The Cleveland Cavaliers have had incredible success with the Donovan Mitchell and James Harden pairing through three games. The fourth game will present a new challenge with Evan Mobley returning to the lineup on Thursday against the Brooklyn Nets.
Harden has often thrived in predictable and perfectly spaced lineups. Adding a second big onto the floor will complicate that. It isn’t a configuration that Harden has had much recent experience playing in. Whether or not it works will largely come down to Mobley.
Mobley’s outside shot has regressed this season. He’s shooting just 30.4% from beyond the arc after connecting on 37% of them during the previous two seasons. This includes hitting just 21.1% of his outside looks since the beginning of December.
Unless the shooting drastically changes, Mobley will have to find other ways to take advantage of the double teams and micro advantages that Harden creates.
“I think just Evan, continuing to build up what he did last year, and obviously, earlier this season,” Mitchell said. “This year, I think he was more of a downhill [finisher] right before he got hurt. … Now, him being able to do that, but also be able to be elite in the half roll — elite in the pocket — and obviously at the rim. Those are the two biggest things.”
Mobley has been a good rim finisher this season. He’s converting 73% of his looks inside (75th percentile). That’s key to being able to attack mismatches in the short roll, but that isn’t everything.
This season, Mobley has improved as a passer. He has a career-high assist rate (17.9%, 86th percentile), which has led to four assists per game. The ability to finish as a scorer or passer inside isn’t a question. Whether or not he can do so quickly enough in the half roll still is.
Mobley has always been at his best when he’s decisive. When he reacts quickly and assertively in the short roll, good things happen. This has been talked about a lot with him as a scorer, but it extends to him as a facilitator as well.
Conversely, if his initial read gets cut off, he can run into some trouble. A lack of decisiveness is a problem whether he’s in the short roll specifically or not.
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That all said, we don’t exactly know how the two-big lineups are going to look with Harden yet.
Harden brings a much different dynamic to the offense than Darius Garland did, even though Garland was incredibly good at getting the bigs involved. Both guards do a lot of the same things functionally, but how they go about doing so is vastly different.
“Until you get out there and try it [you don’t know], especially with a new player,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Donovan is kind of used to it (playing with two bigs). We’ll see with James. But James, again, his IQ is so great that I don’t anticipate the issues with it. I think he’ll find a way. But it could take a little bit.”
It’s also worth pointing out that the Cavs will continue to play most of the game with one big on the floor. On the season, Mobley and Jarrett Allen have only played an average of 15.4 minutes together per game. That will alleviate some of the bumpiness that integrating the two bigs together might cause.
“Kenny has done a great job, even last year, kind of staggering the two,” Mitchell said. “I think Evan and I get back to playing kind of how we’ve been doing. And with J.A. and [Harden], I think we really found something.”
Making this trade when the Cavs did was also a huge bet on Harden’s ability to just figure it out. The offensive talent on this roster hasn’t been an issue over the past few seasons. That’s undeniable. How that talent fits together has been at times, especially in the postseason.
So far, Harden has helped solve some of those problems, but working with the two-big lineup will be a different challenge. As of now, he doesn’t seem to be worried about making it work.
“There’s just so many opportunities man…the way the offense moves, you have rolling bigs that finish around the rim, when Ev comes back it’s gonna be even better,” Harden said last week. “Just figuring it out, when Ev comes back…we have two bigs so we got to figure out what works and what doesn’t work. But that shouldn’t take long.”
