Dribbles: Fifty Wins? Fourth Seed? It’s Already Been Banner Year for Cavs

Random dribbles on the Cavaliers as they enter the final two games of the regular season. …

1. The Cavs have clinched the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference for the playoffs, so where do they go from here?

2. That’s right, baby, the postseason. For the Cavs, that’s a big deal. Home-court advantage in the first round? Without LeBron James? What is this, 1998?

3. But before any of that, we have to talk regular-season strategy. Two games remain — Thursday at the Magic (who they beat Tuesday in Orlando) and Sunday vs. the Hornets. 

4. I’m guessing 90 percent of the players you pay to see will sit. That means Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. No one has said anything. That’s just a guess. But there’s probably no sense in the Cavs playing their core and risking injury. 

5. Either way, the Cavs (50-30) have finished the season with at least 50 wins. That’s really something. That’s a step in the right direction. This season has been a success. We do a lot of analyzing and talking about what the Cavs still need. But it’s been a regular season full of fun, without any drama. Hard for the franchise and its fans to complain about any of that.

6. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff to reporters on hitting 50 wins: “It’s an accomplishment for sure. Winning 50 games in the NBA is not easy. The season is long, it’s grueling, it’s difficult, it’s emotional. But being able to have a group of guys that commit themselves to the team, no matter the circumstances — the selflessness with all the other things that they have going on in the world — for them to sacrifice and move those things to the side, and just continue to focus on the team and do whatever it takes to continue to build a team.”

7. Bickerstaff added that the Cavs were not a “repeat project,” likely referring to the needed adjustments needed when Mitchell came to town. “This was a new group, different dynamics and there were individuals who decided to just continue to sacrifice, buy in to what we do on both sides of the ball and care more about the team than themselves,” Bickerstaff said.

8. It’s all definitely admirable. Most people don’t remember the Cavs that made the playoffs in 1998, the last time they did it without James. It’s been 30 years to the season since they got out of the first round without LeBron.

9. And again, they did it without a hint of drama. That’s probably also been the first time they’ve done that in 25-30 years. As James once said when in Cleveland, “Wherever I go, drama seems to follow.”

10. Both president of basketball operations Koby Altman and Bickerstaff deserve lots of credit here. Altman went got a group of individuals who fit, and Bickerstaff has molded them into a cohesive unit. Mitchell fit in seamlessly. And no, I don’t think the Cavs would be this promising if they had kept Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton and Ochai Agbaji, sent to the Jazz in the Mitchell trade.

11. When the Spurs were in their heyday, coach Gregg Popovich told me that “we draft guys who have gotten over themselves.” Altman has taken a similar approach to building this team. There are no massive egos and there is no whining. In pro sports, that’s not always easy to do.

12. So, where do the Cavs go from here? The playoffs. The first two games will be in Cleveland. So would a Game 7, if need be. That’s a major first step for a franchise that appears to be very much on track to better things.

13. For the record, Mitchell finished the win over the Magic with 43 points, his fourth straight game of 40 or more. He now also has 13 such performances on the season.  That’s the most for a player in his first year with a new team since Wilt Chamberlain had 32 such games back in the 1960s.

14. Meanwhile, the status of Isaac Okoro (knee) for the playoffs seems very much up in the air. I’ve been saying the Cavs will need a big series from a “role player” to advance in the playoffs all along. That hasn’t changed. Okoro would be a candidate. Still, I suspect they will beat the Knicks.

15. That said, while the Cavs are better than the Knicks, they’re not that much better. The series could be the best one of the first round.

16. Finally, here is what ESPN analyst and former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy told the New York Post’s Jared Schwartz over the weekend: “I think (the Knicks’) best chance would be to play against Cleveland in the first round. They’d still be a big underdog there, but I think they’d have a puncher’s chance. The top three seeds in the Eastern Conference are the best teams in the NBA. And it would be hard-pressed to find a pathway to beating those three teams in a series.”