Cavs’ Evan Mobley imposes will vs. Kings: ‘He was like Shaquille’

Evan Mobley went to work on Friday night with a season-high 29 points, as the Cleveland Cavaliers outlasted the Sacramento Kings in a 123-118 win at Rocket Arena. Adding 13 rebounds, seven assists, and four blocks, it was a shining example of what the 2021 NBA Draft’s third overall pick is capable of.

Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson brought up a Hall-of-Fame name when describing what the performance resembled.

“He was like Shaquille [O’Neal] tonight,” Atkinson said postgame. “I mean, seriously, the way he was just, ‘rim, rim, rim’ and then dominated the defensive side. That was one of the most dominant performances that I’ve seen from him, and we needed it.”

“I don’t know about that, but I definitely felt dominant out there,” Mobley added afterward with a laugh. “Definitely felt like I can get to most shots I wanted to get to in the paint and score at a high rate.”

Cleveland All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell was quite complimentary following the seven-footer’s outing.

“My goodness,” Mitchell said. “I don’t care about the blocked shots and the defense; if he’s doing that, like, we are a very, very good team.”

“He was creating 10 potential assists, too,” Atkinson added. “He was dominant. Tonight was a great performance.”

Mitchell used the Charlotte Hornets game as an example of how Mobley grew from playing well in 24 minutes to playing well for an entire night.

“We haven’t had communication of trying to continue that. The first half was just like this. In the second half, he was trying to find it. In this game, it was like, ‘I’m just going to go. I’m going to go. I’m gonna attack.’

“That’s what you want to see out of him, not so much necessarily us continuing to get it to him, but him being like, ‘I’m going downhill, they can’t stop me, I’m getting to the paint. If they draw three at me, then I make the pass; if not, I’m going to finish.’ And he did it for 48 minutes, and that was the most amazing part that I saw tonight.”

Mobley attempted a season-high 24 field-goal attempts on Friday. This was also only the third time that Mobley has scored 20 this month, and the first time he’s dropped this many points since Halloween. He dished out the second-most dimes of the season to boot.

Overall, it was a heck of a night for Mobley, and the Cavs are going to need this from him down bodies.

“We’re doing more things for him, but I think he’s just taking the burden, and I think a lot of it’s circumstances,” Atkinson said of Mobley’s production, citing the team being without Darius Garland and Sam Merrill.

“I definitely have a mental effort to just start the game off strong and try to maintain that,” Mobley added. “And I think also these past few games I’ve been coming out hot and making the first few, so that kind of sets the game moving forward for me.”

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