CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers' All-Star duo of Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley was peppered with questions in the locker room after the team's come-from-behind 108-100 victory over a shorthanded, struggling Memphis Grizzlies bunch. So much has been written and said about the Cavs' early-season struggles amid injuries, flat performances, and call-backs to last season, but they are not flinching in their belief.
“Just remember your identity, remember who you are, and know that some games are not going to go your way,” Mobley told ClutchPoints in the postgame scrum. “And you've just got to keep taking every game, game by game, and every play, play by play, and not get down on yourselves early on.
“Sometimes we do something right, and the ball will just bounce back in their hands, they score, and we get down on ourselves. Second half, that was happening less and kept our energy more stable.”
Mobley defined that identity as a defense-first squad. Mitchell is right with him on that idea, emphasizing the importance of grabbing boards after stops like they did as the NBA's top defensive rebounding unit in the playoffs this past spring.
Last year's offense was clicking on all cylinders during the regular season, especially after a 15-0 start to the campaign and two more win streaks of that magnitude. This time around, it hasn't been as cut and dry. Mitchell understands the questions surrounding who the Cavs are as a team, yet, in comparison to where they were before, he has moved on.
“I think we’ve got to let last year go,” Mitchell said. “I think we are sitting here like, ‘Oh, last year was this.’ This is a whole different season. Everybody around us got better. It's a different season. I think we have to drop the whole, ‘Well, last year it was this.' It's not the same, right? You know what I mean? There's different roles, there's different things. There's guys who are hurt, guys in, guys out. There's so many different things.”
“We’ve got to let last year go.”
Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley reflect on this version of the #Cavs — what their identity is, how the team facing adversity early, and where things stand almost a month into the season. pic.twitter.com/z5lWY716Cu
— Spencer Davies (@SpinDavies) November 16, 2025
Inconsistencies in the lineups typically lead to inconsistencies in performance. Coming into Saturday, Cleveland had tossed out 20 different five-man combinations and eight different starting fives. There's no excusing a night like Thursday, or even how Saturday looked, but the reasoning is valid.
“We haven't necessarily put it together, and that's on this group,” Mitchell said. “We can't sit here and say, ‘Well, last year we did this.' You're not the same person as last year. It is natural. Things change. So, how do we as this group find a way to find our identity? We have things that can remain the same.
“As far as comparing and contrasting, I don't think we do it in this locker room, but I think, as a whole, it's not last year. We're going to build the way we need to build. It's not pretty right now. Unfortunately, it's not. We know that. We're going to work on that and get better. We’ve got to figure out how to do it, stretch upon stretch and quarter by quarter.”
As much as it hurts for Cavs fans to see losing efforts, the players are fully aware that they're missing a floor general in Darius Garland and a high-octane energy piece in Max Strus. Mobley is being asked to a do a lot and take another leap. They've also recently been missing Jaylon Tyson, whose rebounding and hustle were paramount until he suffered a concussion on Monday.
“We're relying on guys to do different things that necessarily last year we didn't have to do,” Mitchell said. “It's all going to be different, but at the end of the day, we are a stops-and-run team, get 3s and attack the paint. But it's different right now because we're not fully there as a group. Those guys mean a lot to us, and there's going to be bumps in the road… Obviously, we have two catalysts to our offense who are out right now. That's more on me. That's more on Evan, more on Dre [Hunter], more on Zo [Ball]. We’ve got to lead that. But it'll all come together and we’ve just got to keep building.”
“What's different is, like I say it all the time, we won 64 games healthy last year,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson told ClutchPoints in his pregame press conference. “That's kind of the baseline, and your identity's different. The chess pieces have changed, so, have to move some things around. So that's part of it.”
While there are moments where we see flashes of the deadly attack that led to enormous success, it has been stuck in the mud more often than not. That has resulted in long rebounds for faster teams and easy fast-break opportunities that have hampered the wine and gold.
Atkinson noted pregame that their most recent opponents rank high in the league in terms of pace. Oftentimes, they've gotten behind Cleveland way too easily, which has led to slip-ups even in half-court situations. It'd also help if the Cavs knocked down some shots to limit those free runways for the opposition.
“We have strategies to combat it,” Atkinson said pregame. “I do think if teams are going to leak out and run out, you punish them by being on the offensive boards. I think we've done that. I think we're second, elite now in the possession game, getting a lot of offensive rebounds. We'll continue to do that. That's our identity.
“But we can do a better job in transition, too. The one thing that bothers the coaches about is when we give up layups off transition. We can accept some 3s or wing 3s or pull-up 3s, but the ones that get you are the easy ones, and Toronto had a bunch of them, so we've got to correct that. They just outran us.”
Donovan Mitchell: Cavs will be better off in the postseason by facing adversity now
The Cavs used desperation to climb out of a hole against the Grizzlies on Saturday, which should at the very least serve as an example that they can grind out of this rut.
“It says a lot,” Mobley said. “You just gotta keep remembering that our defense is our identity and keep that up. So it always gives us a chance because offense is not always going to be there. And from there, I think sky's the limit.”
Mitchell added that Cleveland pushed through mental fatigue and a funk to come out victorious. This was the second game of a six-game homestand, and they're in the midst of playing every other day for the next week. Guys are fatigued, the matchups keep coming, and they're being forced to find a way in mid-November.
“I just think you go through lulls in the season,” Atkinson said. “This is an early lull. I thought [Saturday] we were going to come out with much, much more energy. We didn't. So I say just give these guys a little more rest. We'll practice a little later [Sunday]. People can sleep in, get our legs under us. I thought, cognitively, we weren't there.
“I'm gonna get a better grip on this when I watch the tape and see how we could have done better. But, yeah, we've gotta get our juice back.”
In Mitchell's eyes, facing this kind of rough patch will significantly help prepare the Cavs for the postseason.
“When you win every game, and you don't lose, and you don't feel the loss, you don't feel what you felt after Game 2 until Game 2, then where do you learn from? I think that's why we benefit from these scenarios,” Mitchell said. We're going to win games and continue to play better. But I think losses to teams that you shouldn't lose to and wins in Miami, where we're all out and our young guys are elevating their play, we need those things because when you get to those moments, it doesn't feel foreign. That's why I'm very optimistic in what we're doing, and we're going to be fine.
“When you are plugging and playing different lineups and different guys, it takes time. It's 14 games in. I wish we were a little bit ahead of that, but we're not. We’ve got to be better. That's what [Sunday]'s about, going to be a film session. There's nothing to hang your head about. I'd rather go through this now.”
