Located around fourth place in the Eastern Conference mid-season in 2021/22, the Cavs then collapsed to finish eighth at the end of the regular season. They had then missed the playoffs after two consecutive defeats against Brooklyn, then at home against Atlanta during the “play-in”.
The formation of JB Bickerstaff knew how to learn from this failure and, in its new configuration, this time managed to hold on until the end and even win the home advantage in the first round. Despite everything, this setback from last season was visibly hard to digest since it is still very present in the minds of the players.
“It represents everything. It’s been a while since last year, but I still have it in the back of my mind.”, confirmed Darius Garland, while Cedi Osman underlined the surplus of motivation born of this misadventure. ” It made us even hungrier.”he added. “That’s why I had no doubt that we would qualify for the playoffs this season.”
As he has undoubtedly done throughout the year, JB Bickerstaff will be able to continue to rely on the memory of this failure to try to get the best out of his group.
“There is the emotion of having failed in a great collective moment to ensure that it does not happen again”said the Cleveland coach. “When our guys came in at the start of the season, what happened to us last year resonated, and this group wanted to keep improving, and showed it with their actions. You see how hard they work, you see how competitive, selfless they are. These are the things that stand out, that show that they are working to improve and that they are extremely hungry”.
| Shots | Bounces | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | GM | Minimum | Shots | 3 points | LF | Off | Def | Early | pd | bp | Int | CT | party | Points |
| Donovan Mitchell | 68 | 35.8 | 48.4 | 38.6 | 86.7 | 0.9 | 3.3 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 2.6 | 1.5 | 0.4 | 2.5 | 28.3 |
| Darius Garland | 69 | 35.5 | 46.2 | 41.0 | 86.3 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 2.7 | 7.8 | 2.9 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 2.1 | 21.6 |
| Evan Mobley | 79 | 34.4 | 55.4 | 21.6 | 67.4 | 2.4 | 6.6 | 9.0 | 2.8 | 1.8 | 0.8 | 1.5 | 2.8 | 16.2 |
| Jarrett Allen | 68 | 32.6 | 64.4 | 10.0 | 73.3 | 3.3 | 6.5 | 9.8 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 1.2 | 2.3 | 14.3 |
| Caris Levert | 74 | 30.2 | 43.1 | 39.2 | 72.2 | 0.7 | 3.1 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 1.6 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 2.3 | 12.1 |
| Cedi Osman | 77 | 20.1 | 45.1 | 37.2 | 69.4 | 0.3 | 2.0 | 2.3 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 8.7 |
| Kevin Love | 41 | 20.0 | 38.9 | 35.4 | 88.9 | 1.0 | 5.8 | 6.8 | 1.9 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 1.6 | 8.5 |
| Danny Green | 8 | 11.9 | 50.0 | 44.8 | 100.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 6.5 |
| isaac okoro | 76 | 21.7 | 49.4 | 36.3 | 75.7 | 0.7 | 1.8 | 2.5 | 1.1 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 2.1 | 6.4 |
| lamar stevens | 62 | 18.1 | 44.8 | 31.6 | 70.2 | 0.8 | 2.6 | 3.3 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 5.3 |
| Ricky Rubio | 33 | 17.2 | 34.3 | 25.6 | 80.0 | 0.3 | 1.8 | 2.1 | 3.5 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 5.2 |
| Sam Merrill | 5 | 11.7 | 40.9 | 27.8 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 5.0 |
| Dean Wade | 44 | 20.3 | 41.2 | 35.4 | 65.2 | 0.5 | 3.0 | 3.4 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 2.0 | 4.7 |
| Raulzinho Neto | 48 | 10.5 | 51.8 | 28.6 | 91.2 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 3.3 |
| Robin Lopez | 37 | 8.1 | 64.0 | 50.0 | 77.8 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 1.4 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 1.2 | 3.0 |
| Mamadi Diakite | 22 | 8.0 | 48.0 | 33.3 | 100.0 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 2.6 |
| Isaiah Mobley | 12 | 7.0 | 42.9 | 37.5 | 100.0 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 1.7 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 2.6 |
| Dylan Windler | 3 | 3.5 | 66.7 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.7 |
