A reporter who typically despises hot takes actually has one
begging to be written: Jarrett Allen is the straw that stirs the
Cleveland Cavaliers' drink, and he is their most important
player.
Somewhat buried beneath Tuesday's nationally-televised marquee
showdown between Donovan Mitchell and a returning LeBron James was
Allen’s comeback to the Cavs. He’d been missing for the last five
games with a bothered back. In his first game since Nov. 25, the
talented center made his first 10 shots, recording a 24-point,
11-rebound, 3-steal stat line in over 38 minutes of action.
Although Evan Mobley gets valuable reps as a ball-handling,
jump-shooting, screen-slipping 5-man during his absences — and what
a whale of a job he’s done showing off his toolkit — Allen has a
certain presence about him that makes him just as important on the
offensive end of the floor as the defensive end.
Prior to Cleveland’s road trip that started in Milwaukee,
Basketball News asked Cavs head coach J.B.
Bickerstaff about Allen’s smarts and knowing opponents’
tendencies on both sides of the floor. Revisiting that concept
before Jarrett’s eventual return to the court, Bickerstaff added to
his previous response to illustrate what he does to open things up
for his teammates.
“He plays with the vertical spacing that changes the game for
everybody. Teams have to make decisions on who's going to stop him
at the rim,” Bickerstaff said before the Cavs' 116-102 win over the
Los Angeles Lakers. “Typically the only guy who's out there that
can do that is the big, so now, that clears a lane for your guards
who are penetrating, who are attacking. And if you want to bring in
a third guy and try to stop him early, that creates room for
shooters on the perimeter. So teams have to make adjustments and
they have to make decisions when Jarrett is on the floor, because
that's going to create opportunities for the other guys that are
around him.”
Vertical spacing. You don’t hear that term too often.
So many people look for big men to spread the floor in the modern
NBA, expanding their shooting range and forcing defenders to have
to pay attention on the outside to free-up space to attack. That
isn’t Allen’s version. His is quite the opposite, in fact, as he
draws defenders in, leaving Cleveland’s perimeter players with good
looks or blow-bys for better ones.
“It’s a thing just in terms in lobs if my man steps up, then he
can throw the lob to me and finish it,” Allen said after the
victory over L.A. “A lot of guys can jump in the league but being
down there, ready for the lob, I don’t even know how to explain it
honestly, I’m trying to make something up (laughs). Just a thing in
the league with lobs and being able to be there whenever your man
helps off you."
“Just try to find the open area," Allen followed up regarding
his offensive approach. "D.G. (Darius Garland) has the amazing
floater and Donovan has his pull-up game. My man is going to help
and try to contest it. I’m just trying to get into the open window
where they can find me and dish it to me at the last second.”
What Allen is known for is his screen-setting abilities,
spearheading a pick-and-roll dynamite duo with both Mitchell and
Garland. So when opposing teams send doubles at whichever
ball-handler is operating the offense, it leaves just Allen and the
basket. Again, an opportunity to cram it or spray it to the
corners.
“I don’t really know where to start. I think the biggest thing
is he can do it all,” Mitchell said after a win over the Portland
Trail Blazers on Nov. 23. “He can set hard screens. He can slip out
of screens. You can hit him on a half-roll and a lob. You can pass
to him and he’s able to make a post move and finish. There’s just
so much to his game that adds onto mine… There’s so much we can do
– him and I together.”
“I mean, he's huge. He's a big guy. I mean, when he makes
contact, he's making real contact,” Garland stated at a preseason
shootaround on Oct. 12. “So I have a lot of room coming downhill
and can get to any of my spots. And then he's just right on the
rim. A lot of bigs don’t want to have their man score, so a lot of
bigs like going back to JA on the roll, so that leaves a lot of
wide-open layups. When they do help, it leaves the easy lob, it’s
two points for sure.”
Considering both of the Cavs guards are in the NBA’s top-15 in
getting doubled, it’s always helpful to have that kind of option in
the middle of the floor to make something happen. And sometimes,
you’ll see Allen and Mobley execute a high-low to bend the
floor.
“It goes both ways. Sometimes he's passing it to me, and
sometimes I'm passing it to him. We just look out for each other,”
Mobley said after the Portland win. “I feel like we're building
that chemistry as well and getting better at it in on a
game-to-game basis.”
“It’s super cool to see, been saying it for years now,” Garland
said following a Nov. 18 victory against the Charlotte Hornets.
“It’s super cool that they have that connection on the floor. The
lobs from the 5-man to the 4-man is kind of crazy and it’s super
cool to see. A lot of teams don’t really do that. We feel
comfortable when they have the ball in their hands. When our
backcourt is getting trapped, we know we can hit them and they can
make the right play.”
Mitchell has the “ultimate confidence” in those scenarios.
“Teams might resort to blitzing us in certain situations and
when you have an outlet, not only just have the outlet, but be able
to make plays for himself, for others in pass and certain things.
It's kind of like pick your poison, you know?” Mitchell added
recently. “You have us two, then you have those two on top of that
who are able to get in there and make plays for everybody."
There just seems to be a more natural feel to Cleveland’s
half-court offense when Allen is there — just going by the eye
test. Referring to advanced stats, the Cavs’ effective field goal
percentage and free-throw rate drops by 3.8% and 2.1%
respectively. That ranks in the 89th and 69th percentiles among
his peers, per Cleaning the Glass.
Lineup data via PBP Stats helps show his effect on those around
him. In the 176 minutes that Garland, Mitchell and Mobley have
shared without Allen on the floor, their Offensive Rating as a trio dips by
nearly 6 points per 100 possessions. (Ironically, their Net
Rating is better — Mobley is an incredibly versatile defender, and
Lamar Stevens has done an admirable job as the team’s starting
3).
According to NBA.com’s Optix figures, the Cavs are
scoring a whopping 1.47 points per possession when Allen sets a
screen for Mitchell (9.7 times per game) and 1.13 PPP when he does
it for Garland (11.0).
“I mean, it, by the numbers, is elite pairings. It's not just as
easy as it may look. It's more scientific than we give it credit
for,” Bickerstaff said Tuesday. “Understanding angles,
understanding timing, understanding defenses and rotations — it's
calculated. I think from both standpoints, Jarrett has the
calculations down, the guards have the calculations down. It's just
more so about them playing more together and the more they play
together, the more lethal it's gonna be.”
“With Donovan, I like to flip the screens more,” Allen said a
couple of weeks ago at a morning practice. “He likes getting
downhill. I’m not going to give away all the secrets, but he likes
getting downhill and going a certain way. So instead of setting it
how I would for Darius, I might flip the screen for Donovan.”
Allen is cerebral, physical and, most impressively, a presence
that elevates his Cavs teammates to the incredible performances
we’ve seen on a nightly basis.
“I mean, he's in the right place the majority of the time. It's
a simple concept, but he always goes where the defense isn’t,”
Bickerstaff said after the Cavs' win over Portland. “And a lot of
guys have a hard time figuring that out. But it's one of the things
that he does, like for a big guy who's not a three-point threat,
how do you create space for your teammates, in small spaces? And I
think Jarrett does a great job of just finding those gaps and where
to position himself where he creates enough space where big guys
have to make tough decisions. Do you stop the ball, or do you give
up a dunk? A lot of times you look out there and big guys are just
in the way and it ruins the spacing for everybody else. But he does
a great job of creating room for those guys to operate.”
At this point, we all know about his abilities as an anchor on
defense, and his coach and teammates continue to demand recognition
as a DPOY candidate. It's not just about the blocked and altered
shots, but more significantly, the freedom it gives his teammates
to put more pressure on the ball and roam around.
“When he's in there, he usually protects rim and I just help
him. So I have a lot of more freelance ability to really move
around and help where I see fit, and I feel like I play that role
really well,” Mobley said last month after the Charlotte game.
Mitchell and Garland have highlighted this time and time again
throughout the season.
“You know, when you've got guards who are dynamic like Trae
[Young], Dejounte [Murray] getting downhill, all you've gotta do as
a guard is kinda just stay in space and kinda funnel them down
there to both Ev and JA. But you noticed it when JA was out, things
weren't too great, and it's tough just to be down there when it's
Ev and say, a Lamar. Lamar is not... we know we're not 7 feet,”
Mitchell said on Nov. 21 after beating the Atlanta Hawks. “So being
able to have two of those guys down there [is] the foundations of
our defense. But definitely with JA back blocking shots, deterring
shots and even forcing guys to travel because they don't wanna go
up there for a shot — I think that's something that, you don't
notice it on the stat sheet, but you see it when you're watching
the game, and they bring it every night.”
“Everybody says that he's the
Defensive-Player-of-the-Year-caliber player and our team thinks the
same of him. Just having like an agility 7-footer like that, it
helps a lot,” Garland said after defeating the Blazers. “I mean, JA
is super smart. He sees everything early, he just knows everything,
like really early. So, he sees it and just reacts really quickly so
it's good to see.”
Allen keeps defenders from getting second chances too, which is
a part of defense that might not be appreciated as much. But the
defensive metrics in general match what his teammates say about
him.
According to Cleaning the Glass, Cleveland allows 7.8 points
more per 100 possessions when he’s not on the floor. And when he is
on the court, the Cavs’ Defensive Rating as a team is just 104.4.
That puts him in the 98th percentile in the NBA,
and it shows what leading by example truly means.
“That's what Jarrett does. We go through our expectations of
guys, like, that's his way of leading is a willing to do all the
things that most people aren't willing to do. And that forces
everybody else around him to do the same,” Bickerstaff said
following an Oct. 23 win over the Washington Wizards. “But it's, I
mean, what he's capable of and the impact that he can have on that
end of the floor, at that size, the versatility. I mean, like he's
a Defensive Player of the Year candidate every single year. And I
think it's time that we acknowledge that.”
Go back to last season when Allen broke his finger. Cleveland’s
defense suffered, which made its offense suffer, which made the
team suffer. The Cavs were 35-21 in the games that Allen played in.
They went 7-11 after that point, and were 9-17 overall without
Jarrett. Even in the previous season when he was traded from the
Brooklyn Nets, this kind of impact was obvious to the naked
eye.
With the roster turnover since then, it could be interpeted as
foolish to compare that to the present day. Not in this writer’s
eyes, as the Cavs are 2-4 in games without Allen this season, and
the trend continues. (Mobley has gotten better and the team has
started to learn how to operate on defense with Allen the middle,
to be fair. However, it just doesn't seem the same.)
On a nightly basis, we’ve marveled over a number of sensational
performances. With Mitchell, Garland and Mobley, you’re going to
see that more often than not.
While that may be the case, Allen is the ingredient that blends
the Cavs together and makes that group's individual talent thrive
alongside one another in a team setting. He cannot be viewed as an
unsung hero any longer.
Jarrett Allen is literally an All-Star in his role — one that
appears to be the most crucial for Cleveland to succeed.