On Tuesday evening, Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers predictably went down 1-0 in their second round best of seven Eastern Conference semifinal series vs the Boston Celtics in Game 1 from the TD Garden. Mitchell once again played well but once again didn’t get a ton of help from his Cavs teammates, and Boston was able to withstand another horrible Jayson Tatum shooting game en route to a blowout win, their fourth 20-plus win of the postseason so far.
One person who has been a major disappointment for the Cavs so far this postseason is power forward/center Evan Mobley, who has been asked to take on a bigger role in the absence of Jarrett Allen with a rib injury and has thus far failed that test, looking like a deer in the headlights at times throughout Game 1 on Tuesday and not attacking a Celtics’ team that doesn’t have a ton of size without Kristaps Porzingis in the lineup.
One person who is sick and tired of the continued excuses for Mobley’s lack of progress is none other than ESPN NBA insider and northeast Ohio native Brian Windhorst, who recently took to 5 Minutes with Windy to put the big man on blast.
“He has all the tools to be an excellent offensive player and he’s not. He’s just not, and you can make excuses for him from now until the sun goes down, he’s just not developed as an offensive player,” said Windhorst, via ESPN Cleveland on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
Indeed, in theory, Evan Mobley should have all of the tools to be one of the best big men in the sport by this point in his career. Unfortunately for the Cavs, the game is played on the basketball court and not in theory, and it certainly looks like there’s a real chance that Cleveland gets swept out of the playoffs by the Celtics unless things turn around in a hurry.
A lack of aggression
As previously referenced, there were several times throughout the evening on Tuesday that Evan Mobley simply looked hesitant to attack the smaller defenders in front of him, including Al Horford, as well as even smaller players when they were switched onto him. It got to the point that TNT commentator Greg Anthony was practically begging the big man to start being more assertive and give Donovan Mitchell some much-needed help.
Instead, Mobley continued to look tentative and outside of a brief six-minute stretch in the first quarter, the Cavs’ offense as a whole could not do much of anything outside of hoping Mitchell worked some wizardry on every play. While that strategy might work if that player is LeBron James and the opposition is the 2018 version of these Celtics, Cleveland will need a lot more help from its supporting cast if they want to get in the win column even one time, let alone four, in this series.
Game 2 is set for 7:00 PM ET on Thursday evening from the TD Garden in Boston.