Austin Carr, Cleveland Cavaliers TV Analyst

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state law. Hey everyone, Boomer Esiason here. The NFL draft is behind us and your favorite team is now gearing up for week number one. The free Odyssey app puts you right in the middle of the pro football conversation with the biggest sports radio stations from across the country. The local voices who know your team the best, giving you their unfiltered takes on the current state of your squad.

It's always football season right here on the free Odyssey app. Austin, how are you? Thank you. I'm doing fine. How are you doing? I'm amazing.

Thank you for taking the time to hop on. It's great to see the Cavaliers back on the scene here. We know it took seven games against a young team. What are your overall thoughts about the series? A little bit tougher, some injuries here or there, a lot of Donovan Mitchell.

What say you? Yeah, that, I mean, when you look at our health situation, I remember when LeBron was with us, he used to say, we don't care where we end up, as long as we're in the playoffs, then we're healthy. And that basically is what it comes down to, being healthy, because now you can operate at a full efficiency. And we've been we've been doing that this all season, though, kind of having one guy out or two guys out. And all it was was it was like business is normal for us. But it was a tough way because the Magic team, they are going to be there for a lot of years to come. Without a shadow of a doubt, Cavaliers legend Austin Carr is here with us, the JR Sport Brief Show. When you look at the injuries, for instance, Jared Allen and like I said, the Cavs are going to be back in action tomorrow. What needs to change against the Celtics team, which is still without Porzingis? Yeah, it's going to be interesting because we just we're coming off a seven game hard-fought battle with a very physical team. Now, to me, the sevens are not a physical team.

They're more finesse and very good at it. So I'm anxious to see how the game is going to be called, because with us coming off of seven games of playing this way, we're going to start this game out that way. And I'm anxious to see how the referees are going to call it, going up against the Celtics.

But I'm looking for an opportunity here. But them being off for no Porzingis, because you have to change your little things with Horford. So you can't be exactly like you've done this season. And they haven't had to deal with a lot of that type of adversity this year. They've been having a pretty good, healthy year. So I'm anxious.

If we're going to get one, it'll be tomorrow. Well, Austin, you mentioned the referees. We know Donovan Mitchell has carried this team scoring-wise, this series. I mean, he had 39 last night or yesterday afternoon. He had 50 the other game. He got to the free throw line 17 times. How much can he do and who needs to step up to help him on the score inside?

You're right about that. I mean, he can't do it all by himself because of wearing him out in the seven game series. But it's going to have to take everybody has to step up. I mean, if we can get Jared back and everybody back in the uniform, it'll help. But if not, then we're going to have to get more rebounding from our smaller people. And we got to and we got to get better shooting from the perimeter. That's the one thing that the magic did to us. They shot they shut down our perimeter game. And that's why I take my hat off to Donovan. Those last two or three games, he realized that it wasn't going to be an outside game. It's going to be a paint game.

And that's where he did all his damage in the paint. So and that's where we got to get other guys to step up and understand that because they sort of stood around and watched Donovan as opposed to joining in with him. And Cavs legend and Cavs color analyst Austin Carr is here with us on the JR Sport Brief show. A lot of people are familiar with Donovan Mitchell, even dating back to his time with the Jazz.

This is going to be the first time the Cavs have had this type of national profile in years. I've been watching Evan Mobley, even dating back to college, a lot of people are going to learn more about him. I mean, five blocks yesterday, all the rebounds, the points. How has he changed and grown since you saw him arrive in Cleveland?

And what is more of the country going to learn as they pay attention? Well, I think as he has progressed, he understands that in that paint, regardless of the style of play, you got to be a strong minded individual inside to do it for 48 minutes. And I think he's learned that as he's gone through it, he put in an extra time, he put a weight room into his house so he could stay with it all the time. I mean, he's still not where he needs to be, or where I think he should be strength wise, but he's getting very close. But as you know, mentally, he's accepting the challenge.

And that's half the battle right there. And I'm looking forward to him stepping up and making it tough inside. Because if we can do that, especially when Allen is, it looks like he's going to be out, we got to have somebody in there who's going to give us that typical presence inside. And even though he's not built to where he looks like it, he can bring it if he doesn't have to deal with three or four guys all the time.

Well, Austin at the the elimination of the Cavs last year, we heard Jared Allen a little surprisingly, he admitted this out his mouth. The moment was too big for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Do you feel that they have grown from last year to what they are now as an overall squad?

I think overall, they have learned a lot. I mean, what I'm looking at what I looked at, it took us six and a half quarters to show what it was all about. And to me, that last half of game seven, we finally got to the point where we met fire with fire. And it changed the whole situation because the physical play we had in that last half, we're on with Donovan doing this thing is the first time in the whole seven games that I saw my the magic have any kind of a doubt in their mind because they were so so confident about the fact that they had our number. But in that last half, things changed quickly because we understood the moment and they didn't.

And that really was a growth period for us. Well, Austin Carr is here with us the JR sport, we show the Infinity Sports Network. You know, there's so much attention to Donovan Mitchell, Donovan Mitchell, is he going to stay? Is he going to go?

They're going to extend them as he wanted? Has this has this affected the team? Have you noticed that? Do you hear or see anything?

Or do they just go out there and handle business? Yeah, you know, it's funny, I haven't really noticed it, because he kind of plays it really to the best. I mean, Donovan doesn't really get off in that matter of fact, every time somebody asked him about it, he always squashes it. And you know, I don't have time to think about that. And I'm thinking about trying to go forward in the playoffs.

So he kind of squashes it but in but I don't really see or feel anything yet. I mean, I've been watching looking for it all season, but he's done a good job of keeping everything focused on the task at hand, as opposed to worrying about what's going to happen in the future. Without a shot of a doubt.

Well, Austin, I gotta ask you this as well. Today, the Miami Heat their season over. Pat Riley, someone who you're familiar with both of your times playing in the league and how your careers have gone. But today, he had comments about Jimmy Butler. He kind of said, Hey, if you're not playing, why are you saying anything?

What are your thoughts about how the league has changed? And somebody like Pat Riley, we don't hear criticism of the players openly anymore, but we heard it from him. What are your thoughts? Well, to me, that's a sign that Jimmy's on shaky ground. I mean, I mean, Pat rally doesn't do those kind of things. And if he sends out something like that, that message is for Jimmy Butler is not for us. I mean, so I'm kind of looking at it, there must be something going on there that he's trying to get a message over to him. And let him understand what it's all about. Because rally is old school.

And your best availability is availability. So and that's what he's trying to send him a message that hey, you know, if you want to criticize, you want to talk about what's going on, be available to play. And then that's old school. That's just what it's all about.

Well, Austin, you you played in the 60s, you played in the 70s. What's the deal with the current group of players? Are they worked out too much? Do they not play enough?

Are they entitled? Like what's going on? Well, it's just a different mindset. I mean, when I played in the league, a little bit of pain, you just play with it. And everybody expected you to do that. Now they don't expect you to do that, because they have all these other analytic things and different processes that you go through to determine if you play or not, even if you don't have pain, or if you do have a little pain or pain you can play with, there's always sort of protocols you have to go through to make it work. And it has nothing to do with the value of the game you have to play or what you're doing. And that's just how it is now.

Because a lot of these guys, they pay them a lot of money, and they want to protect their investment, which I can understand that. But as I remember, when I was a rookie, I was in the locker room, I had twisted my ankle and turned a little ginger. And the next game, Butch Spirit came up to me and said, well, AC, can you walk? I said, yeah, I can walk. He said, well, then I think you better get taped up, because we're trying to win the ballgame. And that's kind of how I accepted my whole rest of my career.

And I had a lot of injury problems. But I always, that's just how we thought about it. Now it's just different. I mean, they almost give you a way out to make sure that you don't hurt yourself, or don't get yourself in any problems, typically, because they pay a lot of money to have you out there and they try to protect it. No, we, everybody trying to protect their investment. This is Mr. Cavalier, Austin Carr.

Hey, last question for you. Are we going to see these Cavs in the East Finals? Well, I'm looking, I'm hoping so. I'm praying.

I'm really praying that we find a way. I mean, really, during the season, we've had some good games against the Celtics that we probably should have won more than the one that we won. But at the same time, again, we're catching them after they add a good time because for zingers is out and that man and as much as he means to them on both ends of the floor, that will that should give us a little bit of an edge. Now, can we take advantage of it?

That's different because what that does, though, is going to turn Brown and Tatum loose, and they're going to be going for 30 apiece. So we got to we got to deal with the rest of the guys. So hopefully we'll have our game ready and we can be competitive.

There's going to be a lot of people who are going to be locked in and checking things out. Well, Austin, Mr. Carr, thank you so much. I appreciate the time. Enjoy the series, OK? Always a pleasure to have a good day.