{"id":130264,"date":"2025-03-23T17:54:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T21:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=130264"},"modified":"2025-03-23T17:55:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T21:55:51","slug":"cavaliers-losing-streak-evan-mobley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/23\/cavaliers-losing-streak-evan-mobley\/","title":{"rendered":"Evan Mobley’s Part In Cavaliers’ Recent Losing Streak"},"content":{"rendered":"

As surprising as it truly is, the Cleveland Cavaliers had recently lost four consecutive games. They snapped the streak by defeating the Utah Jazz earlier today. The losing streak was a scenario Cleveland hadn’t experienced this season. Alternatively, they have enjoyed two winning streaks of at least 15 games or more. In the losing slide, it could be that they were feeling the grind of the long season and in a funk. Nevertheless, they dropped four in a row, and questions began to surface, some of them overreactions. However, something had gone wrong in that stretch, and ESPN NBA senior writer Brian Windhorst has the inside scoop on how Cavaliers big man\u00a0<\/span>Evan Mobley<\/span><\/a>\u00a0fits in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Evan Mobley’s Part In Cavaliers’ Recent Losing Streak<\/h2>\n

Brian Windhorst Says Teams Are Targeting Cavaliers’ Evan Mobley<\/h3>\n

Despite their phenomenal season thus far and dominance in the Eastern Conference, the Cavaliers have much to do to convince further<\/span> that they’re true championship contenders<\/span><\/a>. It’s not a knock on their 58 wins, nor their superstar in\u00a0<\/span>Donovan Mitchell<\/span><\/a>, or the outstanding cast of players he has around them. For most, it’s their recent playoff shortcomings, with the same roster they have now. Many in the NBA and the media still view the\u00a0<\/span>Boston Celtics<\/span><\/a>\u00a0as the East’s and the league’s best team despite Cleveland being at the top of their shared conference.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cavaliers’ four-game losing streak could be chalked up to fatigue or simply a bad stretch of games. All teams go through it. Although, there is one element Windhorst sees concerning Mobley. On\u00a0<\/span>The Hoop Collective podcast<\/span><\/em>, Windhorst spoke with Tim Bontemps and Tim McMahon<\/a> about the Cavaliers’ issue that could become a serious problem [23:00 mark]<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Teams are targeting Evan Mobley.\u00a0He got beat up by the big boy with the Clippers [Ivica Zubac<\/a>]. There\u2019s going to be more big boys out there<\/em>.” Windhorst continued to explain through example by pointing out the problem in the Cavaliers’ recent loss to the Sacramento Kings last week. “Again, with Mobley being targeted in the pick and roll, and look, DeMar DeRozan<\/a> is one of the great clutch scorers in the modern era the NBA, I\u2019m not looking down my nose, I\u2019m just saying, if you want to be defensive player of the year, that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to be judged.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The Big Boys Down the Road<\/h3>\n

There is no shade being thrown on Mobley in this regard. He’s an outstanding player <\/span>in the discussion for Defensive Player of the Year.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>Windhorst\u00a0<\/span>simply<\/span>\u00a0states that Mobley is getting overpowered and outmatched by his bigger, stronger contemporaries, like Zubac in Los Angeles.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Mobley is starting to have problems now, it’s not the best timing. Cleveland will likely contest with bigger and stronger centers and forwards in the playoffs. Of course, that’s provided they advance. The “big boys” Windhorst could be eluding to are\u00a0<\/span>Nikola Joki\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Denver,\u00a0<\/span>Chet Holmgren<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Isaiah Hartenstein<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Oklahoma City out West. In the East,\u00a0<\/span>Mitchell Robinson<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Karl-Anthony Towns<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in New York, and\u00a0<\/span>Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Milwaukee, to name a few. If Mobley can’t handle strength and size greater than his own, it could hinder Cleveland. In Windhorst’s eyes, it’s a problem now<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Ken Blaze-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As surprising as it truly is, the Cleveland Cavaliers had recently lost four consecutive games. They snapped the streak by defeating the Utah Jazz earlier today. The losing streak was a scenario Cleveland hadn’t experienced this season. Alternatively, they have enjoyed two winning streaks of at least 15 games or more. In the losing slide, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":130266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1608,62],"tags":[4292,350,900,3966,306,993,652,213,1616,72],"class_list":["post-130264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cavaliers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-demar-derozan","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-evan-mobley","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-ivica-zubac","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-mitchell-robinson","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130264"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130280,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130264\/revisions\/130280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}