Mike Longabardi Hired by Cavaliers: Latest Details, Comments and Reaction
The Cleveland Cavaliers made another change to their coaching staff and hired assistant coach Mike Longabardi as the team’s defensive coordinator, according to Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com.
The Cavaliers made the announcement Wednesday, less than a week after they fired head coach David Blatt and hired then-assistant Tyronn Lue as his replacement.
Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com said Longabardi was fired by the Phoenix Suns on Dec. 27, which just so happened to be one day before they played Cleveland. John Telich of Fox 8 in Cleveland noted the assistant was with the Suns for two seasons and with the Boston Celtics under former head coach Doc Rivers for six years before that.
Lue was actually on the Boston coaching staff with Longabardi for four of those six years, so there is a familiarity in place between the two coaches.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com said that “Longabardi is expected to take over the defensive specialist role that Lue held before he was promoted to replace David Blatt last week.”
The Celtics reached three Eastern Conference Finals and two NBA Finals with Longabardi on the sidelines, and they even won the 2008 championship. That title-winning team finished second in the league in opposing points per game and first in defensive efficiency, according to Hollinger team statistics on ESPN.com.
Cleveland brought Longabardi aboard for his defensive acumen, and that is an impressive resume on that side of the ball.
On paper, the Cavaliers have been one of the best defensive teams in the league this season, and the addition of Longabardi should only help. As of Wednesday, they are third in opposing points per game, and Basketball-Reference.com rated them as the sixth-best squad in the league in adjusted defensive rating, which is “an estimate of points allowed per 100 possessions adjusted for strength of opponent offense.”
However, this is a championship-or-bust season for the Cavaliers, especially since they reached the NBA Finals during the 2014-15 campaign and fell short. LeBron James elected to return to Cleveland from Miami before last season with the sole purpose of winning a ring for his home-state team that drafted him, but he is 31 years old with thousands of NBA minutes on his legs.
The championship window is the present, and Cleveland did not look like a potential title winner on the defensive side of the ball during its 132-98 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Jan. 18 or even during its 114-107 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday.
NBA.com provided Cleveland’s defensive rating (“the number of points allowed per 100 possessions by a team”), and it has experienced a dip in production on that side of the floor in January, especially when compared to December.
| 2015-16 Season Overall | 100.2 | Sixth |
| November | 102.1 | 16th |
| December | 97 | Second |
| January | 103.6 | 13th |
The blowout loss to the Warriors stands out in particular because Golden State beat the Cavaliers in last season’s NBA Finals. If James and his teammates plan on emerging from the Eastern Conference and actually knocking off the 41-4 Warriors this time around (assuming Stephen Curry’s team is there again), they must play better defense than they have in January.
Ideally, Longabardi will help them do just that.
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