The Cavaliers head into the offseason convinced that if only they hadn\u2019t needed seven games to beat the Toronto Raptors and seven games to beat the Pistons in the first two rounds, then maybe they wouldn\u2019t have been wiped out by the Knicks in four games in the conference finals.<\/p>\n
The Cavs were mentally and physically exhausted by the time they faced the Knicks. Game 1 of the conference finals tipped off in Madison Square Garden 48 hours after the Cavs eliminated the Pistons on May 17 in Game 7 in Detroit.<\/p>\n
The Cavs didn\u2019t even return to Cleveland after beating the Pistons. Their chartered jet flew them straight to New York. They led the Knicks by 22 points in the fourth quarter of Game 1, lost the lead, lost the game in overtime, and after each subsequent loss to the Knicks whined about how they lost Game 1.<\/p>\n
They should have just buried Game 1. They should have used the \u201cshort memory\u201d mantra of an NFL cornerback when he gives up a touchdown. But they were not strong enough mentally to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s make sure we emphasize this: The Knicks were tremendous,\u201d Cavs president of basketball operations Koby Altman said May 29 in his season wrap-up news conference. \u201cI think for us, if we\u2019re being honest and transparent, when we lost Game 1, that really impacted us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the time to sort of put them on their heels and stop that momentum that they had, and we gave that one away. I don\u2019t know if that was legs. I\u2019m sure there was some emotional fatigue coming off Game 7 on the road and going right to Madison Square Garden.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Kenny Atkinson moaned about the way the NBA set the schedule with only one day in between games after the first three games of the Toronto series. The Cavs played 15 games with one day between each game. That stretch included one trip to Toronto, three to Detroit and one to New Work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did it to ourselves,\u201d star guard Donovan Mitchell said about not ending the Toronto or Detroit series sooner.<\/p>\n
One has to wonder whether the Cavaliers would have even gotten past Toronto if Raptors starting point guard Immanuel Quickley didn\u2019t miss all seven games with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Knicks are a great team, and they\u2019re well deserved to represent the East in the Finals,\u201d Altman said. \u201cWe have to get better in terms of, OK, we want to play longer. If we\u2019re going to use legs as an excuse, then that means we have to start now in terms of our preparation, in terms of our endurance, in terms of our durability, because everyone\u2019s going through that right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying there\u2019s not fatigue and mental fatigue, but you have to give yourself a chance, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re disappointed. We\u2019ve built ourselves up to a level of expectation and standard now to where we want to get to the Finals and compete for that championship. Anything less is just excuses. We can\u2019t go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cavs this spring were in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2018, but overall they were 8-10 in the playoffs this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cavaliers head into the offseason convinced that if only they hadn\u2019t needed seven games to beat the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[8174,2558,355,99],"class_list":["post-674598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674598","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=674598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}