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The Cleveland Cavaliers' offense will take a big hit under Kenny Atkinson in 2024-25

Posted on by Kennedy
The Cleveland Cavaliers' offense will take a big hit under Kenny Atkinson in 2024-25

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CLEVELAND — The Cavaliers are rolling — to a degree that surprised even them.

They are a perfect 5-0 to begin the Kenny Atkinson era in Cleveland as Cavs coach. They have scored at least 110 points in all five games and have exceeded the 130-point mark three times. Four of those five wins were by double digits.

In other words, they've overwhelmed defenses at every turn so far, even if it's still a small sample size.

Atkinson was brought in to bring a more offensive mindset to the Cavs roster. Even he's a little surprised at how well the offense worked early in the season, and it's his own system that he implemented.

“Yes, because I have so much respect for parity in this league,” Atkinson said after the Cavs’ 134-110 win over LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night. “I look at every game on the schedule and just ask myself, ‘How do we beat them? How do we beat them?' … Well, to be honest, I’m a little surprised.”

The Cavaliers entered Wednesday with the NBA's second-best offensive rating of 123.14, behind only the reigning champion Boston Celtics.

The Cavs were hoping there would be an offensive transformation with Atkinson this season. So far all systems have been operational.

Bronny and LeBron: “It’s a beautiful story”: Bronny James scores his first NBA points in Cleveland against Cavs

Part of the offensive explosion is due to the Cavs simply blowing out lights almost every night so far. Atkinson knows this won't last long.

But aside from the collective winning streak as shooters, players clearly liked this system.

“There’s also the development part. We’re working on it a lot and we’ve been here since the end of July, the guys have been in the gym,” Atkinson said. “Well, the statisticians will tell you: No, you're shooting above expected (percentages) and that's all. At some point you will crash. So let's hope we don't crash because it's pretty fun when that thing goes in.”

Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley and Darius Garland lead the Cavaliers' offensive push in 2024-25

The Cavs' starting lineup appears to offer more than just a few nice shots early in the season.

“I think it's the movement,” said Donovan Mitchell, who led the Cavs to a 42-point first-quarter win on Wednesday night. “Being able to be unselfish and get into the corners. We joke about it, we'll probably joke about it all year, but this is huge because now the defense has to somehow figure out what's going on. … For us it is unpredictable.”

Jarrett Allen in particular has developed well. Entering Wednesday's start, he ranked sixth in the NBA in player efficiency (29.2). His offensive rating of 159.2 was the second best of any player. And the league leader in win shares per 48 minutes (measures how effectively a player contributed to wins over a 48-minute average)? Allen, at .361.

That was before his 20-point, 17-rebound performance in the win over the Lakers.

Jarrett Allen leads the NBA in Win Shares

Allen also has perhaps the craziest stat line in the NBA so far this season – he has as many missed shots (nine) as he has blocked.

“Yeah, I mean, when in doubt (pass it to Jarrett Allen), right?” Mitchell said. “We talk about myself, we talk about DG, we talk about Ev, but for a guy like him, he should have been an All-Star last year to be as productive as he is, as calm as he is, right ?” “You don't ask for much, that's hard to find in this league.”

Allen credited the offensive's success early in the season largely to Mobley's commitment.

The Cavs are having success on offense through Evan Mobley

The Cavs' unlocking of Mobley's potential was a major factor in their decision to hire Atkinson as the team's new coach. The offense has been effectively run by Mobley at times, as they have long trusted him to make the right basketball play and also be able to use his versatility and athleticism to open things up.

“With him sharing the ball and having Evan up front as a distributor, he basically did a great job of running our offense,” Allen said when asked what works on offense, aside from the shots falling. “We put a lot into him. It just opens everyone up.”

The Cavs know they will likely face speed bumps at some point, but for now everything is working — perhaps even better than Atkinson imagined.

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