Historic Cavaliers Season Will Only Be Remembered For Its Disappointing End

For most of the season, everything Atkinson touched turned to gold. In the final seven or so minutes of Game 5 against the Indiana Pacers he looked more desperate than savvy, throwing out random concoctions of lineups hoping for an answer.

He tried the three-guard lineup of Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, and Ty Jerome – who finally found a spark in a series he was essentially played out of. He went back to his starting group with Jarrett Allen reentering the game with about four minutes to go. Against his better judgment, he left Garland out there to close out the game, despite the fact that he was quite clearly rendered useless by an injury.

None of it mattered. None of it helped.

Indiana is vicious and its fast-paced style and full-court press sucked the life out of a lively Cavaliers team. Those who know ball understood this was always a possibility. But for the season to unravel in just five games, is unfathomable.

Injuries may have been a factor. Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell were all dealing with injuries of varying severity. The three All-Stars would all say the same thing, though: that everyone is dealing with injuries this time of year so it's not an excuse.

One of the most perplexing questions from this series is how the league's No. 2 three-point shooting team during the regular season shot nearly 10 percentage points worse in this series.

The 23.7 three-point percentage in Game 1 felt like an anomaly at first. There was no law of averages play here, though. That figured ballooned meagerly to just 28.2% in Game 2 and then 29.8% in Cleveland's first win in Game 3.

Crazy enough, the wine and gold posted its best single-game three-point percentage of 40% in Game 4, while being thoroughly dominated by the Pacers in a 129-109 loss. But back at home, Cleveland shot 25.7% in Game 5. They made just one in the first half.

Atkinson seemed to believe it was a byproduct of the pesky Pacers and their relentless playing style. They simply wore the Cavs out both physically and mentally. Stop me if you've heard that said about a Cavaliers team in the playoffs before.

Asked if he viewed this season as a success, the best Atkinson could muster was reiterating that they got better as a team and as individuals.

Sports are like that. One bad game, or in this case, series, impacts how certain teams or players are remembered forever. Just as that fourth-quarter hype video forecasted, this historic Cavaliers season will now be defined by its unceremonious end.

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