Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes is an All-Star caliber player, but he didn’t play like one against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Evan Mobley on Wednesday. Barnes finished with just nine points on 14 shot attempts in a game the Raptors lost by 30 points.
Mobley spent the most time guarding Barnes of any Cavalier in the team’s season opener, and he revealed exactly how he made life difficult for the one-time All-Star on the offensive side of the ball.
“Just locking down on the assignment,” Mobley said. “Knowing his tendencies. Knowing what he likes to do. He can shoot a little bit, but he’s a driver and we were trying to pack the paint when he drove and show him different looks and stuff like that. Sometimes we would double and sometimes we wouldn’t.”
To put Mobley’s defensive impact into perspective, Barnes averaged 19.9 points per game on 47.5 percent shooting from the field across 60 games played last season. Additionally, the 23-year-old big man totaled three blocked shots and a pair of steals.
Mobley was debatably the Cavaliers’ best player against the Raptors when factoring in his contributions on the other end of the court as well. He scored a team-high 25 points and knocked down nine of his 14 shots from the floor in under 30 minutes of playing time.
The former University of Southern California star will try to replicate his fantastic two-way performance against Toronto during the Cavaliers’ home opener against the Detroit Pistons on Friday night. The Pistons were one of the worst teams in the NBA last season, but Detroit nearly beat an Indiana Pacers team that’s on the heels of an Eastern Conference Finals appearance on Wednesday.
Detroit was in command for much of the contest until it floundered in the fourth quarter. The Pistons were outscored by 14 points across the final 12 minutes of the game.
Mobley claimed last month that one of his two major goals for this season is to earn the first All-Star nod of his pro career, and if he can consistently play at this level in his fourth season in the NBA and as a member of the Cavaliers, he seemingly will have a puncher’s chance at being selected.
If Mobley can take that leap into stardom, that will also seemingly bode well for the Cavaliers’ chances of advancing deep into the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
