INDEPENDENCE — The Cavaliers are right to retain coach Kenny Atkinson, though at least one aspect of the decision president of basketball operations Koby Altman depicted on Friday, May 29, during his season wrap-up news conference is difficult to fully buy.
Atkinson has been buried by an avalanche of criticism since the Cavs lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the first true indication they would be swept by the New York Knicks. Much of it is warranted, but some of it, especially the knocks about words Atkinson has uttered on camera, has been overblown.
The bottom line is Atkinson’s performance in the 2025-26 season is a microcosm of the team he guides. He took his lumps, at times, but adjusted and recovered well enough to go 52-30 in the regular season and earn the Eastern Conference’s No. 4 playoff seed. He made mistakes in the first and second round of the postseason against the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons yet managed to hold everything together and prevail in seven games. Then he wasn’t nearly good enough in a 4-0 series loss to the Knicks.
But making Atkinson the fall guy, given what he helped the Cavs accomplish in his second season at the helm in Cleveland, would have been an overreaction.
After the Cavs suffered a season-ending loss in Game 4 against the Knicks on May 25, guards Donovan Mitchell and James Harden publicly defended Atkinson. And Altman seems to agree Atkinson should not be a scapegoat for Cleveland’s flop in the Eastern Conference Finals.
“We heard a lot of noise after that loss to the Knicks, which was unfortunate,” Altman said during his news conference. “I don’t think it was a story. There was never a conversation about Kenny at all. When we win as an organization, we win as an organization. When we lose as an organization, we all own it, and there doesn’t always have to be a fall guy.”
Roster or coaching? Where are Cavs assigning more blame for sweep vs. Knicks in Eastern Conference Finals?
When expectations are not met in the big-money business of professional sports, there is almost always a fall guy. Just ask former Cavs players Darius Garland and De’Andre Hunter about the concept.
It’s hard to believe Atkinson’s coaching performance in the conference finals didn’t give some bigwigs in the Cavs organization pause about keeping him for a third season. Whether any doubts led to formal discussions about Atkinson’s job status is a different matter, and Altman is on the record with his claim about such talks never occurring.
If there was indeed “never a conversation” held internally about Atkinson’s job security, it could be interpreted as an admission the roster is flawed and more culpable than the head coach for the team’s letdown against the Knicks. It could be seen as Cavs brass conceding the absence of enough long, athletic wings to adequately defend the perimeter against the Knicks is a more glaring issue than coaching.
The fourth-seeded Cavs led the third-seeded Knicks by 22 points in the fourth quarter of Game 1 at Madison Square Garden, but Cleveland collapsed and lost 115-104 in overtime on May 19. Atkinson inexplicably didn’t call a timeout during an 18-1 run by the Knicks. He also didn’t provide an adequate solution to Knicks star Jalen Brunson repeatedly beating fellow point guard James Harden on the defensive end of the floor amid New York’s rally.
Later, the Cavs used a “soft” double-team on Brunson, and Atkinson, before Game 3, revealed the thinking behind deploying it rather than an aggressive trap.
“What we don’t want is him dribbling around our double because he’s so quick,” Atkinson said. “[If] you trap him too hard [and] he gets around the trap, he’s got the ball, and there’s an advantage [for the Knicks].”
The strategy is both a compliment to Brunson’s playmaking abilities and a window into the defensive limitations Atkinson recognizes in Cavs personnel.
Koby Altman explains why the Cavaliers are keeping coach Kenny Atkinson for a third season
Still, isn’t it Atkinson’s job to improve his players’ techniques? The answer is, of course, yes.
Overall, though, the Cavs are crediting Atkinson with checking the requisite boxes on player development, and they’re resistant to overlook his role in the franchise reaching the conference finals for the first time since 2018 and for the first time without LeBron James since 1992.
Atkinson is 116-48 in the regular season and 13-14in the playoffs as Cleveland’s head coach.
“Kenny has been remarkable the last two years, I mean, if you just zoom out and look at his resume, right?” Altman said. “[He led the Cavs to] 64 wins last year, [won NBA] Coach of the Year, gets us to a conference semis. This year, we get better in terms of our playoff success, get to a conference finals, 52 wins. I think that the most extraordinary part of Kenny this year was, out of the gate, we were hurt and beat up and [had] a lot of starters missing from the start of the season. And we go 17-16. For him to stabilize that with 41 different starting lineups, I think, was incredible.
“He’s able to move and adjust on the fly really, really well. We trade [Garland] for James Harden [in February], add a couple pieces, obviously, in Dennis [Schroder] and Keon [Ellis] at the [trade] deadline [in exchange for Hunter], and now we have to shift and change the way we play a little bit, or dramatically in some cases. [Atkinson] was able to adapt and make and mold and build around that. … The player development, which we brought [Atkinson] in for, to make sure we have a stable pipeline to continue our growth, Jaylon Tyson, Tyrese Proctor, Craig Porter Jr., all these guys … even Sam Merrill, have elevated themselves as basketball players under him.
“It’s easy to point to the loud loss [to the Knicks] and just say, ‘Man.’ We all want some of those possessions back, coach included, players included. I want that series back. But we have to own that as an organization. How can we get better? The players own it, too. And so this is not a Kenny discussion. It never was a Kenny discussion. It was an organizational discussion of how we can break through to that next level. But I think if you’re looking at his resume in totality, the last two years have really been remarkable from a record standpoint, from a player development standpoint and obviously breaking through to a conference finals is a real achievement for a head coach and for us.”
Altman played the greatest hits well in his comments about Atkinson. But the elephant in the room is the Knicks fired coach Tom Thibodeau after they lost in the conference finals last year. Former two-time Cavs coach Mike Brown landed the job and helped the Knicks ascend to the NBA Finals this year.
The Cavs know all about coaching being a factor in a team clearing a playoff obstacle. With Atkinson, they recently overcame the second-round hump they had been stuck on with his predecessor, coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Atkinson’s Cavs accomplished the feat by beating Bickerstaff’s Pistons in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
With the Thibodeau example, though, it’s worth noting he coached the Knicks for five seasons. Atkinson hasn’t coached the Cavs for half as long. And this should be emphasized again: Atkinson received a public vote of confidence from Mitchell and Harden.
Critics piled on Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson after quote about analytics
Although Altman didn’t broach this subject (nor was he asked about it), it’s pertinent to consider some of the public backlash Atkinson has received stems from a quote, and many media members and fans have ignored the context surrounding Atkinson’s words.
Let’s fill in some of the blanks the masses have ignored.
This is the part far too many people have twisted: Atkinson did not say the Cavs were winning the series based on analytics. He said they had “won,” meaning held an advantage, in an advanced metric — expected score — in two of the first three games of the series. He knows real and expected are not the same. If Atkinson had pointed out the Cavs had “won” the second and third quarters in Game 1, which they did, or “won” the rebounding battle in Game 2, which they did, or “won” the points in the paint in Game 3, which they did, he would not have been ripped. Instead, he alluded to shooting luck or lack thereof. The quote wasn’t accompanied by the greatest timing ever, yet universal condemnation is over the top.
And although Atkinson’s answer can be viewed as an excuse, it didn’t come across as the intent. Given the exchange of questions and answers preceding the quote, all of which has been lost in the shuffle, the response came across as a coach providing a genuine answer about why he believed his team could show life while trailing 3-0 in a series. The answer, in part, was analytics. Now, you may hate the answer, even if you’re not among the people misconstruing it, but what really matters anyway is the Cavs didn’t rally at all. They folded. Did the players quit on Atkinson, or were they just exhausted and overwhelmed by the red-hot, well-rested Knicks after failing to take care of business earlier in the first two rounds? The latter is more plausible, especially considering Mitchell and Harden vouched for Atkinson.
Either way, the sweep puts the onus on Atkinson, Altman and other key members of the Cavs organization to clear another postseason hurdle.
“There’s absolute urgency. There always is,” Altman said. “When you have Dan [Gilbert] as your owner and the Gilbert family that wants to bring another championship to Northeast Ohio, it’s great pressure. It’s great pressure to have. We’re all aligned.”
For now, the Cavs are aligned with Atkinson, and it’s the correct stance.
Nate Ulrich is the sports columnist of the Akron Beacon Journal and a sports features writer. Nate can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cavaliers make right call with coach Kenny Atkinson’s job. Opinion
Reporting by Nate Ulrich, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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