Cavs’ Kenny Atkinson Takes Some Blame After First Loss Of Season: ‘It’s Game Plan, Too’

November 19, 2024

It’s finally arrived — the Cavaliers’ first loss of the season, courtesy of a 1220-117 road setback against the reigning champion Boston Celtics on Tuesday.

While the Cavs suffered through perhaps their worst half of the season, trailing Boston 65-48 at halftime, they gave themselves a chance in the final 24 minutes. But they just ran out of time and the clock finally struck midnight on 15-0.

“It’s not on the players,” coach Kenny Atkinson told reporters after the loss. “It’s a game plan, too. I feel that’s a little bit on me, maybe not prepared enough for what they were throwing at us. We adjusted in the second half. That big second quarter [from Boston] was too much to overcome.”

Atkinson arrived after three years as an assistant with the Golden State Warriors. The Cavs were aiming to become only the second team in NBA history to start 16-0, joining that very franchise (the 2015-16 Warriors started 24-0).

This was his first loss in Cleveland and the reasons were many. Darius Garland went a miserable 3-of-21 from the field. The Cavs were missing three rotational players in Isaac Okoro, Dean Wade and Caris LeVert (and Max Strus if you want to get really technical). They were victimized by a Celtics avalanche of 3-pointers in the first half. Evan Mobley finished with 22 points, but didn’t really get going until the third quarter.

“That’s part of the strategy miss on my part. We did not get [Mobley] involved in the first half,” Atkinson said.

“We kind of played their game — pickup game, iso game. Evan didn’t touch it. We made the adjustments in the second half, and you can see that he can punish switches. So, we’ve got to keep looking at that because that will be the playoff teams switching on him.”

No matter, the Cavs have to forget about it quickly, because this is the NBA and there is always another game. Cleveland hosts the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday.