Geoff’s Five-Out: The Knicks Next step, Struggles in Cleveland and LA, & Joe Mazzulla’s Sorcery
After a brief hiatus, we are back hopping around the NBA to cover some of the most interesting storylines.
Since it’s been a few weeks, let’s just dive right in…
The Knicks are NBA Cup Champs… what now?
Say what you want about the NBA Cup, but anyone who watched the last few games of the knockout round (especially San Antonio/Oklahoma City) knows what this tournament meant to the teams themselves. The intensity was high, and the minutes were ramped up, giving fans a brief sniff of a playoff-like environment.
And when it was all said and done, it was the Knicks standing alone at the mountaintop, holding the trophy and collecting that fat prize check. So where do the Knicks go from here? It may sound strange to some, but how the Knicks turn the page and move forward after what must have been a satisfying victory may actually define the success of their season.
It would be very easy to view this victory as confirmation of their place near the top of the league. After all, while Mike Brown is a new coach, this collection of players has now spent a meaningful amount of time on the court together. It would be perfectly natural to become complacent… maybe even a little arrogant.
But, as I wrote for The Strickland earlier this week, this was actually a validation of something entirely different. The Knicks closed their championship victory over the Spurs with contributions from guys like Jordan Clarkson, Tyler Kolek, and Mitchell Robinson. Even without Miles McBride and Landry Shamet, Brown mixed and matched lineups en route to a decisive victory.
This is emblematic of a coach (and organization) that does not proclaim to have the answers just yet. What will be the lineups that anchor them in tough, gritty playoff matchups against Orlando or Detroit? Are they most comfortable playing fast or slow? How much can they move Jalen Brunson off the ball in these big moments and run the offense through Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, or even Josh Hart?
The dog days of the regular season are when you figure these things out. With the talent on this roster, the Knicks are capable of winning a lot of games even with suboptimal deployment—we saw it last season. But to succeed in the playoffs, a team needs confidence that the lineups they lean on, combined with the tactics and strategy they utilize, are the best ones at their disposal.
There’s only one way to get these answers. And this year’s Knicks appear determined to ask the questions.
What’s happening in Cleveland?
This is not going as many expected—definitely not this writer.
Before the season, I would have picked Cleveland as one of my two favorites to come out of the East. Yet, over a third of the way through the season, the Cavaliers sit 9th in the East despite playing the NBA’s third-easiest schedule (per Dunksandthrees’ SOS rating).
So, what’s going on? And how do they fix it?
Let’s start with the optimistic and undeniable: the Cavs have had brutal injury and shooting luck. Max Strus hasn’t played. Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen have combined to miss half the season, which is especially brutal for a team structured around four players. It’s easy to forget—this isn’t supposed to be a team with limitless depth. What happened last season (TEN players above the 67th percentile in Dunksandthrees’ EPM) was almost unprecedented.
Donovan Mitchell continues to be tremendous, but it’s a tough ask in 2025 to expect one All-Star-level player to carry a team to the top of a conference. There’s simply too much talent across the league. And while Garland (more on him in a moment) and Allen have been in and out of the lineup, Evan Mobley’s impact has taken a step back after his breakout, All-NBA 2024–2025 season.
A path forward for the Cavaliers is to simply get healthy and have their stars play like they’re capable of. Mobley has been underwhelming, but Garland has been downright dreadful since his return from injury. He’s shooting under 40% at the rim and under 30% from three. This is a player who has shot between 55 and 62 percent at the rim and between 37 and 41 percent from three across the past five seasons. Garland and Mobley’s return to form, as well as Allen simply returning to the lineup, will solve a lot of problems.
There is another solution that hasn’t been discussed. Could the Cavaliers be a sneaky candidate to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo? They temporarily squashed fit concerns with their 64-win season last year, but it’s no secret that it required heavy workarounds. Allen and Mobley were staggered extensively. Garland and Mitchell played more of an alternating style than a synergistic one. These are four tremendous players at their best—but is it possible that a consolidation that either increases the talent or improves the fit is inevitable?
Time will tell, but time is also running out.
Memphis opening doors
Remember when the Grizzlies had too many good players a couple seasons ago? After a disastrous 2023–2024 and a disappointing end to 2024–2025, Tuomas Iisalo appears to have the Grizzlies back on track.
This team is supposed to be built around Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. What if I told you that both Morant and Jackson are currently playing some of the worst basketball of their careers?
The Grizzlies are overcoming that with sheer brute force of will. On any given night, they’ll throw five guys out there that will make you seriously ponder, “Is this the first time I’ve seen this lineup before?” Iisalo has so many options at his disposal, across the board.
There is the emerging Cam Spencer (shooting 51% from three this season on 8.5 3PA per 75 possessions), Jaylen Wells, who has shed any concerns of a sophomore slump and actually improved, and Cedric Coward who, while struggling from three recently (6-for-44 from three in his last nine games), has shown impressive flashes on both ends.
Behind Jackson, the Grizzlies have Santi Aldama and Jock Landale, whom Iisalo is not shy about mixing and matching with other bigs depending on how they want to play. Vince Williams is a good defender who has shown some playmaking chops on the wing.
All of this is to say that, despite mostly not shooting well (Aldama, Jackson, Morant, Caldwell-Pope, Coward, and Williams are all shooting below expectation to some extent) and still being without both Ty Jerome and Scotty Pippen Jr., the Grizzlies are treading water in a way very few expected.
Of course, there is a world where Jackson and Morant simply play better. They have too long a pedigree of success to believe otherwise. But the emergence of Zach Edey as the team’s most impactful player has opened doors to the franchise that didn’t seem to be available to them recently. The data on Edey is staggering:
1st in the NBA in defensive EPM
The Grizzlies are 25.8 points per 100 possessions better when Edey plays
The Grizzlies allow a ridiculous 96.7 points per 100 when Edey plays (the last teams to have defenses that effective were the Spurs and Pistons in the 2003–2004 season)
98th percentile in offensive rebound percentage
If Edey can stay reasonably healthy, he is a force in this league that the Grizzlies can build around. Can Morant and Jackson slide next to Edey? Theoretically… yes. The profiles and strengths of each of the players are synergistic. But all of a sudden, the Grizzlies are not dependent on that route. They have options at their disposal.
And that’s a good thing.
Joe Mazzulla is a Magician
This is seriously getting out of hand.
The Celtics lost Jayson Tatum to an Achilles injury. They lost Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Luke Kornet, and Al Horford to other teams. Derrick White is having his worst shooting season by far since he began donning the classic green and white jersey.
So how are things going in Boston?
Oh, they’re sixth in the NBA in net rating. Because of course they are.
Neemias Queta, Jordan Walsh, and Josh Minott have emerged from the ashes and are enjoying breakout seasons.
Because of course they are.
In a league filled with elite offenses, Joe Mazzulla has built a top-five offense without Tatum, Porzingis, or Holiday—and with both White and Payton Pritchard shooting below 34% from three.
Because, of course he has.
The question is… how? How the hell are the Celtics doing this? How is a team that shoots fewer shots (by far) than any team in the NBA inside 10 feet, that lost basically an All-Star team of offensive talent, and that is not experiencing outlier levels of shooting luck a top-five offense as we approach 2026?
It starts with Jaylen Brown, who has taken the reins as Boston’s primary option and thrived. Despite increased defensive attention, Brown is shooting a career-high percentage at the rim and from the midrange, and his best three-point percentage since 2021. He is also creating for others better than ever (career-high AST%). Brown has been exactly what Mazzulla asks of a number-one option.
The Celtics have also changed up their general strategy. In the Porzingis era (can I call it that?), the Celtics focused on spacing and getting back on defense. They were a middle-of-the-pack offensive rebounding team that mostly benefited from long rebounds off their large abundance of threes. They’re still putting up threes (3rd in the NBA in 3PA per game), but they’re crashing the glass more with Queta and Luka Garza (both in the 96th percentile in OREB%).
One thing you can be certain about with a Joe Mazzulla–coached team is that they will cater to the strengths of their roster. Even without Tatum, the Celtics have enough in Brown, White, Pritchard, and Anfernee Simons to put pressure on the defense in isolation or the pick-and-roll (as a team, Boston is top 10 in frequency and efficiency in both).
Mazzulla has used that as a catapult to allow this influx of new, relatively unknown role players—Walsh, Minott, Sam Hauser, rookie Hugo Gonzalez—to thrive how they best can by filling in around these guys without the pressure of possession initiation.
This was supposed to be a gap year for the Celtics, one that saw a new powerhouse emerge in an already weakened Eastern Conference after Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles injury. But Mazzulla has never been one to go with the grain. The Celtics may not win the East, but I can promise you no team wants to see them come playoff time.
Are the Clippers Dooming the NBA?
In case you’re unaware, Oklahoma City has the Clippers’ first-round pick next season unprotected. The Clippers sit at 6–21. The scariest part? This is their team. James Harden has been healthy and great. Kawhi Leonard has played the last eleven games, including back-to-backs, consecutively. The Clippers are 1–10 in that stretch. Help is not coming. The only thing they can really hope for is internal improvement.
So what do they do? Or, better yet, what does the rest of the league do?
This is an unprecedented situation in NBA history: a team built to win now that is failing spectacularly at its primary goal, which also does not own its pick and has to cede it to the unquestioned best team in the NBA. How do they improve in the short term? How can they avoid Oklahoma City adding a top-three prospect in a loaded draft to their embarrassment of riches?
There are minor improvements that could benefit them. Their offense is about the same as last season (112.8 ORTG vs. 114.3 last season), but their defense has fallen off a cliff. Many saw the Clippers as a dangerous first-round opponent against the Nuggets last season because they were a top-three defense in the NBA. This season, they’ve been almost 10 points per 100 possessions worse, dragging them all the way down to 25th in the league.
That starts with Ivica Zubac, who was an All-Defense–level defender last season. Him getting his act together would be a nice place to start. Getting Derrick Jones Jr. back would help as well. Figuring out any semblance of a bench unit (remember how exciting their bench was in preseason?) is another path to improvement.
Truthfully, I don’t have concrete answers. But this is a dire situation. The Chris Paul report was eye-opening. The Clippers’ issues seem to go beyond on-court struggles. But playing better can fix a lot. And it’s not just Clippers fans hoping they’ll do so. If they don’t right this ship, they may doom the entire NBA to a decade of Thunder dominance.
