BOSTON — In the second game after they learned in December they’d be without both Darius Garland and Evan Mobley for a while, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Houston Rockets in overtime. That night on Dec. 18, Donovan Mitchell played 45 minutes, including the entire second half and all but four seconds of the extra period.
After the game, Cavs president Koby Altman walked into the coach’s office and admonished head coach J.B. Bickerstaff in front of his entire staff for playing Mitchell such heavy minutes, multiple sources briefed on the interaction told The Athletic. Descriptions of the incident spread across the organization, including the locker room.
“(Altman) got at J.B.,” one player said of the incident.
The immediate aftermath of that night was confusing. For instance, Altman was unaware at the time he was scolding Bickerstaff that the coach had asked Mitchell if he wanted to come out, according to league sources, and Mitchell declined. Yet, Mitchell was absent from the court for Cleveland’s next four games due to what the team called a non-COVID illness.
As it turned out, that singular saga from one night in December foreshadowed how the season would end for Bickerstaff. Key players out all over the place, and with him in danger of losing his job.
League sources briefed on the Cavaliers’ mindset told The Athletic that Bickerstaff’s job is in serious jeopardy after four and a half years as head coach, following the team’s season-ending loss in Game 5 of the second round to the Boston Celtics. Two league sources said the team is likely to take some time — multiple days — to make a decision. Bickerstaff, despite all the pressure he and members of the organization above and below him were under this season, has built equity with the front office and was at the helm for Cleveland’s first appearance in a conference semifinal since 2018. This spring marked the Cavs’ first playoff series win without LeBron James on the roster since 1993.
