The Land Before Time: Cavs vs Spurs Pregame Thoughts

March 27, 2025 vs San Antonio

How we all doing? Hopefully a lot better than we were a week ago! The Cavs are back home, its Opening Day for the Guardians, and spring is here (kind of). And perhaps most importantly, it appears that the Cavs are not collapsing as some may have thought after the first three games of the West Coast road trip.

After the shaky start, they found their rhythm in the second half against Utah and carried that over into a tough game against a plucky Portland team. Portland is an above .500 team at home, and their defense has been legitimately a top 10 defense for most of the season now. So for the Cavs to put together four consistent quarters and end the road trip on a high was massive.  

A couple of us from The Land were at the game on Tuesday, and after the final buzzer sounded there was a noticeable sense of satisfaction among the players. Tristain Thompson and Ty Jerome goofed off in the background of Evan Mobley’s postgame interview. Darius Garland and Evan Mobley shared a hug and high five that seemed to say “we’re back.” Both of those players had great games, along with Ty Jerome who had 25 points and made 4 of his 5 threes, along with providing many dazzling moments as he has become known for. After an up and down road trip, the team was clearly content with the way they ended, and were even more content to get on the plane back home.

Tonight, back inside the friendly confines of Rocket Arena, they play a depleted Spurs team that is probably just thinking about wrapping this season up and preparing for next year. Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox are both done for the season, and any hopes of a play-in berth have evaporated. The Spurs are an inviting team to play in the return from a tough road trip, but the Cavs will still need to play sharp and focused basketball.

To win this game in a decisive manner, it will take another game of playing consistently across all four quarters.

On the offensive side, the Cavs offense seemed to come alive again against Portland. They moved the ball, they made smart cuts that created easy baskets (64 points in the paint), and they regained their three-point shooting form. They appeared to be conscious about running the pick and roll and getting all five players involved. This is key to their offensive success. When Jarrett Allen is involved in pick-n-rolls, he produces 1.28 points per possession, shoots 66.7%, and draws free throws 16.9% of the time. That is stellar production and also opens up the floor for the Cavs outside shooters.

On the defensive side, let’s look for Evan Mobley to continue his Defensive Player of the year ways. And when he does, let’s all shout him out as loud and as much as we can, because it would truly be a snub if he does not win DPOY.  We will start calling out all of the stats that prove him to be the most elite defender, and tonight we start with this one: With Mobley on the court, the Cavs have a defensive rating of 107.7, the second best in the league. Without Mobley on the court, that drops to 111.8 for the Cavs.

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