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By Alex Kirschenbaum
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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Even in victory, the Cleveland Cavaliers find themselves suffering a disappointing loss.
Per a new NBA press release, the league has fined Cleveland $100K for sitting out healthy All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley ahead of its clash last Wednesday against the Miami Heat, an eventual 130-116 win. The encounter was the first contest of a back-to-back slate. The next night, Cleveland fell against the Toronto Raptors, 126-113, although both Mobley and Mitchell played.
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The league called out Cleveland, claiming that its decision to rest Mitchell and Mobley was a violation of the league's Player Participation Policy.
NBA teams have long been under intense scrutiny for what outside pundits (and now, the league itself) consider a fairly lax rest policy for top players during the regular season. The league has been actively striving to combat that, and as such it instituted this new Player Policy ahead of 2023-24.
The policy is designed to penalize teams for unnecessarily resting ostensibly healthy players who have been named to an All-Star or All-NBA team across the last three seasons. Mitchell and Mobley were both All-NBA and All-Star honorees last year.
The league automatically investigates any team whenever it rests multiple nominally healthy stars in a game. Cleveland might have been able to get away with resting Mitchell in one game and Mobley in the other.
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Sans Mitchell, Garland or Mobley, All-Star center Jarrett Allen and small forward De'Andre Hunter stepped up in Miami. Allen notched a 30-point, 10-rebound double-double, while Hunter chipped in 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the floor and 4-of-5 shooting from the charity stripe. Three Cavaliers backcourt players — fill-in starters Sam Merrill and Lonzo Ball plus reserve guard Tyrese Proctor — also scored in double digits.
Despite playing at Kaseya Center in Miami, the Cavaliers enjoyed a massive free throw advantage, going to the line 31 times to the Heat's 13 appearances. Cleveland enjoyed a massive edge in bench scoring, 51-32. The Cavaliers' pesky defense proved helpful, as the Cavaliers forced 21 turnovers and scored a whopping 29 points off those picks.
Cleveland seems to have been able to weather the distractions of major long-term injuries to All-Star point guard Darius Garland (who has been in and out of the lineup lately) and, now, extra punishment from the league, to get off to an encouraging start in 2025-26. After finishing with an Eastern Conference-best record under then-first year head coach Kenny Atkinson, the 2024-25 Cavaliers struggled with injury and matchup issues against the lower-seeded Indiana Pacers in the second round of the playoffs this past spring, ultimately falling in five games. Cleveland hasn't been to even the Eastern Conference Finals since its final LeBron James season, 2017-18.
At present, the 10-5 Cavaliers occupy the East's No. 2 seed, behind only the 12-2 Detroit Pistons.
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