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LAS VEGAS – After the Summer League debut on Sunday night, Cavaliers rookie Evan Mobley said he missed shots he normally does – and that his second appearance will be different.
It was. Kind of.
Mobley missed four of his first five attempts, but briefly found the shooting touch midway through the second quarter of Cleveland’s 94-84 win over the Orlando Magic at the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV Wednesday evening.
Looking much more comfortable on the perimeter than on the pole, the nervous 7-footer began to show his range, knocking down a pair of 2s at long range, one with his toe barely on the line, then a high range. triple arch. He calmed down again in the second half, having only managed one basket in the last 20 minutes and finished with 14 of 5 of 15 from field and 1 of 3 from beyond the arc.
But scoring isn’t what makes Mobley exciting. It’s his ability to impact the game in multiple ways.
“Some of them slipped,” Cavs coach JJ Outlaw said of Mobley’s second-half misfires, including a pair of overhead balls. “I had a conversation with him and asked him if he was tired. He said they had just slipped. He was very aggressive in the first half and played for the others in the second half. He just makes the right game of basketball over and over again. He doesn’t care so much about what he does as he cares about the success of the team and the success of the attack on this side of the pitch.
It was evident in the first game and reaffirmed on Wednesday. On Sunday Mobley made his mark on defense, hitting shots, modifying others and activating small ones. With his shot abandoning him again, Mobley this time turned into a playmaker, something the Cavs anticipate during his rookie season. The youngster, who was considered one of the best passing players to enter the draft over the past decade, distributed six assists, a team-high, repeatedly finding teammates on cups and evictions. This led to a much more balanced scoring attack for the offense.
“I think we’re all excited about it,” Outlaw said of Mobley’s passing. “He’s going to be an extremely integral piece for us throughout the season and his willingness to share the ball and then to be able to get his own shot when he wants is extremely important. But as you can see, his teammates were confident he would deliver the ball on time, to the target when they cut and they kept cutting.
Six players, including Mobley, scored in double digits.
Second-year swingman Isaac Okoro, who was probably playing his last Summer League game, led the way with 15 of 6 of 9 points from the field. He received one of Mobley’s best dishes, sharply cutting the baseline for a fierce And-1 poster dunk over Orlando center Asbjorn Midtgaard, which ended in Okoro shimmying, Mfiondu Kabengele chuckling and the Cleveland Bank becoming bananas.
Lamar Stevens and Brodric Thomas, who both played for the Cavaliers last season, also hit that double-digit score.
It was the second consecutive Top 5 pick, this time against Jalen Suggs, who made two picks after Mobley in the 2021 NBA Draft.
Suggs finished with 16 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
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