Cavs Playoff Preview: Team confident despite lack of playoff experience

It's been a few years since Cleveland wrapped up an NBA regular season with plenty more basketball to play. The Cavaliers are on the cusp of their first playoff appearance since 2018 and the first since 1998 without LeBron James, and the team's lack of postseason experience has been a favorite topic of conversation around town. The discussion often starts with the disappointing loss to the Atlanta Hawks in last season's play-in tournament. Three of the Cavs' starters — Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen — were not even born the last time the team made the playoffs without James (Allen was born during the playoffs in 1998), and folks are questioning if Cleveland can be a serious contender this year without a number of key players having been on the big stage. Of the Cavaliers starters, Garland, Mobley and Isaac Okoro have played zero minutes in the playoffs, excluding last season's play-in tournament games. Allen has played nine games, averaging 26.9 minutes, while Donovan Mitchell bucks the inexperience trend with 39 games and 1,443.3 playoff minutes (37.0 per game). Danny Green has the most playoff experience of the Cavs bench, playing in 165 games with 4,230.6 minutes, while Caris LeVert, Ricky Rubio, Robin Lopez and Raul Neto are the only others who've averaged double-digit postseason minutes. That hasn't exactly shaken the team's confidence, and according to coach J.B. Bickerstaff, the Cavs' drive to get back to the playoffs goes well beyond last season's play-in tournament. "You want to be a part of something that matters and be able to put yourself in a situation to be in the playoffs," he said. "With this group, go all the way back to the bubble, not being invited to the bubble, and our guys responding to that and taking huge steps, growing as individual players and growing as a team to the point where we've taken steps every year to get better and better. That's what you want to see." That growth was part of the Cavs' playoff preparation long before the regular season concluded Sunday in a throwaway loss to the Charlotte Hornets, though Bickerstaff does acknowledge there's no way to practice for what's to come in the postseason other than to simply play the game. "These are conversations we've been having as long as we've continued to improve and put ourselves in these situations," he said. "Until you feel it for yourself, you don't know what it feels like, so it is a learning opportunity for our guys, but they've earned it. We're confident that if they're just their best at who they are and play to their strengths, they're going to be fine." Bickerstaff said throughout the regular season that so many of the experiences this season — schedule quirks, varying lineups, injuries, you name it — put players in new and unexpected spots that didn't exactly give them a choice but to learn from them and improve. Allen's eye injury in March, for example, forced a lineup change that saw Mobley have to take on MVP frontrunner Joel Embiid in a late-season battle with the Philadelphia 76ers. "I think we've shown the ability to improve, whether it's those back-to-back series where we've been able to play the same team and make adjustments and go out the next night and play and be successful that next night (or) whether it's playing against teams that are coming at us trying to chase us down," Bickerstaff said. "I think we've found our way through those moments and so I am confident that this group has learned and they can continue to get better at it. But I think we've put ourselves in a pretty good spot. "We need to make sure we're aware and tighten up the details and our execution and all those things. And, again, it's going to be a new test for us. We have guys that are going to be in their first playoff series, so it's never going to come easy, but I have a lot of confidence in our group." Mobley is just as confident the Cavs are right where they want to be heading into the first-round series with the New York Knicks that starts today, experience or not. "We've had a great season so far," he said. "We've won big games throughout the whole year, came back from deficits, have the No. 1 defense, I mean, I can keep going, but I feel like we have a good team." There comes a point, though, where you reach the ceiling in terms of preparation. Green, as one of the lone veterans with much meaningful playoff experience, said now the team just has to go through it. "You let them kind of go through it, but at the same time, just tell them to have fun with it," Green said of his advice for teammates. "Embrace the moment — enjoy it. Go play basketball. At the end of the day it's a game, and when you're not thinking about it too much is when you're playing your best, but everybody says the same thing over and over: Every possession matters. Stay locked in." Contact Marissa McNees at ctsports@chroniclet.com and follow her @MarissaNM on Twitter.