Was the Cavaliers Game 5 win over the Raptors uninspiring?

0:00The championship chases on for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Mitchell looking to get going. Take some three in hits. Mitchell, 30 footer. Oh, yeah! How about mobile with another triple? Stritter, love, ruins here in Cleveland. Big triple. And that's going to do it. Cavaliers will take a three-two series lead up to Toronto. Man, really good. I mean, those three is we needed them. He hit them and hit them with confidence. We just continue to stay with, right? And then, definitely, there's a step in the right direction. Wasn't perfect, really strong. The guys play in a lot of big games as he likes to call them Dennis Domennis tonight. This is the playoffs. It's not going to be easy. To do it, we did tonight was great, but it's going to take even more on the road. The show is back, Nick Wilson, Jonathan Peterland. We are afternoon drive. And it is a Thursday that calves back in control of their seven game series with a Toronto Raptors, that open courtesy of the NBA on ESPN and

1:01Nick Robinson on the board. Yes. We salute the Supreme Leader because if we didn't, there would be consequences. We also got Jake Marin, man in the 92-3, the fan of YouTube channel producing today as well. If you are watching along all five hours long on the 92-3, the fan YouTube channel, don't forget to comment on our appearances. And of course, like our videos, we like to be like subscribe to 92-3, the fans YouTube channel. And oh, BT Dubs. We got Matt Corolla in baby doll on the 2020s there. Hi JP. Hello. How are you today? Feel a little bit better after that calves dead last night. There we go. We like that. Yeah. Are you, are you team good vibes now? Is that the idea? No, I've always been a calves fan. I just haven't been a calves blatant Homer who doesn't, you know, who looks the other way at potential issues with the Cavaliers. Okay. I just have to get good vibes or not. I just, I feel like you were, you've been, you've been, you've, you've kind of assisted Lima on his narrative building that I'm somehow enjoying the, the two previous games when I did not. No, I just,

2:03when you took a, a weird victory lap after their game five loss, that one, or game four lost, that one, that one maybe didn't feel like the biggest calves fan moment in the while I've ever seen. Yeah, I was staying in victory lap on Lyman, not on the calves. I know where I was telling you how it could appear to people that were listening that it didn't feel, it didn't feel that way. Let's get their head out of their ass. And maybe they have to. Maybe that's it. I'm glad you're feeling good today. Yeah, feeling very good. You're feisty today. I might be. I might be. I can tell, early on, I could tell very, yeah, with love and respect. Well, we obviously had a mini Donnie break about James Harden earlier before the show. So I know you're fired up. I'm fired up. Yeah, there's a reason we put it at 520. It gives, gives both parties a chance to breathe. I'm still pissed off about it. Yeah, that's why we're giving it three and a half hours to breathe. I don't know that we need three and a half. I, I think we probably do need, thank you, thank you, thank you. We're gonna be a Donnie bros. We might just need to just kick it down to next week. I don't know. No, it'll be 520. If you want to hear a Donnie broke about James Harden, he's averaging 22, six and five. He's playing great basketball. Is this six, the uh, turnovers? You called him dog bleep for the last three games. That's not, he's not playing dog bleep basketball. And okay, in fairness, you waited a good first quarter versus a really rough

3:08meet of that game. Wait a good first quarter. The last three games, the three games you said were dog bleep. He is averaging at 22, five and five. Yeah, what a part of that. About the seven assists turnovers. Right. He led the team and scoring on over 50% from the field. I thought we're gonna do this. That's one of that is dog bleep. I thought it was the seven turnovers. Yeah, I think that's great. But the turnovers are offset by the idea that I think if you're the point guard, turnovers are more important than that, we scored 20 points a more. Really? Okay. Cunningham is averaging a higher turnover percentage and turnover rate in his piston series. So is he playing bad basketball? What great. What about is him? You've started the show. It's true. It's not about Kate Cunningham. It's about James Harden. We need you to not turn the ball over seven times for four from the biggest problem that calves have going on right now. The point is, he was the biggest turnovers are not great, but like he is far from the biggest brawl. They had 18 turnovers two nights. Not great. No, we were good, but like to act as if James Harden's been the problem is it's not true. At no point did I say that I said he was dog bleep for most of last night. And I disagree with that assessment. Now we will get to that at 520.

4:10Other than that, I will tell you, there are a lot of people who said, style points don't matter. And if you think style points matter, you don't know ball. And for most of yesterday, those people were panicking. I'm talking about Lyma. Most of those people were panicking. I'm actually being being a little playful there because the truth is through three quarters, all of us were very, very concerned with where that game was going to go. And the calves did rescue a victory from the jaws of defeat in that fourth quarter. Yeah, I mean, Toronto couldn't maintain the offensive prowess that they had in the first half. They're not a team that scores 74 in the first half of games. And so like when they did that, my thought process was you just got to wait them out. They're going to miss shots. And they did start the fourth quarter. They start to feel old. Oh, for 10 like that was always in the plans for Toronto. It was just what other player was going to step up. And this is why, by the way, I give mobily such crap all the time. It's going to game like last night is why when he's good and when he's making an impact offensively the way that he did, you can see how it covers up for other people in such an impactful way. Like when you get that number, three points nine rebounds in in three blocks. That's great.

5:13Doesn't that that's the only thing that counts the end and goal, not maybe how he disappeared in the first half, right? No, he was great. He had important shots when they needed it. The three pointers, the three three pointers are why you won that game. You only mobily was why we won that game? No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, I'm saying just looking at the box score and saying, well, clearly he's good because the box score is not always the case. He was very good last night though. He scored 23. He was as efficient as you could find when he's probably, he just wasn't taking enough shots in the first half. But like in the second half, when he did, like this is the version of Evan Mobley that you've been asking for. This is it. This is the one that covers up people's mistakes. Yeah, then the thing that I liked and the funny thing is, because there were, and I saw a lot of people kind of talking about Evan early in the game. I thought he was going up to the rim when he did have the basketball in his hands with more authority than he had in the Toronto games. So I kind of was just waiting for Evan to kind of have a little spell that looked really good. But it's funny, like I just, I don't give a rat's ass how it looked. You won. Now I have a condition on that. But like, you know, yes, there were some really bad basketball played in last night's game. There were some murid of plays that do not

6:17look like a serious NBA team and both teams get, get to go ahead and have that said about how they played. I don't care. It's, it's the NBA playoffs. Did you win the game? And because if the answer is yes, then in my opinion, I don't know much else matters. Like you can have criticisms of Kenny Atkinson. I think you can have criticisms of Harden clearly. You can have criticisms of Donovan, which we'll get to. There's not really anybody on the calves last night. You couldn't criticize. I don't care. You won. That is, it's a zero sum game in the playoffs where I understand that context can matter in certain series. And this one, no, we're back to style points. Don't matter. Did you win that said, now I need to see this same kind of win happen on the road. Yeah, but that'll be the ultimate confidence builder for me. Here's why I thought you'd be particularly happy today is because they did something that you've been asking for. I said, particularly happy. I think I thought you were going to be happy today because they did something you've been asking for. You see miserable today. No, absolutely miserable today. I think you're miss, I think you're misconstruing my James heart and criticism, which nobody's saying because the calves

7:20won. Um, and today's been the Donovan Mitchell criticism day. But that's not what I was getting at, which is something you've been asking for. You've been asking for everybody hard on Donovan. I know they were hard on Donovan for 24 hours. It's been hard. This has been a hard little stretch for Donovan. Uh-huh. And what happened last night? It's the one thing you've been asking for is what happens in the fourth quarter. We obviously both killed him for what happened in game four with five minutes left when you're up by eight and they choked away that lead. What did that what happened last night? They're down by three entering the fourth quarter. This is the first time in the Donovan Mitchell time that he's been on in a calves uniform on this team that he has trailed enter in the fourth quarter and they've won a game. Now Donovan wasn't the sole reason why we can do some of the minutia behind that. But this was them being down entering a fourth quarter and not just laying down and dying, which is what historically they'd done in these post seasons. Like that was a, that's a good sign. Is it the greatest thing in the world? No, last night's game was littered with more bad than it was good. But the idea that you won that game and you showed what we wanted to see in the fourth quarter in particular, you didn't lay down and died does matter. Yeah, and I think that supersedes the ugly. Yeah, because I think through five games, I just think it's

8:24apparent this team. Like I saw some very poignant and fair criticism of Kenny Atkinson during the game last night. Guy Moblin was team off bottom about rotations. And I was like, I don't really have. I think Moblin was openly admittedly. He was admittedly and great work admitting he was drunk by the time the third quarter happens. That doesn't mean his analysis is bad. Sometimes some of my best work has been done. I said, no, when I don't remember what I said, I didn't know if he made it to the fourth is all I'm saying. I don't know. Well, but no, I mean, like, I think he was in the bag by half time. All the criticisms are fair. And it's like, I think, I think Kenny Atkinson is learning how to manage rotations on a team. He doesn't have a great field for yet. I think they're learning to manage each other when they don't have a great field for the game. And so in a game where there were points where it looked like you were getting ready for cancun to come back and and band together in that fourth quarter, that supersedes any other thing that happened in the last night's game. It really does. There are fair criticisms. There are fair defenses or fair like, you know, kudos to be given. But the bottom line is that is a game

9:27that if that thing had been in Toronto last night, the things three two right now. And so to get that win matters more than anything to to hell with style. But because here's the thing. Half of the half if you win an NBA championship, half of your wins look like last night. And look at the other series. Boston had a game last night or two nights ago where they got beat by what was it? 25 by the 76ers. Like, there's a lot of good teams or perceived good teams. How look at what happened with the yokich series against Minnesota before Minnesota started having their injuries? Like, you're going to find in the series. You're going to have one or two bad games. I think the problem a lot of cabs fans had is for the first half of basketball. They looked like they didn't care. They looked like they weren't trying. And they looked like they weren't going to wake up. But the good part for everyone watching was that they did wake up in the second half. And they did wake up in that fourth quarter. And not only that, we got to see them almost have a a little, a little fight on the side and everything too, which Schroeder had been obviously waiting for. He was first in line over there. You can tell the man just loves to fight. Man just loves to fight. I got to tell you, we got to give a lot of props to ensure that. That's a really great, great bat. Sure had a great game. That was like the Dennis Schroeder game is what we remember it

10:29as. But like for me, the biggest part of that was hard and playing great early. I'm throwing that in there just because now. What the what the team in scoring first quarter, buddy. Evan Mowgli coming alive in ways that when he started taking those threes the first first three he took everyone had the same thought. No, don't take that. We need these points right now. Don't take that. He drains it like this is what we've been asking of Evan for a while like in these spots where we're Donovan and even in the second half of the game where James Harton is not there. Like you have to have somebody else step up and you got it between Schroeder and Mowgli last night. Like that's that's huge. Well, and I think the other big point is if you can win and Donovan has a rough first three quarters, he made some shots. He did. He didn't make he had it. It was a bad game. He was not effective. It just was not a great game. It was not effective. And I do think late in the game, he got aggressive and started going to the cup more, which is good because that that shows that him just, you know, the three point line is is maybe going away the way the way the dough didn't kind of woke up though. Like it was I was out. You could saw somewhere in like

11:29the middle of the third quarter. They just realized like, Oh, you mean we can beat him inside. Yeah. And it was like they finally just started going to the basket, which is like, yeah, these points were there the entire time. We've been yelling you guys to go after the entire time. But I do think when you can look at this and go, Oh, that was one of Donovan's worst playoff games that he's had in Cleveland, which we've said now twice in five games in this series. And yet shooter helps out, mobility helps out. Harden kept him in the game early, despite what I think else wise, you got a big shot from Sam Merrill, Tyson made a couple threes like that, like those again, like when you, when you went start talking about like winning a championship, it's not LeBron is scoring 40 points a game in every game. And then everybody kind of just does just does enough. You're going to have a game in a Donovan centric universe where he's not there. And you need to win not in spite of him, but certainly not because of him. And that's another encouraging thing, no matter if it's Toronto that you beat, no matter if it's whoever you're going to face in the second round, or certainly the Celtics as well. This is one of those things that just hasn't translated to the postseason for this team.

12:30We've watched in the past couple of regular seasons. It'd be every night you'd have someone would have a shooter game like he just had last night. It'd be somebody that you didn't expect out of the core four. And they'd have one of these games and they would just kind of pick up the weight that was necessary. And then we get them in the postseason. And it felt like those guys always just kind of disappeared. And I can never really figure out why I still can't really figure out why. But last night that wasn't the case. I don't have a great feel for why. But I feel like by the end of this, by the end of these playoffs, because I do think the calves are still going to win this year in that win this series. I, I hope they wrap it up in six. I'd love to get another win just like last night, but in Toronto. So we can say, hey, they pulled one out on the road in that scenario. I do think if this, if they, if they go as far as we think they can go, which is the Eastern Conference Finals, I do think we'll have an answer to the question you're just throughout there, which is I don't really understand why this is happening. It'll either, that question will either be answered and then completed, meaning they'll overcome it, or they won't. And that'll just be the answer on these calves for the last four years. Well, so let's find a little encouraged by what happened last night. And I know again,

13:33a lot of fans don't want to hear this right now. But even like we bring up hard and later on, we'll bring up Donovan and the role in this. And we'll bring up even what happened with Atkinson and, uh, and that move with, with keeping shooter out there. But like part of that that's baked into it is that Donovan was like, all right, I'm not going to be the guy right now. Harden in that second half was like, all right, I guess I'm not the guy right now. Harden and Donovan combined for one single point in the fourth quarter. They just kind of both took a back seat. And I know in, in, in previous post seasons, it felt like Donovan was always like time to put on the cape. I have to be Batman right now. So if the lesson that he learned last night is when I don't have it, let's make other people be great. Then the