CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell chased Detroit Pistons sharpshooter Duncan Robinson around screens to the baseline corner late in the second quarter. Mitchell beat Robinson to the spot and bumped him straight into his own bench as a punishment for making him work so hard defensively. Isaiah Stewart was a few steps away and gave Mitchell a light shove after seeing what happened. Mitchell looked up and then returned the favor before continuing to chase Robinson around the perimeter.
Cleveland, OH
10 Takeaways from Cavs Game 4 win over Pistons: Cleveland shows they can match Detroit’s physicality
Before the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 116-109 Game 3 win over the Pistons, head coach Kenny Atkinson said that he wanted his team to adapt to Detroit’s physicality and what the referees are allowing. Plays like that show what he meant.
Basketball games aren’t always won by the more physical team. It’s a contact sport that rewards size and strength, but the outcome is ultimately decided by who puts the ball through the hoop more consistently.
That said, in a series like this, doing so is much easier if you’re able to get into the paint and create from there.
The Cavs couldn’t do that in the first two games of this series. The offense was stagnant, often relying on the guards to create against a set defense. And when the ball did get kicked out to the perimeter for open threes, the shots weren’t falling, as is often the case for an offense that is moving side-to-side instead of north and south.
The Cavs were the aggressors in Game 3. They completed more of their shots in the restricted area and were able to get to the free-throw line more consistently. Both are things they weren’t able to do throughout the first two games of the series.
This was most true for Mitchell. He went 6-8 on shots at the rim after taking just one there combined in the first two games. A renewed focus on getting downhill woke up what was a dormant Cavs’ offense.
There was a level of decisiveness from Mitchell that wasn’t in the first two games. Instead of trying to probe the defense for openings in an effort to look for a perfect shot, he attacked whenever he had any sliver of daylight. This included pushing his advantage in semi-transition off missed shots and turnovers.
Here’s six baskets that Mitchell was able to get by just simply carrying his momentum from the backcourt into the front court. That accounts for nearly half of his made field goals.
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These aren’t fast-break or transition baskets, but they might as well have been from an efficiency standpoint. Mitchell is one of the most difficult players to stop when he has a head of steam. That allowed him to more easily showcase the skills that make him one of the most dominant scoring guards in the league for years.
Detroit’s defense is tough for a 6’2” guard to crack. We know that Mitchell can be lethal with his jumpshot, even though he’s struggled with that through three games. Getting downhill in semi-transition like this offsets some of those concerns. It’s why he was able to get an efficient 35 points in a game the Cavs desperately needed to win.
Max Strus provided several things the Cavs desperately needed. His energy and effort changed the game defensively. Strus forced several turnovers, including an incredible steal off a Cade Cunningham inbound pass that led to a critical two points the other way to break a 104-104 tie.
Plays like that encapsulate who Strus is as a player, and why he’s so valuable to the team.
“There’s just so many things he does that don’t show up in the box score,” Mitchell said.
One of those things is screen setting. The Pistons turned the momentum around in the second half by switching more ball screens, similar to what the Toronto Raptors did in the first round. This stalled out Cleveland’s offense at the start of the third quarter before it got going again in the fourth.
Strus’s ability to set hard picks helped get the offense going. The Pistons tried to hide their weakest defender, Duncan Robinson, on Strus. Solid screens forced Detroit to switch, allowing James Harden to get one of his several closing baskets against the matchup he wanted.
You can’t see the screen in this video, but this mismatch doesn’t happen without it.
This showed us what the best version of the Mitchell and Harden backcourt could be. Harden said it was a “small dose” of their full potential afterward, and you could see why.
Mitchell had it going throughout, but he deferred to Harden in the high-leverage moments to get the job done. Harden delivered by knocking down clutch baskets on three-straight possessions, including the game-sealing three over Tobias Harris.
Harden brought them over the finish line, scoring nine points in the fourth quarter, but had just 10 points leading up to it. He had 10 fewer shots than Mitchell overall and wans’t the main focus of the offense.
It’s a different role than what we’ve seen from Harden over the past decade, but one he’s completely embraced because he knows what life is like for Mitchell — the guy forced to carry the fate of the team on his shoulders.
“I talked to Don a few times today, and it’s like, “All right, if you ever feel like tired or you need [a break], you know, I’m available,” Harden said. “I understand what that feels like when you’re that age, and you’re used to scoring 30 points and you know you’re the guy. So, you got to pick and choose and find your spots where you want to take them and where you want to just let them go. … Tonight was one of those cases where he looked like he needed a break, and he called on my number.”
Mitchell and Harden are very different players, but have run into similar roadblocks during their careers. Their playing style has led to incredible regular-season success, but neither has achieved the playoff team success their talent would lead you to believe they should.
Few can relate to the internal weight and frustration Mitchell has felt from playoff losses more than Harden. If they’re going to break through together, it will be due to performances like this.
“I am who I am, he is who he is, but that what makes us so dynamic,” Mitchell said. “Having a trust in him and vice versa is why those moments happen.”
The Cavs passed the test in Game 3. They responded with the physicality they needed to make this series competitive again. They know how to and can beat this team. Now, they just need to show that they can meet that physicality consistently, and not just once every couple of games.
“At the end of the day, it’s just 2-1,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got to find a way to win Game 4. … We’ve got another opportunity to play in front of the greatest fans in the league. Hopefully, we get another one.”
CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
There are mornings when I sit down at this keyboard, look at the Browns quarterback discourse, and wonder whether I should have gone into a more stable line of work. Such as selling timeshares from inside an office that has been lit on fire. Because here we are in late June, with no pads, no preseason games, no live pass rush, and apparently everyone from television personalities to team-adjacent announcers to webdorks like me has solved the Browns quarterback battle. That’s 90% of the news items out there this morning.
But I don’t care, and look on that endless speculative churning as simply being noise at this point.
One story that matters this morning is Andrew Healy leaving Cleveland for Minnesota, which I wrote about several days ago. He’s joining the Vikings as an assistant general manager.
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If your first reaction was, “Okay, front-office guy changes jobs, wake me when someone throws a slant,” I get it. Executives mostly become famous when something goes wrong, which is a cruel system, but, hey, I didn’t design the planet. I just live here.
But Healy’s departure is a real loss. Alec Lewis’ Athletic reporting had two quotes that should get your attention. Browns offensive analyst Dom Borsani called Healy “a little bit like a unicorn,” because he combined research background and technical aptitude with a traditional scouting lens and an understanding of coaching schemes. Former Browns senior software developer Zach Zelinsky, now with the Arizona Diamondbacks, called him “probably the smartest guy I’ve worked with in sports.”
That’s not normal praise. That’s not “great teammate, first guy in, last guy out” boilerplate. This is people inside the machine saying the Browns just lost one of the people who helped connect the spreadsheet world to the football world. And that matters because the modern NFL is not analytics versus scouting anymore — or at least it shouldn’t be. The good organizations are the ones where the numbers people understand what the scouts are seeing, the scouts trust that the numbers can challenge their assumptions, and the coaches don’t throw the laptop into Lake Erie.
Healy’s Sloan Sports Analytics bio says that, for the last five years, he “led the integration of data and advanced insights into all parts of football operations.” It also says he started with the Browns in 2016 as Senior Player Personnel Strategist, helping to develop methods for valuing players, making game decisions, and evaluating draft assets. Before that, he created projection systems for Football Outsiders, and before that, he was an economics professor with a Ph.D. from MIT. So, yes, he is smarter than your humble webdork. This is not a high bar, but still.
So, naturally, I was worried about this and did what I always do when I’m looking for common-sense answers: I talked to Lane. He let me know what he “was told all the systems have been in place, with others handling the process. It doesn’t feel like they are overly concerned with his departure. As they have told me previously, you never like to lose assets, but you plan accordingly.”
The Browns still have Andrew Berry. They still have people in the research department. This is not a one-man shop collapsing because the smartest guy took his stapler to Minneapolis. But when you lose Paul DePodesta to the Rockies and Healy to the Vikings in the same general era, you lose institutional memory, decision-making frameworks, and the people who knew why certain models were built the way they were. Don’t expect the loss of the two to indicate much about how the Browns use analytics – it hasn’t fallen out of favor or suddenly joined Maurice Carthon’s playbook in the annals of football history.
This is the type of stuff fans don’t see until two years later, when the draft board feels different, the fourth-down decisions get twitchy, or the team suddenly stops finding value in places it used to find value. Maybe Berry replaces that brainpower cleanly. Maybe the remaining group steps forward. Maybe the Browns are fine. But losing a “unicorn” from a front office is like losing a left guard: nobody talks about it until the pressure starts coming up the middle.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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THE WATERCOOLER
THE LIFT
Positive news from the world of sports and beyond…
Space.com reports that scientists are drawing up a research blueprint to examine whether warming Mars is actually feasible — not because anyone should be selling lakefront property in Olympus Mons by Thursday, but because the work could help humanity understand what sustainable habitats beyond Earth would require. University of Chicago geophysical scientist Edwin Kite told Space.com, “We do not yet know enough to create a biosphere from scratch,” which is both humbling and oddly comforting. We can’t even get everyone to agree on the Browns quarterback depth chart, but sure, let’s keep the option open for Mars.
WRAPPING UP
When not trying to identify the precise moment quarterback analysis becomes interpretive dance, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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Three people are dead after a double murder-suicide in Lakewood.
Police said a man called his ex-wife early Sunday morning, saying he shot two people at a home on Chesterland Avenue.
According to investigators, the man threatened to shoot himself.
When officers arrived at the scene, they saw a man in a truck speeding away.
Police chased the truck until it stopped on Warren Road.
The 45-year-old man exited the vehicle with a gun to his head and shot himself moments later, police said.
Police found 35-year-old Richard Eastin and 33-year-old Amanda Wakut dead inside the kitchen of the home on Chesterland Avenue.
The investigation is ongoing.
CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – Officers from the Cleveland Division of Police Fourth District responded to the sound of gunshot Saturday evening.
According to police, officers were in the area of the 3200 block of E 93rd Street when they heard gunshots around 8:30 p.m.
Officers responded to the area and located an adult man with gunshot wounds.
They immediately began to provide first aid until EMS arrived.
When EMS arrived on scene crews continued care and transported the man to the hospital.
Police said during the course of the investigation, officers identified and detained a 33-year-old man.
Officers also located two firearms and several casings from the scene.
The victim was treated at the hospital, but was later pronounced dead by hospital staff.
The Cleveland Police Homicide Unit is investigating the incident, and no further information is available at this time, police said.
Copyright 2026 WOIO. All rights reserved.
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