Donovan Mitchell explains how the Cavs have ‘screwed’ themselves with recent success

The Cleveland Cavaliers have exceeded all expectations through 18 games this season, and with each win, their ceiling is only getting higher.

By showing just how good they can be, the Cavs have “screwed” themselves, according to star guard Donovan Mitchell, who knows that the team has set a very high bar.

He made the lighthearted comment to The Athletic while speaking on Cleveland’s strong start to the season.

“I was confident this was going to happen, but did I think it was going to happen this year?” he asked. “I can’t say I thought it was going to just click right away. I’m not going to sit here and be like, Oh, yeah (I saw it coming). But that’s what makes it exciting. It’s like, ‘All right, this is everything I envisioned for this team. And it’s f—ing happening.’

“But now I make the joke, like, we screwed ourselves now, because now we know who we are. We showed who we are. So this is who we are. This is the barometer. This is the worst, in my eyes, and we haven’t even continued to grow. Evan [Mobley] is just starting to scratch the surface. DG (Darius Garland) and myself are just continuing to get better. (Jarrett Allen). So there’s definitely some excitement, for sure.”

The Cavs started the season 15-0 before falling to the Boston Celtics to pick up their first loss of the season. The 15-0 start put the team in elite company, as only one team in NBA history has ever started a season with a better record: the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors. They started 24-0.

Currently, Cleveland is on pace for 77 wins. That pace is going to be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to sustain, but merely being mathematically on track to go 77-5 is an impressive feat with 18 games in the books. For reference, the 2015-16 Warriors went 73-9, giving them the best regular-season record in league history.

With all of the references to the 2015-16 Warriors, it’s worth mentioning that the Cavs miraculously upset the Warriors in the NBA Finals that season to give Cleveland its first title in franchise history.

Nowadays, the Cavs are looking for their second NBA title, and while they’re still a long way away from getting it, they may be starting to turn some doubters into believers. The defending NBA champion Celtics may be the biggest threats to the Cavs in the Eastern Conference, but Cleveland currently has a two-game lead over Boston in the standings.

The Cavs won a playoff series last season for the first time in years, and this season, they’d love to make a deep run. Mitchell knows that the team has set a high bar with its impressive start to the season, so success could become the expectation and the standard for Cleveland going forward.

The squad has a couple of games against the Atlanta Hawks coming up before it will get another crack at the Celtics this coming weekend.