Cavaliers 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinals Recap

Cavaliers 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinals Recap

Time Stamp: May 20, 2024 12:38 PM
Source Node: 2579570

The Cleveland Cavaliers, in dropping Game 5 to the Boston Celtics, are officially out of the 2024 NBA postseason. It was a difficult series, as Cleveland was missing their star-center Jarrett Allen due to a rib injury. Although, Boston was also short-handed, so the series was a hard fought one. Looking at team and player performances, here’s a Cavaliers 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinals recap. 

Team performances

In the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the Cavaliers averaged 101.2 points, 35.4 rebounds and 22.2 assists. They shot 46 percent from the field, and 34.6 percent from deep on about 13 attempts a game. While their average of eight turnovers a game is better than their regular season numbers (and regular season league average), it still wasn’t enough to outplay the Celtics. 

The Celtics averaged 108.4 points with 44.2 rebounds and 22.6 assists. This came with a 48.5 percent clip from the field, and 36.8 percent from deep on 14 attempts per game. Interestingly, Boston averaged more turnovers than Cleveland with 10 per game. Their overall play, however, made up for it as this was a relatively easy series for the Celts. 

Boston managed to wrap the series up in a gentleman’s sweep. For Cleveland, at least, the silver lining is that it proved they could win on the road in the postseason as their win was in the Garden. 

Cavalier performances 

Donovan Mitchell carried the Cavaliers through this series, averaging 31.7 points with a 51.5 field goal percentage, and a 53.3 three point percentage. He also had 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game, churning out overall impressive performances. 

Evan Mobley also had some impressive performances, averaging 21.4 points, 9.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists in the series. Aside from almost averaging a double-double in the absence of Allen, Mobley did it with a 62.7 field goal percentage and over a three made a game. Proving why he’ll be a cornerstone of this team (and maybe why he should move to center full-time), Mobley played at the five extremely well. 

Darius Garland also put up a solid series, with 16.8 points and 6.2 assists. He also shot a quality 40.2 percent from the field, but struggled from deep making only 30.6 percent of his three-point attempts. While Garland didn’t have the best series, he was still fairly efficient outside of threes and averaged only 1.6 turnovers a game. 

Caris LeVert averaged 14.8 points per game,  Max Strus averaged 10, Marcus Morris Sr averaged eight, Isaac Okoro averaged 6.4, and Sam Merrill, Dean Wade, Georges Niang and Tristan Thompson all averaged below four points per game. Not to say that these players weren’t positives for Cleveland (Merrill had some hot shooting streaks, Okoro played some great defense, LeVert scored consistently and Morris had a phenomenal Game 5), but their play wasn’t enough to get the Cavs into the Eastern Conference Finals. 

Series takeaways

Along with winning a road game in one of the most difficult arenas to play in, the Cavaliers showed that they can hang with the best teams in the league. Sure they were almost swept, but every game was (mostly) competitive and the Cavaliers were short-handed. The Celtics are missing Kristaps Porzingis, too, but clearly the injuries on Cleveland’s side are more instrumental to their success. 

While Cleveland lost the series, they still continued to make concrete progress off of last season. While they might not have wanted to go out the way they did, it’s still better than the way last season needed and shows a present growth in both the quality of players and a winning culture. 

For more NBA and other sports and esports news, you can find The Game Haus on Twitter and Facebook.

Featured photo courtesy of NBA.com

“From Our Haus to Your’s”

Time Stamp:

More from The Games Haus