Throughout the 2024-25 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers have looked like they’re a cut above the rest of the Eastern Conference, vindicating the front office’s decision to keep the team’s core four for the foreseeable future. But as good as they’ve been in the regular season, the ultimate goal for the Cavs is to win a championship. And what better way for them to gauge where they are in terms of achieving that goal of theirs than to face the reigning champion Boston Celtics in a matchup on Friday night?
It was worrying that the Cavs came out of the gates with such lethargy that they fell behind by 22 points, 25-3, in the first quarter. But if there was ever a time to fall behind by such a huge deficit, it’s early on in the game. Behind a stellar night from Donovan Mitchell, who scored 41 points, the Cavs mounted a furious comeback to take a 123-116 victory away from home.
While regular-season results rarely matter in the grand scheme of the playoffs, this result is doing wonders for the Cavs’ confidence, as evidenced by Mitchell’s remarks following the game.
“We’ve done a lot of really good things this season. But I keep telling my guys, we haven’t done anything. All the hype, the 15-0, we haven’t done anything yet. These guys [Celtics], this is our measuring stick. We want to continue to get to where they’re at,” Mitchell said in his postgame interview, via the official NBA account on X (formerly Twitter).
Cavs flex team effort against Celtics’ star power
© Winslow Townson-Imagn Images
While the Cavs definitely saw some star power on the night with Donovan Mitchell’s incredible performance in Boston, Cleveland simply got a deeper and more well-rounded effort from the rest of the roster than Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown did.
What makes this Cavs team seem different from previous iterations is that they have so much depth to weather lackluster efforts from starters. Just to put things in perspective, Ty Jerome was a plus-34 on the night.
But even with the Cavs moving to 49-10 on the year, Mitchell knows that they cannot rest on their laurels. As the leader of the locker room, Mitchell, of all people, would know that regular-season excellence doesn’t necessarily translate to postseason success.
Back in 2021, his Utah Jazz had the best record in the NBA, only for them to falter in the second round. The daily process of working towards the ultimate goal is what matters the most to Mitchell, and this win for the Cavs is a sign that they’re on the right track.
