt. The Cavs only had 88 possessions in Game 1. For context, they averaged just over 100 in the regular season.

They did this by being physical at the point of attack and limiting Cleveland’s off-ball movement. This was reflected in the fact that De’Andre Hunter, Sam Merrill, and Max Strus combined for just nine three-point attempts.

The Heat made the Cavs beat them off the dribble in one-on-one matchups. That’s something Donovan Mitchell, Ty Jerome, and Darius Garland were more than happy to do.

Each of their guards generated looks at the rim and in the paint whenever they wanted to. That group combined to go 16-21 (76.2%) on shots from the free-throw line and in. Most of which were in isolation possessions.

No defense can take everything away. You always have to pick your poison to some degree. Miami chose to gunk up the off-ball movement and turn Cleveland into an isolation offense that had to defeat their man off the dribble. They paid for that choice in Game 1.

Kenny Atkinson passed his first playoff test

Atkinson has plenty of experience as an assistant, but he came into this game having been the head coach in just five playoff games before this one. Even though he’s consistently shown to be a great coach this season, you don’t always know how that will translate to the playoffs.

Game 1 showed that his coaching style and feel for the game does carry over nicely to the postseason. He quickly recognized that guys like Hunter didn’t have it and limited him to just 16 minutes. Conversely, he saw that Sam Merrill was a good fit in a game the refs were letting get physical. This resulted in some unorthodox fourth-quarter lineups that ended up working well.

Those are the type of little things you need your head coach to pick up on and react to in these fast-moving playoff games.

Evan Mobley needs to be better

This felt like a game from Mobley’s rookie year. There were highs, like the off-the-dribble three he hit at the start of the game, but he was also bullied inside by Bam Adebayo and was a non-factor for large stretches.

You could live with an up-and-down performance like that from a rookie still coming into his own. You can’t from someone who’s an All-NBA caliber player who is arguably the most important piece on a team with championship aspirations.

The rebounding issues illustrated this most clearly. The Cavs gave up 17 second-chance points and Mobley was a big reason why. Cleveland only secured 65.5% of Miami’s missed shots with Mobley on the floor on Sunday compared with 71.4% they did when he was off. This all translated to no rebounds for Mobley in the first half.

That just can’t happen.

I don’t completely buy into the notion that the Cavs will only go as far as Mobley takes them. That discounts Mitchell’s brilliance and this team’s incredible depth. But there is at least some truth to that. Mobley needs to be among the best players on the court for the Cavs to compete against teams like the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder.

I’m not leaving this game with any concerns about Mobley going forward. There weren’t situations, like there was against the New York Knicks two years ago, where he seemed overwhelmed by the moment. But you would like to see him win his matchup against Bam Adebayo more consistently than he did on Sunday. It’ll be interesting to see how he responds in Game 2.

The Heat are going to make the Cavs earn it

The Cavs should win this series in four or five games due to their sizeable talent advantage. Anything more than that would rightly be looked at as a disappointment. But if Game 1 was any indicator of things, they will make Cleveland earn it.

The Heat had multiple chances to give up and they would’ve been fully justified in doing so. They played two Play-In games last week, had less than 48 hours to prepare, and are playing the one seed on the road. This wasn’t supposed to be a close game. Yet, they kept fighting back.

The Cavs will need to find ways to win slow, possession-by-possession games where they’re going up against a more physical team. Additionally, they will need to be able to constantly adjust to different schemes and looks. Those aren’t things that this group has continually shown that they can overcome in the playoffs.

That’s also why this is the perfect opponent for the first round.

“They make you play for 48 [minutes],” Atkinson said postgame. “I know that’s a cliche, but a lot of teams don’t. You can’t relax. I think this series, whatever happens, we’re going to get so much better playing these guys.”