Nylon Calculus: Playing real or fake with early season NBA trends

4. Cleveland controlling transition: Real or fake?

The Cavaliers have to be pleased with the start of the season, even after losing Collin Sexton to a torn meniscus and rookie phenom Evan Mobley to an elbow injury.

Until now, the Cavaliers have proven that they can vie for playoff contention in the rather competitive Eastern Conference. At 9-8, with a top-10 defense and the league’s most promising player in a deep rookie class, the future looks bright for the franchise.

But some things in this league are not what they seem, and that is especially true for this Cavaliers defense.

Through 17 games, the Cavs have afforded opponents an austere 106 points per 100 possessions, well above the expected level for a team with a 26.5 preseason over/under win projection. However, the underlying fundamentals of their defense point to unsustainable overachievement.

The foundation of a strong defense is an offense that doesn’t commit live-ball turnovers that lead to easier opponent opportunities in transition. These Cavaliers, however, commit the second-most turnovers of any team, of which 61 percent are defined as live-ball by pbpstats.com.

As a result, the Cavs hold the third-worst opponent transition frequency, per Cleaning the Glass.

Off turnovers, the Cavaliers give up the second-most points in transition, but off of live rebounds, their defense actually improves compared to their overall efficiency regardless of play context.

In other words — when Cleveland’s live rebound transition defense regresses towards league average, the Cavaliers will face trouble. And with both Mobley and Sexton sidelined for the immediate future, Cleveland’s hopes of surpassing the play-in tournament may never come to fruition.