J.B. Bickerstaff's job as Cavaliers coach is on the line | Jeff Schudel
Apr. 18—No one in the Cavaliers organization has even broached the subject, but it is abundantly clear that J.B. Bickerstaff is coaching for his job security in the playoffs.
Bickerstaff has been coaching the Cavaliers since the middle of the 2020 season. That means he has been on the job longer than any Cavs coach since Mike Brown coached them from 2005 to 2010. Bickerstaff is 170-159 in the regular season but just 1-6 in the postseason.
An unnamed NBA executive went so far as to tell Ashish Mathur of Hoopswire.com that Bickerstaff could be fired if the Cavs don't win the first two rounds of their 2024 playoffs. The comment was made April 9, which means it was made before the Cavaliers' first playoff opponent was identified.
The Cavs open a best-of-seven series with the Orlando Magic at 1 p.m. April 20 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The winner of that series might end up facing the Celtics in the East semifinals, depending on how Boston does in the first round.
"J.B. could get fired if the Cavs don't make it to the conference finals," the anonymous executive said. "He was almost fired earlier in the season before the team got its act together. There are people inside that organization who can't fathom how a team with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland is so poor at scoring the ball. J.B. is 100 percent on the hot seat and he knows it."
I don't buy the idea of Bickerstaff being fired if the Celtics knock off the Cavs, assuming it isn't a four-game blowout. But they would have to get to the conference semifinals first. If they don't — let's just say Bickerstaff will have stepped off his last stepping stone into the abyss of fired coaches.
The Cavaliers finished 22-50 in 2021 when COVID reduced the normal 82-game season to 72 games. A year later, the Cavs were 44-38 and finished ninth in the Eastern Conference to qualify for the play-in tournament.
They were bounced in two games, losing 115-108 to the Nets in Brooklyn and then 107-101 to the Hawks at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
The play-in failure wasn't a total shock. They were 35-21 in mid-February, but just 9-17 over their last 26 games.
"I'm still a little heartsick, to be honest with you," president of basketball operations Koby Altman said in his wrap-up press conference in 2022. "It's hard to process the season ending the way it did, but it was such a remarkable year for so many reasons.
"I give J.B. Bickerstaff a lot of credit for creating an identity, a culture, a buy-in about team. You can't call it playoffs, but there was postseason basketball — two games of monumental consequence that we're going to grow from as a group."
So Altman tried to make the Cavaliers better by trading guard Collin Sexton (via sign and trade), forward Lauri Markkanen, guard Ochai Agbaji and three future unprotected first round draft picks (2025, 2027, 2029) to Utah, while also agreeing to swap picks in 2026 and 2028 to the Utah Jazz for guard Donovan Mitchell.
Mitchell was a three-time All-Star with the Jazz. but his teams in Utah never made it past the second round of the playoffs.
The Cavaliers finished 51-31 in 2023 to earn the fourth seed in the East. They were eliminated by the Knicks in five games. They lost twice at the FieldHouse — where they lost only 10 games all season.
Altman again praised Bickerstaff in his 2023 wrap-up, but this time he also sent the message that, yes, maybe there were some flaws in the way he coached in the series with the Knicks.
"J.B. has been through this rebuild from ground up," Altman said. "He's done a phenomenal job of instilling a culture here of accountability and hard work. You can't fluke your way into 51 wins. You can't fluke your way into the number one defensive rating in the NBA. That's coaching.
"We're extremely happy with J.B. and the job he's done. I think he's going to look back and reflect on what we could have done better, just like the players look back at what they could have done better."
So once again, Altman set out to improve the team. He acquired Max Strus in a trade with the Miami Heat and signed Georges Niang because he concluded the Cavs needed to improve their outside shooting. Niang, the only Cavalier to play all 82 games this season, averaged 4.8 three-point attempts and was successful on 1.8 of them. Strus averaged 6.8 thee-point attempts and made 2.4 of them.
Interestingly, the Cavs won three fewer games in 2023-24 (48) than a year ago. It might be fair to wonder just how well all the additions Altman has made actually blend together. But we'll save that for later.
Bickerstaff is apparently feeling the heat now that the playoffs are here. He was asked during his postgame news conference April14 after the Cavs lost to the Hornets, 120-110, in the final game of the season what he learned from the playoffs last year.
"It's different circumstances," he answered. "Its a different team and a different opponent, but we focus on our preparation and getting individuals ready ... Our focus is going to be on coming up with a great game plan ..."
"You tried that last year," the reporter responded. "You, personally. What did you learn as a head coach?"
"I don't know," he said. "Thank you. All right."
Then Bickerstaff stormed out of the interview room.
Bickerstaff is feeling the heat. No doubt about it.
