In a somewhat surprising development, the Cleveland Cavaliers have the league’s best record (23-4) and finished 33% on the season.

Every member of the Cavs rotation was on the roster last season, but Cleveland is the second-most improving team in the league in both winning percentage and point differential per 100 possessions. The only team that has seen bigger jumps is one — the Memphis Grizzlies — that has been much healthier.

Biggest jump, point differential per 100 possessions

Until December 19, 2024

Here are some notes, numbers and film about how the Cavs got off to such a good start.

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1. It’s about offense and, above all, shooting

The Cavs have allowed 1.8 fewer points per 100 possessions than last season, but that’s slightly less than the league average decline (2.0 per 100).

Their improvement came almost entirely from an offense that scored 120.6 points per 100 possessions, the highest rate in the league and 5.9 per 100 more than the Cavs scored last season.

The Cavs saw the second-largest decline in turnover rate in the league, averaging 0.7 fewer turnovers per 100 possessions, while the league (as a whole) averaged 1.2 more turnovers than last season. Fewer turnovers give them more opportunities to shoot, and shooting is what the Cavs do best.

Shooting is the most important aspect of any offense and Cleveland has an effective field goal percentage of 59.2%, the highest in NBA history.

Highest effective field goal percentage in NBA history

eFG% = FGM + (0.5 * 3PM)) / FGA

The Cavs rank third in Second Spectrum’s batting quality metric, up from fifth last season. They saw small jumps in both the percentage of their shots that ended up in the restricted area and the percentage of shots they made from 3-point range.

They have seen a larger increase in exceeding their expected effective field goal percentage. In other words, you take slightly better shots and shoots much better on the recordings they took.

The Cavs posted the second-largest increase in field goal percentage and the largest increase in 3-point percentage in the league.

There are 28 players who took at least 200 shots last season and at least 100 shots this season and have seen their effective field goal percentage increase by at least 5.5 percentage points. Four of those 28 are Cavs…

The Cavs’ best shooters

Rank = Among 221 players with at least 200 FGA in 2023-24 and at least 100 FGA in 24-25

All four of these guys are posting the highest effective field goal percentages of their careers, with Caris LeVert’s mark of 64.6% being his highest grade of a gigantic Margin. His previous high was 52.8% eight seasons ago as a rookie.

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2. Subtle changes

There weren’t any major changes to the Cavs’ offense, but there were tweaks.

• According to Synergy tracking, they saw a small increase in the percentage of their possessions that were in transition. According to Second Spectrum, the Cavs rank fourth with 18.4 pass-ahead passes per game. That’s an increase from 14.8 (eighth) last season.

• They have seen the most jump player movement in the league, averaging 11.6 miles traveled per 24 minutes of possession (ninth), compared to 10.3 (29th) last season.

• They drive more, 54.2 times per 100 possessions (fourth), up from 40.5 (14th) last season

• Both Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell saw a significant decrease in their time of possession, while Evan Mobley saw an increase from 1.9 minutes per game (6.2% of his time on the court) to 2.3 minutes per game (7.6% ).

• The guy who has taken the ball out of the hands of the two starting guards the most is Ty Jerome, who only played a total of 15 minutes last season and did so averaged 18 minutes (2.5 minutes of possession) this season.

Better balance in who handles the ball, more ball and player movement, and more offense allow Garland and Mitchell to attack a rotating defense more often…

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3. Mitchell-Mobley’s minutes were dominant

The Cavs have two great playmaking guards and two great rim-protecting bigs. This means you always have one of them on the floor. This season, they paired Garland with Jarrett Allen, with Mitchell playing more minutes alongside Mobley.

(Last season the opposite was true, likely because Garland and Mobley were injured at the same time and the Cavs had great success with just Mitchell and Allen in the lineup.)

The Cavs have outscored their opponents with just Garland and Allen on the court, but have been at their best with just Mitchell and Mobley (plus-15.3 points per 100 possessions).

Cavs efficiency, 2024-25

OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points Allowed per 100 Possessions
NetRtg = points differential per 100 possessions

This is due in part to how well Jerome and LeVert shot. But the success of the Mitchell-Mobley minutes had more to do with defense.

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4. The defense still gets it done

Overall, the Cavs still have a top-10 defense for the fourth straight season. And while the improvement from last season is on offense, the other end of the floor is still very important.

Cleveland is one of five teams ranked first in both opponents’ field goal percentage (54.7%, sixth-lowest) and percentage of opponents’ shots made inside the field (47%, ninth-lowest). Top 10 include.

The defense is different than last season in terms of forcing turnovers. The Cavs rank fifth in opponent turnover rate (15.8 per 100 possessions), up from 13th (13.8) last season. And more ball losses lead to more transition opportunities at the other end of the floor.

Jerome’s presence was a factor there. His 4.8 deflections per 36 minutes rank ninth among 276 players who played at least 300 minutes.

The big question for the Cavs going forward is how sustainable the shooting will be. We continue to wait for LeVert to calm down, but he has shot 13 of 21 from 3-point range over the last five games.

The Cavs have played many more games against teams currently ranked in the bottom 10 defensively (12) than against teams currently ranked in the top 10 (5), with only one of their 27 games against a top 10 player was carried out.five Defense.

They won’t face another top-five defense until Jan. 8, but they’ll face a big test when they host the Bucks on Friday (7:30 ET, NBA TV).

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John Schuhmann is a senior statistical analyst for NBA.com. You can email him here, his archive can be found here and Follow him on X.

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