{"id":613187,"date":"2026-04-29T11:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/613187\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:41:10","slug":"4-keys-for-cavs-in-game-5-vs-raptors-what-happened-to-the-pick-and-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/613187\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Keys for Cavs in Game 5 vs. Raptors: What happened to the pick-and-roll?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> have gotten away from what\u2019s worked in games 1 and 2. The Toronto Raptors<\/a> deserve a ton of credit for that. Their physicality with Cleveland\u2019s star backcourt has made it difficult for the Cavs to establish any kind of momentum. At the same time, the Cavs simply need to be better.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get into what exactly they need to do in Game 5.<\/p>\n

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1. Reestablish the James Harden<\/a> pick-and-roll<\/p>\n

The pick-and-roll has been a mainstay for the Cavs\u2019 offense since the James Harden trade and was at the start of the series. In Game 1, Harden accumulated four assists out of the pick-and-roll with a big. By contrast, in Game 4, he only had one assist out of that action.<\/p>\n

Going smaller and playing less drop coverage has hurt Cleveland\u2019s ability to run the pick-and-roll. Instead of having Jakob Poeltl<\/a> on Allen, RJ Barrett<\/a> is the primary defender in the starting lineup. This easily allows the Raptors to switch the action, mitigating any advantage you\u2019re trying to create with the screen.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have countered by relying on more guard-on-guard screens. If you\u2019re going to switch everything, you might as well use the guards to create favorable matchups. There\u2019s solid rationale for this. The issue is, guards don\u2019t have gravity going toward the rim. If you cause a momentary mismatch, it doesn\u2019t break the defense because it\u2019s always easier to recover side-to-side than it is to collapse and then try to get back out to shooters.<\/p>\n

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In short, the guard-to-guard screens don\u2019t generate looks going to the rim. Just somewhat stagnant outside looks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s incredibly difficult to have a good offense if you can\u2019t get anything going inside. Creating clean looks from the outside is predicated entirely on your ability to get to the basket. The Boston Celtics<\/a> wouldn\u2019t be the three-point shooting juggernaut they are if they didn\u2019t have multiple ball handlers who could beat mismatches and create advantages going to the hoop.<\/p>\n

Right now, the Cavs aren\u2019t doing that. They need to get actions going north and south. And they also need to find ways to get Jamal Sheed off Harden. Being able to reestablish the pick-and-roll with the bigs should help with both.<\/p>\n

2. Get Jarrett Allen involved in the offense<\/p>\n

The Raptors have conceded a mismatch inside by having Barrett guard Allen to start games. They\u2019re okay with Barrett getting beaten inside if it means they can slow down the pick-and-roll and be versatile elsewhere defensively. But right now, they\u2019re getting all the advantages of this strategy without having to worry about any of the consequences.<\/p>\n

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Cleveland tried to get the ball to Allen on a post-up with Barrett on one of the first possessions in Game 4, but a bad entry pass from Harden resulted in a turnover. For whatever reason, this caused the Cavs to stop looking for Allen altogether as he had just five field-goal attempts in Game 4.<\/p>\n

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While we all acknowledge that post-ups aren\u2019t necessarily what you want to construct an offense around, getting Allen involved more when he has Barrett on him would help in a couple of ways.<\/p>\n

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For starters, Barrett has been Toronto\u2019s second-best offensive player. One of the most effective ways to slow someone down offensively is to make them work on the other end.<\/p>\n

Guarding in the post is physically draining. Fighting for position, especially against someone bigger than you, takes a toll. Being intentional about getting Allen the ball is a great way to tire Barrett out.<\/p>\n

Head coach Kenny Atkinson has instead opted to keep Allen in the dunker\u2019s spot to use him as a play finisher and a rebounder. In theory, that makes sense. There\u2019s more ways to punish a mismatch than by just posting up, but this more passive role allows Allen to get lost in the shuffle.<\/p>\n

Allen\u2019s energy on both ends is tied directly to how involved he is offensively. When he\u2019s getting the ball with regularity, he\u2019s more aggressive in how he fights for position, sets screens, and rolls to the basket. But when he\u2019s only used sparingly, the focus and intensity aren\u2019t there. Instead, he plays like someone who just doesn\u2019t want to get in the way, as opposed to one who\u2019s taking command.<\/p>\n

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The Cavs need an engaged Allen on both ends of the floor. Their size with their bigs is one of their advantages in this series. But that advantage only matters if they\u2019re doing what they can to maximize it.<\/p>\n

3. Win the possession battle<\/p>\n

If you wanted to attribute Toronto\u2019s Game 4 victory to one thing, it\u2019d be how they won the possession battle. The Raptors attempted 10 more shots from the field and 13 more free throws. And even though they shot worse than the Cavs, getting more shots up helped overcome that disparity.<\/p>\n

Securing defensive rebounds and forcing turnovers led to this.<\/p>\n

Offensive rebounds happen for a few reasons, but usually, they can be the result of defensive breakdowns. Every rotation to contest a drive at the rim results in one person who isn\u2019t boxed out. That \u2014 combined with the Raptors just playing with more energy \u2014 allowed them to control this category.<\/p>\n

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Turning it over 17 times doesn\u2019t help. The Raptors\u2019 offense in the regular season was predicated on running in the open floor. Giveaways, especially live-ball ones, invite Toronto to do that.<\/p>\n

The Raptors have a great defensive team. Their length and switchability allow them to get more deflections than most teams, but Donovan Mitchell<\/a> and Harden need to be better.<\/p>\n

If you go back and look at the guard\u2019s turnovers from Games 3 and 4, you\u2019ll see that a good portion of them were simply from a lack of focus. That can\u2019t happen in games that are this important.<\/p>\n

If the Cavs can win the possession game, they\u2019ll easily win Game 5.<\/p>\n

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4. Donovan Mitchell needs to finish at the basket<\/p>\n

The Cavs absolutely do need Mitchell to score. And if he\u2019s going to do that as efficiently as the Cavs need him to, it\u2019ll be because he\u2019s getting to the rim.<\/p>\n

Mitchell took 24 shots in Game 4, but only four in the restricted area. He missed all four of them. Overall, he went just 2-10 on shots in the paint.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not able to beat teams at the rim, he becomes overly reliant on the outside shot. Mitchell is a good pull-up three-point shooter, but that is a much higher-variant shot than what you\u2019d like if it\u2019s going to be someone\u2019s main form of offense.<\/p>\n

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Mitchell has talked about saving his body for the playoffs<\/a>. He\u2019s added more elements to his in-between game, particularly with the floater, so that he can be ready for the postseason.<\/p>\n

Well, now is the time to show what he\u2019s been saving his body for. The Cavs are two bad performances away from their season being over \u2014 and possibly this era of Cleveland basketball as we know it. There\u2019s no reason to leave anything in the tank now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers have gotten away from what\u2019s worked in games 1 and 2. The Toronto Raptors deserve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2242,8174,13054,6411,6418,27495,355,59050,99,12378,2970],"class_list":["post-613187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-boston-celtics","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-jakob-poeltl","tag-james-harden","tag-jarrett-allen","tag-nba","tag-rj-barrett","tag-sports","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-raptors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}