INDEPENDENCE — The Cleveland Cavaliers won Game 3 against the Detroit Pistons, but in a way that their head coach called “unsustainable” 15 minutes after the final buzzer. The next day after practice, he echoed those same sentiments.
“I hate to keep bringing up that possession game stat, -14,” Kenny Atknison said about Game 3. “I think there’s a big difference between the first and second half. Minus two in the possession game in the second half. So we did better. Like I said postgame, that’s not sustainable, especially the rebounding.”
The Pistons are one of the best teams in the league at grabbing offensive rebounds and forcing turnovers. They collected 34.3% of their missed shots in the regular season (2nd) and turned over their opponent on 16.8% of defensive possessions (1st). Consistently creating more opportunities for their offense allowed a somewhat stagnant attack to finish the season just inside the top 10 for offensive rating.
We’ve seen the benefit of this through the first three games of the series.
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The Pistons have grabbed over 34% of their missed shots in all three games so far this series. That puts them above the 69th percentile or better each game. This has translated to 19, 16, and 18 second-chance points.
The Cavs cleaned up the turnover issues after struggling in Game 1. They’ve committed a lower percentage of turnovers for possessions in the most recent two games of the series. They’ve shown that they can overcome this problem. The same isn’t true for the rebounding, which is worrying Atkinson.
There are a couple of factors that go into winning the rebounding battle. How you play defense is one of them.
“There’s certain schemes you rebound better at,” Atkinson said. “It’s just a fact. So we take that into account. Unfortunately, they got a great player (Cade Cunningham). We have to be up higher. Our bigs aren’t as close to the rim.”
Physicality is the other.
“Their bigs are elite, elite at offensive rebounding,” Atkinson said. “A lot of times, our bigs are wrestling with their bigs. That’s why Donovan [Mitchell] having 10 rebounds was huge last night. Max [Strus] is coming in. It’s going to be a guard-rebounding series.”
These clips show why that’s so important. Jarrett Allen and/or Evan Mobley are busy boxing out Detroit’s bigs. If you’re boxing out properly, making sure your assignment doesn’t get the ball, you’re creating a way for one of your teammates to come in and secure the possession.
Rebounding is a team activity, and not always an individual stat.
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“We are giving it our best effort,” Jarrett Allen said. “They are strong. They are big bruisers down there, and will say even though we don’t get the rebounds, Donovan having 10 rebounds last night, six rebounds in the other game [is huge].”
The Cavs have shown for spurts that they can keep Detroit off the glass. Particularly, down the stretch of Game 3 where they allowed just five offensive rebounds compared to the 12 they surrendered in the first half. Whether they’re able to play more like the second half or not will go a long way in determining whether they can come back in this series.
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