Does Jarrett Allen have enough time to get comfortable ahead of playoffs?

0:00it feels like we're inching closer to to Jared Allen coming back. We've heard a couple reports suggest maybe Friday. Yeah. I think we've officially reached the point where from day to day to now missing his many games as he has where it's like even when he comes back, I'm going to be keeping like a special eye on him for the first couple days just to make sure he's all the way back. Okay. How long does that extend? You said first couple days. Is that just a couple games? Are we? Is that just a forever for the rest of the season? Probably the first two to three games. Okay. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we need anything more than that. It's obvious what he does for this team. And but what I find interesting though is that in this little stretch that he's now been out. It seems like James Harden Evan Mobile, if I had a connection and does seem like Evan Mobile, he's playing some of the best basketball he's played in a while. This is where I get to mention the same point I've made three times. You got five weeks now. I set you up for it for a reason where I don't think it's coincidence that Jared Allen's best stretch of basketball came without Evan Mobley, especially once James Harden came along. And I now don't think

1:03it's coincidence that Evan Mobley's best stretch of basketball has played all season long. And the best basketball has played with James Harden has been without Jared Allen. And so if you're atkinson, what do you do with this information? Do you then start to do things where like he kind of did it with Harden and Mitchell where he would have like 15 minutes of them being on, but then he'd have like 10 minutes of them just both kind of existing where one was on and then one was off and like really trying to separate the two as much as he possibly can. Is that what we're going to see with Allen and with Mobley? I think it would make a lot of sense, but I think you're also trying to do that with Harden and Mitchell too to try and to try and give everybody a chance to kind of go off on their own. And so I, it's interesting. Like I think like there's a part of me that would be interested in seeing Evan Mobley without Jared Allen next to him in the playoffs. Because I think I think it's going to be really hard for James Harden to set up both Jared Allen and Evan Mobley at the same time and making and making both guys as good as they can be offensively.

2:04But the good thing is he's asking different things of each one though. So that at least helps out Harden. Like with Harden, Harden Mobley is just a lot of high-picking roles and like they've just kind of made that connection and that part of it work. We're Jared Allen's a little bit of a different story. Yeah, but I think there's going to be the, again, I think there's just a math problem there. But it's funny. Like on one hand, I think if you took Jared Allen off this, off this team, if this, let's say this rear to its head and he misses another stretch of time. I'd be really concerned about their ability to go deeper into the playoffs, the way everybody hopes. On the other hand, I'd be really interested to see if Evan Mobley can step up in a way and kind of answer the question, hey, are these two bigs? Are they better off alone as opposed to together? Yeah, it's interesting. Like a little known fact about Evan Mobley in the postseason last year is that he never took more than 13 shots in any game. He wasn't aggressive. Like and yes, there was, there were certainly times where it was like Darius and then Donovan just took over and they tried to do all that. But like the reality is that Mobley didn't stay aggressive at all. And like in this little stretch where it's Harden and it's Mobley and they got the

3:08pick and roll working and they're doing all these things. It's a much more aggressive Mobley. In fact, actually one of the takeaways from last night's game was that I thought Mobley went back into a shell a little bit and I thought that like when you're eight for eight, Mobley keeps shooting, do something, find a way to be aggressive. And I've noticed without Alan, I feel like that is the best version of Mobley where it continues to stay. Didn't happen last night, but it continues to be aggressive. Yeah, like I feel like a no-garedown in the playoffs or a limited garedown in the playoffs depending on how bad this thing really is because we can't trust the Cavs and tell us, I think you might get a better Mobley offensively in the playoffs. The problem is, man, I would put a big burden on Evan who's not always been the most comfortable guy defensively being the absolute, I know he's the former defensive player of the year, but he's had a lot of success with Jared plan right next to him. I don't think that's coincidence because beyond Jared, what are the real, like I know Dean Wade is 6869. Who's your other guy

4:09that's running size that can help take some of the bigger matchups for Evan? Jared, I mean, yeah, I like Thomas Bryant. He's not doing that in the postseason. Well, he had the bench for any of the last year. Yeah, in the postseason, it shrinks a little bit, and you saw Thomas Bryant last night, obviously. You will have that. Yeah, that is part of it. Well, I mean, but overall, though, I just, I feel like, I mean, there's a reason why we think garedown and matter so much of this team. Nobody's being shy about that. Like, garedown and does matter. If this team is going to try to make a deep playoff run, they got to find a way to make this all work. But Jared Allen's a part of that. 2 1 6 4 7 4 0092 with Jared Allen potentially coming back this week. Is this enough time for the Cavalier smack your champion of the bit there? What's up? Yeah, I was going to say too. I kind of tying back to the discussion that you guys had to start the show. I also think that Jared Allen missing time. I don't think that it's coincidence that you've seen the Cavs defensive fault, the defense falter over the last couple of weeks without Jared Allen. And I think that him slotting in there. I think also it fixes a lot of those woes that you had seen previously. The only thing I'd say is it hasn't been the

5:11perimeter. Sorry, it hasn't been the interior defense that has fallen. A lot of the problems have been on the perimeter. No, I just think like real quick. I just think like, yes, yes, you're a better defense with Jared Allen there. You are. But the biggest problem that they just haven't been, it's been effort. I'll be I think it's effort on the perimeter has been the biggest problem. I think that's why the defense is stunk. Yeah, that's fair. I was going to say too, though, that at least with with Allen out there, it gives mobility that flexibility to be that wild card and be able to go and play some of those guys on the perimeter out there as well. So I think it just adds a little bit more help in that regard. So assuming Evan comes back on Friday, does this enough time? I think so. I don't know. I really don't and that's I'm not I'm not doing the I'm not going to I'm not trying to upset or alienate any show here. We don't want to ruin people's posts. We don't want I will not ruin a post news. It's such a big and you know, hold on people's feelings. I'm a loser. I'm a loser. Oh, no. Oh, many people are saying it.

6:13I think you branded it that way. Many people are saying it. I'm one of the many. But no, I mean, I don't know. I really don't like I I kind of pinpointed 15 games. I thought for 15 games, that's the stretch run that I think is the perfect amount of time. I could even shrink it to 12 games. Like now we're getting to the point where it's, you know, 11 10 games, maybe nine games. Like, well, that's one of this way. If it doesn't work in the postseason or anything like that, I'm not going to turn around and say I think it's because Jared Allen didn't have enough games to get there to the postseason. I would more look at it and be like, yeah, the two bigs don't work together, which is something by the way, Atkinson has been preaching the entire time he's been in the NBA that two big guys like that don't work. There's a reason why Jared Allen found the the benching in Brooklyn the first go around with Kenny Atkinson. So like I, I would win more towards that being the reason why not necessarily the idea that they didn't have enough games to have Jared Allen come back and try to make it work. No, but I think it's all of it. Like it's Jared being out for a ridiculous amount of games when we thought it was day to day. It was

7:13Evan still is not played. I mean, I know Evan's heating up here and has played better. But he hasn't played a lot with Jared this year because even when they were healthy, they were doing the weird split thing at the end of the games. Obviously, Donovan's had a stretch of being hurt. James Hardin's got that weird pinky thing. We have no idea how it's going. Keon Ellis has like there been so many injuries here that to me, it's just, I mean, this has been an overwhelming health crisis for the Cavaliers that just kind of gets buttressed to kind of fall on on Jared's injury, which isn't entirely fair, but I don't know. I mean, if everybody's healthy and everybody gets a chance in those final nine games, you're still talking about three weeks of basketball. No, but you have to think about it this way. And I think about this when I talk about Tatum, for instance, because if Tatum ends up making it to the NBA finals, he will have had three months of basketball. I was like, Oh, he's coming back and it's such a short amount of time. It's like he would have been playing for three months. If Jared Allen comes back and then they're able to actually make it to the end. Let's say Friday because it's the rumor date that's going around here. And if he's actually able to then to let's say go to the conference finals, that's,

8:17I mean, that's that's two plus change months worth of basketball of them being able to play together, right? That's not that's not a short amount of time. Yeah. And listen, there is going to be anytime you set it up with 28 games, like that's how much runway you had in the first part. There's going to be an element of learning on the fly in the playoffs. I think I even said as much back when they made the trade. Yeah, but now you've kind of shifted more of the learning to play with each other in the playoffs. That said, that's a tough ask, no matter how much talent you have. Hey, instead those, let's say you had what 15 games altogether, 16 games altogether, 28 games, they haven't really played it, but you got the last nine. The new wrinkle and there's a couple new wrinkles, obviously, but the biggest new wrinkle is trying to fit with Harden. And what Harden's been able to show in the past, I don't know, months of change. It's can now, let's extend a shooter. Well, there's more to that. Obviously, well, I don't even know the shooter's going to make the playoff rotation. He might in certain matchups. I don't know that he's going to be some sort of, I need the mad dog shooter. I said, I need mad dog shooter in there. I don't know that that's going to happen. I really don't. Yeah, I need a real tough ask there.

9:20I don't need any of this nice guy nonsense. I need shooter in that. But if you're, if the focal idea and the focal point is that it's like try to make this work with Harden because I mean, it, listen, mobility and mobility and Allen have had years of working together. That should be relatively seamless. All things considered, but it wasn't earlier this year, but it's getting with heart. Well, okay, but it's getting with Harden is the point and Harden, what he's shown in the past, I don't know, month and a half of basketball, his, his basketball IQ has been slept on his entire, his entire NBA life, in my opinion, like the, he's constantly making the right decision in a way that it's hard to, it's hard to describe outside of, I would just call him a basketball genius in a sense that I didn't, I didn't know he was as highly as I thought of Harden always. I didn't realize his level of basketball intelligence. So if like anybody's going to be able to make it work and trying to fit this all together, Harden is the exact guy you'd want in that spot. Yeah, I think you're underplaying how much togetherness they have to find. And it is like, again, like it's not anyone's fault because a lot of this is health. You can't really predict health.

10:20This is a lot and having most of your together time to learn each other and being in the playoffs, like one of the reasons why the calves with LeBron and JR Smith and Amon Shumpert, why that complete reorganization of the roster worked is one you had about 30, 32 games instead of 28 games and everyone was healthy that year. Like I think the health thing is a huge component to this. It's not an excuse that doesn't work out. It doesn't work out. But I mean, this is a big ask. And by the way, it's a big ask because Kenny Adkinson hasn't been able to do all the things you'd be able to do learning your team without being able to have them on the court together for a certain amount of time too. No one's saying it's ideal. No one's saying this is like exactly everything they dreamed up. I'm sure if yes, the calves, they wouldn't want it to go down exactly this way. But they had to make a move and this is part of what coming with making that move. This is part of what comes with that is that you got to learn a couple things here on the fly a little bit and you have to have guys that are extremely talented at basketball be able to figure it out.