The Cleveland Cavaliers’ brave playoff run ended on Wednesday after the Celtics won game 5 113-98 to clinch the series. In Donovan Mitchell’s absence, the Boston side took back-to-back games and with the exit from the postseason, questions started to rise about J.B. Bickerstaff’s future with the franchise.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Cavs front office is planning to evaluate the HC’s future. Wojnarowski wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), “After an Eastern Conference semifinal loss to Celtics with short-handed lineup, Cavaliers plan to take time to evaluate coach JB Bickerstaff’s future, but organization remains fond of him and marketplace is sparse of proven candidates. There will be a lot of conversations on different ways to proceed for a franchise that reached Eastern semis for first time since 2018.”
The veteran journalist wasn’t the only one indicating a potential change in the Cavs HC role. Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that Bickerstaff’s job is “in serious jeopardy” and a decision on his future might take multiple days.
Amid the concerning updates, the 45-year-old assessed the season for the Cleveland side and had some positive things to say.
J.B. Bickerstaff Assesses Cavs Season
After the defeat to the Cs, J.B. Bickerstaff faced the media and addressed the cumulative effect of it. He said, “This has been a difficult year for us, for a bunch of different reasons.”
“They never found the time to fold on each other. All they did was find ways to compete,” he added, “Somehow, we were able to find a home-court spot going into the playoffs. A lot of people can’t say that they were able to accomplish that.”
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With a 48-34 record in the regular season, the Cavs had the home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs against the Magic. A hard-fought 4-3 win secured a round 2 birth where they faced off the Celtics and were thoroughly beaten throughout the series, which ended 4-1 in favor of the Boston side.
Bickerstaff has been in the HC role since 2020 with the Cavaliers and earned two postseason qualifications. Last season they were beaten by the Knicks in round 1, so in Bickerstaff’s words, it was progress indeed this season. He has an overall 170-159 with the Cleveland team and whether he’d be able to add to that next season can only be known in a few days’ time.
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