“Can’t play together.”
“Too small.”
Just another day in Cleveland. It’s a Saturday afternoon inside the Cavaliers’ practice facility, and Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are addressing the elephant in the room we’re now sitting in. Moments before, members of the team had been on the practice courts, running through individual skill workouts and shooting sessions as reggae music blasted through the speakers. The only thing that can be heard now is the Cavs’ backcourt keeping it real about the public’s perception of the NBA and what’s been the difference-maker for them this season. Then the question gets brought up.
What is the craziest or most absurd thing that people have said about you?
“The ‘not being able to play together’ I think was definitely the toughest one, because they don’t give it a chance, you know?” Don says. “Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are another duo in this League, it took them eight years to win a championship. It takes time. Not saying we’re them, not saying they are us…Jamal Murray and Jokic. AD and Bron. It takes time.”
None of those guys won titles overnight, and they all had to deal with their own fair share of criticism and sky-high expectations to make it there. Since LeBron James led Cleveland to their first-ever title in 2016, the franchise has been on the rebuild. And over the years, there haven’t been many who believed the Cavs could be as good as they are right now. Not when Garland arrived as a first-round pick in 2019, or when they acquired Jarrett Allen from the Nets via a four-team trade in 2021, or when they drafted Evan Mobley that summer with the third overall pick. When Mitchell arrived prior to the start of the 2022-23 season via a trade from the Jazz, there were doubts about whether he and Garland, two ball-dominant guards, could even be successful together. Despite all of this, the Cavs finished with a 51-31 record, the franchise’s highest win total since the 2016-17 season.
This year, that same core four has managed to lead the Cavs to an even better record, which is 55-10 as we go to press. It takes time to build the type of rhythm they’re playing with. “I think people fail to realize that,” says Mitchell, who is averaging 24.2 ppg. “They think that you’re supposed to just click and vibe, but obviously, we haven’t got a chip yet. We got some work to do, but we’re headed in the right direction, and that’s all you can ask for—just continue to take the proper step forward.”
And with their same core, the Cavs are now two-stepping their way to the playoffs under new head coach Kenny Atkinson. When Atkinson arrived to replace J.B. Bickerstaff, he reimagined the Cavs’ motion offense with an emphasis on free-flowing movement, quick reads, cutting and creativity. DG and Spida set the tempo in the backcourt. Garland is a shifty point guard who moves, in his own words, “like a dancer,” with fancy footwork, spin moves and speed, while Mitchell is explosive and groovy with the way he weaves down the lane for a bucket.
“I just like to dance with the ball,” says DG. “I’m a dancer…I just use my shiftiness, my quickness, and then I like to give [Mitchell] the ball, because he’s just so explosive.”
Then there’s the rest of the Cavs’ ensemble, which includes seven-footers Allen and Mobley who cause havoc in the paint. Allen is constantly moving and leaves defenders dizzy and distracted as he sets screens and rolls to the basket, while Mobley is an All-Star who crashes the boards with a fury and, as we’ve seen this year, Euro steps his way to the rim like a guard. With Isaac Okoro, Max Strus and newly-acquired De’Andre Hunter (a trade that happened just the day before our cover shoot) to balance out the scoring, the Cavs have so much range as the No. 1 offense in the NBA.
For the first time in a long time, what’s being said about them isn’t, well, bad. But don’t think they forgot.
“We got a lot of hate last year,” Garland says, to which Mitchell adds: “From the same people that’s [saying] really nice things about us. Appreciate it.” It goes without saying that public perception controls the narrative in the NBA. In today’s world, this is all happening online, where people only pay attention to what’s being curated on their feeds, from game highlights to hot takes from media personalities and podcast hosts. The casuals are so lost in the scroll, they only pay attention to who is still standing in June, rather than actually watching a team rise to the occasion throughout an 82-game season.
“We really look at the NBA game as, like, it’s 2K for real,” Mitchell says. “He’s never played with a ball-dominant guard, and I haven’t either, so that takes time for us to continue doing what [we do]. [Fifty-one] games the first year. That’s success, and people don’t look at us as that, but that’s success in itself. OK, we failed in the playoffs. Cool, next year, boom. Everybody gets hurt, different things, but we finally win a playoff series, first time. That’s another step. Now we’re at the top of the League, but at the end of the day, this really don’t mean nothing until we do something in the playoffs.”
Seeing is believing, and when the Cavs played the reigning champs on Feb. 28, everyone watched to see what they were about. Despite Boston’s 25-3 lead to start the game, the Cavs went on a 41-22 run and dominated the fourth quarter. They never got flustered, and Mitchell especially turned things up. With two minutes left, he literally soared to the basket past Sam Hauser and above Al Horford to draw a foul. By the time he landed back on the ground, his teammates on the sideline were already making their way toward him to dap him up in excitement. Mitchell finished the game with 41 points in the Cavs’ 123-116 win over the Celtics. According to StatMuse, he tied LeBron James for the most games (12) in Cavaliers history with at least 40 points and 5 threes.
“When he turns up, starts flexing and starts clapping dumb hard, starts talking to the crowd, I love that Don,” says Garland. “That’s the Spida we all need, for sure.”
The story of the Cavs’ backcourt duo actually started long before they teamed up in The Land. Mitchell hosted Garland as a recruit at Louisville back in the day (DG ended up going one-and-done at Vanderbilt). Years later, they worked out together during the summer prior to the 2022-23 season; Mitchell happened to be in Miami with his trainer, Ronnie Taylor, who asked if the Cavs’ PG could join them. The meet-up was pure coincidence, as neither of them knew what was going on behind the scenes in the Jazz and Cavs’ front offices. “[Donovan] was just so locked in the entire workout, like, if he missed a shot, he wanted to just do the whole set over again,” Garland says. “If he missed two in a row, he was doing a sprint back and forth and coming right back to the set. So, it was like, just his work ethic, his mindset, he wants to be great, the best version of himself and one of the best players to play this game.”
Mitchell was impressed by Garland, too. “I’ve never had to go shot for shot with somebody like that in a workout, like really try to beat the person that you’re working out with. That was my first real moment where I was like, He’s like that.”
Over the years, Garland has emerged as a poised point guard who’s been able to battle through adversity, the loss of his grandmother and injury, including a fractured jaw that forced him to miss 19 games last season and go through a grueling recovery process that included a liquid diet, causing him to lose 12 pounds. DG has since then bounced back and is currently averaging 21 ppg this year.
“I was away from the guys last year for almost two months, and that’s when I was really at my lowest,” he says of the injury. “I couldn’t talk to them, they’d FaceTime me after a big win, and I’m just sitting there, like, Yay, can’t talk. That was tough for me, but right now, just being around the guys, it’s some real brotherhood over here. It’s like a grown man AAU team. We’re always around each other. We’re always laughing, making jokes, going out to eat with each other. We had sweet potato pie on the plane yesterday. It’s a real family.”
They hype each other up like one, too. When I bring up Garland’s epic buzzer- beater from the Pistons logo on Feb. 5, Mitchell interrupts DG before he can say a word.
“I was trying to [be] PG all interview. Man, that was a f–k you to everybody. That’s what that was. That pose, all that was on—I’m sorry. I know, I know I shouldn’t swear. I’m trying my best, but like, that’s exactly what that was. I felt that, too. That’s why I went nuts [after]. Somebody was talking smack—I won’t curse again—the whole game and I just felt like, [he had] a lot of pent up, [like], This is what I really do, and y’all really playing with me. And I should have ended the game about 10 minutes prior, but we ain’t gonna talk about that. But like, you know what? Since we’re here, I’m gonna go ahead and do this. Forget the play that we drew up, Coach. I got it. So that’s what that was. He ain’t gonna say it like that, but I’m gonna say it.”
“I’ll talk a little bit of shit,” DG, who was named an All-Star this year, says of the game-winner. “It was against our former coach, too, which made it like 1000 times better…That was something that was totally different.”
“That was basically, like, everybody that was talking noise, just sit here and watch us,” Don chimes in.
The playoffs are just around the corner, too, which means everything they’re doing now is in preparation for their ultimate goal of winning a championship. It was Mitchell who once told me in Utah that “winning takes care of everything in this League,” but it’s clear now that it’s a sentiment he shares with his backcourt mate.
“Until we have this parade in Cleveland, [and I’m] on the floats and [have] a ring on my finger,” Garland says, “we haven’t done anything.”
Portraits by Matthew Coughlin.
