Cavaliers Urged to Rebuild Following Heartbreaking Playoff Loss to Pacers

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Paul White | Last updated May 13, 2025 11:16 PM ET

The Cleveland Cavaliers have yet again suffered an agonizing playoff defeat, this time at the hands of the Indiana Pacers.

The current core of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen have been together for three seasons and there appeared to be hope last season when they improved from a first round exit to a second round exit.

The natural next step would be a trip to the conference finals and after a historic regular season it seemed more than possible.

The Cavs won 64 games which nearly set a franchise record and demolished the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.

But after some bad injury luck and bad play, the team has suffered another quick second round exit and people are ready to shut the door on this era of Cleveland basketball.

The Utah Jazz traded Mitchell to the city in 2022 when they felt like they reached their hard ceiling with the pairing of him and Rudy Gobert.

After multiple disappointing second round exits, they decided to bottom out to try and become a true contender.

It seems that the Cavs may have hit this ceiling already as well and the entire world can see it.

Cleveland brought in head coach Kenny Atkinson to try and maximize the talent on the roster and after the regular season everyone was ready to crown him as the savior of the franchise.

But after another disappointing playoff exit, this team will be etched into history as another one that got away.

The franchise has still yet to advance to a conference finals in their history without LeBron James on the roster.

If the Cavs listen to the masses and break up this iteration of the team then there’s a good chance they won’t do it any time in the foreseeable future.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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