Report: Cavs think they’re ready for title push, ‘learned what they needed to learn’

It appears as if Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson has taken great pains to learn from his team’s errors during its unsuccessful stint in the 2025 NBA Playoffs.

According to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, Atkinson has rewatched the Cavaliers’ second-round series against the Indiana Pacers “so many different times trying to study that and learn from that.”

It sounds like the work from Atkinson — and perhaps any others in the organization who have used the playoff exit as a learning tool — has led to increased confidence.

“Rightfully so, there’s a lot of confidence from Kenny, and there’s a lot of confidence from people inside this organization that the Cavs are ready to compete for a championship,” Fedor said. “And they do believe that they learned what they needed to learn. We’ll see — has to play itself out. But they do believe they learned what they needed to learn from the latest playoff exit.”

The coming 2025-26 season may be the Cavaliers’ best chance to win a title with this current core intact. The conference landscape does not look as intimidating as it did a season ago.

For one, the Boston Celtics — who have perennially been one of the best teams in the East in recent seasons — are projected to take a major step back with stars Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday getting moved in trades and cornerstone Jayson Tatum set to miss an extended period of time due to injury.

Not only that, but there are question marks surrounding many other teams in the East, including the Pacers, who won the conference last season. They will be without star guard Tyrese Haliburton due to injury and also lost big man Myles Turner in free agency. Turner joined the Milwaukee Bucks, who will be down a key piece themselves after star guard Damian Lillard went down with an injury and was later waived.

Cleveland also added a couple of proven pieces this offseason despite the losses of guards Ty Jerome and Isaac Okoro. The team traded Okoro for guard Lonzo Ball, a great facilitator who’s capable of playing a traditional point guard role. In addition, the team reunited with big man Larry Nance Jr., who spent three-plus seasons with the squad earlier on in his pro career.

The Cavaliers stand out as having as good a chance as any team in the East of representing the conference in the 2026 NBA Finals, and it should be entertaining to watch this squad navigate the coming campaign.

With any luck, the Cavs will be the team hoisting up the Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of the 2026 NBA Finals. If Cleveland can’t finish the job next year, one has to imagine that rumblings will grow louder about whether the team should separate its core.