With one more win, the Cleveland Cavaliers would have the second-longest winning streak to start an NBA season with 16 wins. That would be behind only the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors, who started 24-0 that year. Of the 29 teams that won 16 or more games in a row in a season, 12 won the NBA Finals that year. While it all makes for great headlines and podcast fodder, it doesn’t worry Donovan Mitchell as he spoke candidly about what really worries him while on The Pivot podcast.

“Last year we had a setback. I was out about 15 games, DG was out 20 games and Evan was out 20 games because we showed who we are. And I have no doubt that if adversity comes, we will come closer. But it’s easier when you’re with the group you rock with, but also coach Atkinson has been phenomenal with his message of continuing to play with pace, unselfish play and team basketball.

This is great. It’s been a historic beginning, but at this point it doesn’t matter. We’re building good habits, and I think that’s for the best, but at the end of the day it’s what we do after the All-Star Break that counts.

Mitchell isn’t wrong, as evidenced by what happened to the 2015-16 Warriors team. They broke the regular season record for wins by going 73-9, but then lost 4-3 to the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.

Cavaliers don’t lose sight of the big picture

Cleveland continues to dig deep into the details and pulled out a 2-3 zone plan to get the job done against the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday night.

“Coach Max Strus,” Cavs guard Darius Garland said after the game. “We’re still learning from him, even though he’s on the sidelines, he’s still preaching about the zone. The two-three certainly slowed them down from all their driving opportunities and got us into rotation a lot. So I’ll definitely put it on the zone. Saving us.”

“It’s a great plan for how we cover the zone,” Jarrett Allen said. “Shout out to Max. He has, as it were, entered the zone. He was a coach for a day and told us where to be and how to monitor certain things and just our energy in the zone. We communicate well. We know when to exclude. We know that if Evan goes, I’ll be behind him. It’s just a good tandem of movement that works well together.”

The Cavaliers travel to Boston on Tuesday night for their next NBA Cup game against the Celtics. The Cavs are 1-0 in Group C of the Eastern Conference.