Loss To Celtics Underscores Cavaliers Need For Deadline Tweaks

Feb 4, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) dribbles in the first quarter against the Boston Celtics at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-Imagn Images / David Richard-Imagn Images

The Cleveland Cavaliers find themselves in a unique situation just over 24 hours out from the NBA’s trade deadline.

On one hand, the Cavs are currently the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference with an impressive 40-10 record. Clearly what they’re doing is working, and so there is room for a “why mess with a good thing” approach to consider.

Then again, a 112-105 loss to the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night – compounded by a fourth-straight loss to three of the top five teams in the NBA (two against the Rockets) – paints a grimmer picture as to where the Wine and Gold really fit in the hierarchy of the NBA.

When it comes to the Cavaliers, two things can be true at once. They can be good enough as is to make a deep playoff run and even potentially contend for a title, and their roster may still need some tweaks to be in better position to beat some of the best teams in the NBA come playoff time.

That’s not to say a seven-point loss to Boston should serve as some “hit the panic button” moment for the franchise. Cleveland played a competitive game against the defending NBA Champions, as it did in its previous two matchups against them. The defensive efforts in particular were superb, with the Wine and Gold holding the Celtics to just 40.8% from the floor and just 35.4% from three. That end of the floor wasn’t nearly as concerning, although 15 offensive rebounds was a noticeable uptick from Boston’s norm.

Where the biggest discrepancies existed though were on the offensive end. The Cavs arguably doomed themselves from the start, with a forgettable 15-point first quarter – their second lowest first-quarter scoring mark of the season. That left them constantly playing from behind, trying to chase, and even though they were able to cut it to seven on a few occasions, five a few other times and got it as close as four points in the closing minutes, Boston was just too much to overcome.

It didn’t help that Evan Mobley had his worst shooting night of the season as he knocked down just three of his 14 shot attempts. His struggles left head coach Kenny Atkinson scrambling a bit and feeling the need to play veteran tweener Georges Niang at the three for more than 25 minutes. Without Dean Wade it was kind of a necessary move as Atkinson made it clear after the game he just didn’t think rookie Jaylon Tyson is ready for a matchup like that.

But therein lies the problem. This team needs Wade’s skillset in the worst way against the NBA’s best teams. His size and versatility to play both ends of the floor gives Cleveland something it lacks anywhere else on the roster. Wade is a good player, and his reputation as a “Celtics killer” are well documented. But the Cavs can’t lean on the 28-year-old as the key piece to a deep playoff run.

Maybe another way to look at is that the Cavs do have a deep roster overall – Atkinson wouldn’t be running 10-11 players deep on many nights if that wasn’t the case. However, there are some redundancies at the positions they are deepest (this team has a lot of similarly sized guards) and alternatively they lack that depth at what is the most important role in today’s NBA, the wing.

The word “tweak” is probably a good way to describe what the Cavaliers could use at the deadline. Vice president of basketball operations Koby Altman doesn’t need to take some big swing in the vein of Sunday’s stunning Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade by any means. That said, he should explore every avenue to supplement some key areas of the roster.

That doesn’t only have to come via a trade by the way, although the Cavs have been linked to Cam Johnson of the Brooklyn Nets, and De’Andre Hunter of the Atlanta Hawks in some recent trade chatter. The buyout market is at their disposal though as well, where a wing like Torrey Craig is already available.

Inconspicuously, Atkinson has seemed to carry a different tone when talking about the state of his team ahead of Thursday’s deadline of late. Prior to first tip with Boston he flat out said “you’d be really not smart if you didn’t listen and talk about how you can get better. It’s just the business we’re in.”

It didn’t come off as an attempt to goad Altman into making a move, per se. More so it just felt like an admission that even the NBA’s second-best team isn’t beyond making changes. That’s the right approach to take for a team with legitimate championship aspirations.

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