Cavs find right mix of experience, youth with five-man combo: ‘That’s a lot of energy right there’

Winning their first home game since Nov. 23, the Cleveland Cavaliers may have found their most balanced five-man combination in Friday’s 130-117 victory over the San Antonio Spurs. Playing together from the 9:36 to the 6:04 mark of the third quarter, the grouping of Craig Porter Jr., Donovan Mitchell, Jaylon Tyson, Dean Wade, and Evan Mobley flat-out got results.

“That’s a lot of energy right there,” Tyson told ClutchPoints in his postgame locker room scrum.

Porter entered after De’Andre Hunter committed his fourth foul, and the Cavs trailed 77-75 following a De’Aaron Fox mid-ranger plus a free throw. From that point, in the quintet’s three-and-a-half-minute stretch, Cleveland went on a 15-4 run to take control of the game.

“It was just the stops,” Mobley said. “Everyone was just guarding their yard. CP does a great job with guarding his yard and coming up with blocks. Dean, me, and then Don. Jaylon. Just a great defensive lineup, and then, we just got out in transition, ran and got downhill.”

Mitchell explained that the halftime focus centered on locking down San Antonio and creating fastbreak opportunities.

“If I’m coming off pick and roll, rolling hard, you notice the sprints are much faster through the screen,” Mitchell said. “If they’re going to switch, that’s how we got a lot of our rolls. Guys were getting under the roll and getting layups and stuff like that, because we were rolling with pace.

“So that was the one thing you started to see. I talked to Dean about it, talked to Craig about it, and Ev about it, and Dre, and they immediately got to the little rolls and got to the pocket. That’s where we were able to get what we wanted offensively and, defensively, we got stops.”

Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson believed the decision to put Wade on the floor coming out of halftime had a lot to do with it.

“I experiment a lot with lineups. I probably should have started Dean, quite honestly,” Atkinson said. “That might have been why we didn’t get off to a good start. So that was on me. Dean, those guys have played together a lot; they have a synergy and a chemistry. Sometimes you throw a new player or a young player into that, even one guy can get him off kilter a little bit. So that group had real good synergy tonight.

“Even CP, they know what he does. They’re real comfortable, they know where he’s going to be on the court, so that helps.”

The trio of Porter, Tyson, and Wade itself combined for a plus-52 individually. By the time Mitchell and Mobley exited, it was a 90-81 lead for the wine and gold. Lonzo Ball, Nae’Qwan Tomlin, and Thomas Bryant continued the momentum in the latter part of the third, and Cleveland ended up outscoring the Spurs 44-19 in total.

Coming into Friday, the Porter-Mitchell-Tyson-Wade-Mobley unit had only played for a total of five possessions this season. Having that mixture of pop, headiness, scoring, defending, and rebounding left Cleveland with essentially no weakness on the floor.

Considering the success it had against a formidable foe in San Antonio, Atkinson should run it back.

“We’re 1-15 deep,” Tyson said. “Any day you put any five out there, something’s going to shake, and today it was just that five.”

The post Cavs find right mix of experience, youth with five-man combo: ‘That’s a lot of energy right there’ appeared first on ClutchPoints.