‘We’re not going to Vegas’: Inside Cavs’ failed push to advance in NBA’s in-season tournament and unwritten rules broken along the way

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cavs sharpshooter Georges Niang sat at his locker with a phone in hand. As he scrolled through his notifications, he officially learned the bad news. Then he shared it with all his teammates.

The final night of group play in the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament created a fascinating dichotomy.

On one hand, the Cavs were rightfully overjoyed with their 128-105 thumping of Atlanta - the kind of complete team effort they have been seeking for weeks. Cleveland suffocated the Hawks, who entered the night averaging more than 120 points, and spotlighted a raised offensive ceiling with seven players in double figures and Donovan Mitchell’s latest 40-point masterpiece.

On the other hand, they failed to advance to the knockout round, missing out on the lone Eastern Conference wild-card spot to rival New York - by 13 points.

Eight teams advanced Tuesday night. Six group winners and two wild cards. Next week, those eight will compete for a trip to Las Vegas - the semifinals and championship of the high-stakes in-season tournament - while the other 22 will fill the schedule gap with a pair of mundane regular-season matchups against opponents soon to be determined.

The belief in Cleveland’s locker room late Tuesday night was that it would be headed to Miami for at least one of those games because not only did the Cavs and Heat fail to advance but they are only slated to play three times, instead of the usual four. Most likely, the NBA will try to balance out the schedule and minimize the amount of travel, making the Heat a logical opponent.

South Beach in winter? Not a bad consolation prize. But it’s not the NBA Cup.

“You want to win a championship and make the extra bread,” Cavs star guard Donovan Mitchell said, referring to the $500,000 prize pool for each winning player. “But you look at the little things we’ve done over the past few days and that’s what we want to continue to build on. We didn’t get this championship, so let’s go focus on the next one.”

The Cavs knew the math going into Tuesday’s group play finale. Their chances were bleak. There were five other East teams - New York, Miami, Brooklyn, Boston and Orlando - with just one tournament loss as well. The Magic were sitting at home watching, comfortable with their 3-1 group play record and substantial plus-22 differential.

Because the Pacers had already won East Group A, beating out the Cavs, 76ers, Pistons and Hawks, the only shot for Cleveland was with the wild card. The tiebreaker in that scenario? point differential.

So, the Cavs’ reality was equally simple and complicated. They needed to beat the Hawks. By a lot. And they needed help. Plenty of it.

Prior to tipoff, coach J.B. Bickerstaff and players set a target number of 20 - the victory margin in which they believed they needed to have any hope of advancing. Of course, there was no way to predict what would happen elsewhere.

The Knicks entered the night in the wild-card driver’s seat at 2-1 with a plus-18 point differential - and they were home against the LaMelo Ball-less Charlotte Hornets. Not an ideal scenario for the Cavs, who needed to make up ground thanks to their measly plus-six point differential.

There were only a handful of people inside the organization who had familiarity with the EuroLeague-like tiebreaker. Team executive Jose Calderon, with vast experience playing overseas, is one of them. He was in Philadelphia last week for the penultimate group play game, lamenting a late-game letdown against Detroit and attempting to relay how to best approach the complex dynamic.

After all, running up the score and chasing greater margins of victory run in direct contrast to the NBA’s unwritten rules of sportsmanship. It’s also typically not worth risking the health of a key player.

But the stakes created a frenzied - and thrilling – night across the league.

Minor tweaks to the setup may be coming. Bickerstaff suggested more group play games. Players chirped about the ugly-looking and slick courts. Still, Tuesday was exactly what NBA Commissioner Adam Silver envisioned when implementing the soccer-style tournament designed to enhance the regular season, create meaningful November and December games and, of course, make money.

Months ago, there were countless naysayers who opined that teams or players wouldn’t care about this. The NBA is a place where legacies are cemented in April, May and June. There are championship-or-bust franchises that continue to treat the regular season as an afterthought, using load management to get aging cornerstones through the 82-game grind.

The Cavs cared. So did every other team in the wild-card hunt. There was electricity inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Fans were more engaged than usual.

A few season-ticket-holding diehards near the media section in M104 repeatedly asked about the status of other matchups. Some kept tabs on their phone.

In the final minutes, a time when the winning team would typically empty the bench and burn clock, Cavs starters were still in the game. Fans even implored Darius Garland and Evan Mobley to take shots on consecutive possessions, hoping to juice the final score.

There was drama and intrigue up until the final buzzer - during a typically sleepy month where the outcome feels somewhat inconsequential.

“I give the league a ton of credit because it’s masterful what they’ve done,” Bickerstaff said. “Our fans now care about what’s happening in Milwaukee and Miami and Brooklyn and New York and Charlotte. Things that our fans would never care about. Watching those games tonight. Watching the scores. That’s driving attention to the league. There was skepticism all around beforehand, but the deeper and deeper you get into it, the more you think about just how wonderful an idea the in-season tournament is.”

Bickerstaff said before the game that coaching in this unique environment would take some trial and error. Every other night, he’s only focused on one thing: Finishing with one more point than the other team. There are no pictures in a box score. Tuesday was different. Winning wasn’t the only goal. It couldn’t be. Not to advance.

Cleveland needed a cutthroat, no-mercy, take-it-personal approach. Forget the unwritten rules. Forget tact. For one night, it was time to run up the score like a college football team looking to impress the selection committee with pretty style points. For one night, a coach wasn’t devoted to Xs and Os and strategy but to scoreboard-watching.

Back-of-the-bench assistant Dan Geriot got that responsibility. He tracked the scores on an iPad and wrote down real-time updates on a bright pink sheet of paper.

Around the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter, with the Cavs leading by 20 points, Hawks coach Quin Snyder pulled his five starters. Bickerstaff turned to Geriot for an update. Known affectionately as Big Dan, the former college hooper jumped off his seat, climbed through a row of chairs and relayed to Bickerstaff what was going on in New York, Brooklyn, Boston and Miami. Upon learning that the 20-point lead wasn’t good enough - and other wild-card contenders were still piling up points - Bickerstaff went against his nature and stuck with the regulars.

“You have respect for those unwritten rules and you have respect for your opponent and respect for the other coach that’s down there because you’ve been on the other end of that, and you understand what it’s like to kinda feel like it’s being rubbed in, so it’s not an easy thing to do,” he said. “But the incentive is there and it’s what you have to do. I think coaches understand that and players understand it as well. I just think it’s something that needs to continue to be highlighted so that people do really understand what’s going on.”

Despite a big lead and an already-secured win, the Cavs kept playing fast, pushing the ball up the floor, hunting early-clock opportunities and purposely seeking out the 3-point line. The defensive intensity never waned either, giving up just two points and blocking six Atlanta shots over the final four minutes.

“It’s kind of different. It’s not respecting the game as much as I want it to be,” Darius Garland said. “I took a shot with like 25 seconds left and I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. I think the in-season tournament is really great. The point differential is the thing that people around the league would like to change I believe.”

“It kind of sucks because for the purpose of basketball reasons, you’re not supposed to do that,” Max Strus added, before ultimately defending the decision. “I think both sides knew what was going on. I think if they were in our shoes, they would’ve done the same things. Don’t want to do that but we kind of knew an area we had to get to.”

As Mitchell admitted afterward, that was 20. The Cavs got there. They got even higher than that. It still wasn’t enough. New York trounced Charlotte, 115-91, and finished with a massive 42-point differential. No December trip to Vegas.

“I think that’s what’s cool about the in-season tournament is your mental approach,” Mitchell said. “It’s different but it’s also playoff-like. The intensity level, the focus, the little nuances of the game, it’s playoff-like and you’re going through these experiences and moments in November, December and I think that’s great. It’s great for the game, it’s great for the fans but it’s also great for us to go through these moments.”

Every player who has spoken on the subject the last few weeks has said the same: in-season tournament games feel different - and not just because of the colorful courts either.

“I honestly didn’t expect them to, but they have,” Strus admitted recently. “The Philly game especially kinda felt like a playoff game. The crowd got into it too. I think the way guys were competing, the way guys were playing, it kind of felt like there was something on the line. I don’t know if these courts will stay, but yeah, everything else seems like... I don’t know, we’ll see how the next couple of weeks go with it and how it finishes. But it’s had some success.”

“Maybe we could fix the court being a little slippery,” Mitchell added Tuesday night with a wry smile. “That’s about the only thing I have against that. Outside of that it’s been great.”

Despite the admittedly long odds, the Cavs tried to give it their best shot. They wanted it. After the game, multiple players were discussing among themselves who won each group, what the quarterfinal matchups will be and what - if anything - they couldn’t have done differently to advance.

Instead, they will be one of 22 teams excluded - a harsh reality on an otherwise encouraging night.

“Wish we would have made more shots and we would’ve made it,” Strus said. “At the end of the day, we still won a game and took care of business, took care of homecourt advantage.

“Guess that is a positive.”