By Joe Vardon NYTimes News Service
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — Kenny Atkinson’s new team won its first 15 games and never looked back. Atkinson was always in the driver’s seat for, and eventually to win, NBA Coach of the Year this season.

Atkinson, 57, was the first coach in league history to win 15 games in a row at the start of a season with a new team and just the fifth to win at least 64 in his first campaign with a franchise — in this case, the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs held the NBA’s top offense and set team records for proficiency on that side of the ball and were just the second team in league history to reel off three winning streaks of at least 12 games in the same season.

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Atkinson defeated J.B. Bickerstaff, Cleveland’s coach last season who now leads the Detroit Pistons, and Ime Udoka of the Houston Rockets to emerge as the league’s top coach. His award was announced Monday on TNT before Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks.

It would be a happier time for Atkinson if his Cavs didn’t lose Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semis to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday — “I’d rather beat Indiana,” Atkinson quipped before Game 1 — or if Cleveland’s injury report for Game 2 wasn’t littered with stars.

But Coach of the Year is a regular-season award, and Atkinson earned at least a brief moment of reflection for steering the Cavs through a historic season.

Cleveland dismissed Bickerstaff following a second-round exit at the hands of the eventual champs, the Celtics. Specifics were in short supply, as it was a hard decision to explain, given the Cavs improved each year under Bickerstaff. It was clear to insiders that a new direction was needed, with the relative lack of confidence that star Donovan Mitchell had in Cleveland’s coach last season.

The Cavs’ search came down to James Borrego and Atkinson, at the time an assistant with Golden State. With the front office split on whom to hire, team owner Dan Gilbert overruled the Borrego faction and selected Atkinson.

Atkinson, a former head coach in Brooklyn, had spent several seasons working under Tyronn Lue in Los Angeles, Kerr in San Francisco and Vincent Collet in Paris with Team France.

Atkinson immediately connected with Mitchell, flying to L.A. to sit with him over lunch after Mitchell’s skills camp for youths with Adidas concluded. He worked to rebuild Darius Garland’s confidence playing alongside Mitchell and created ways for Evan Mobley to thrive on offense while playing more effectively with center Jarrett Allen.

After going winless in the preseason, the Cavs shocked the NBA by going on their first historic winning streak, becoming just the fourth team to win its first 15 contests. Cleveland’s streak was snapped in dramatic fashion — a three-point loss to the Celtics at TD Garden on Nov. 19. But it avenged that loss on Dec. 1 with a thrilling four-point win over Boston at home, eventually forging a 2-2 split that had many envisioning an Eastern finals matchup between the two teams.

Cleveland’s next long streak, this one a 12-gamer, began on Dec. 13 and included a huge win at home over the West’s top team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. And the Cavs’ longest streak in team history — 16 consecutive wins — started the game before the early February trade deadline and lasted through mid-March.

By season’s end, the Cavs won 14 more games than they did the season before, with only one new rotation player — De’Andre Hunter, added at the trade deadline. Yes, backup point guard Ty Jerome missed all but two games the season before and starred off the bench this season, but Atkinson’s fingerprints were all over the team’s dramatic improvement with mostly the same players.

The Cavs led the NBA in scoring (121.9 points per game) and offensive rating (121 points per 100 possessions) and were second in field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage, 3s per game and point differential.

They set at least 10 team records on offense under Atkinson, including, but certainly not limited to, scoring at least 140 points in four different games.

“He’s kind of helped produce a positive environment, made guys comfortable to grow into who they are and given them the confidence and the ability to be themselves,” Cavs forward Max Strus said about Atkinson. “When you give guys confidence like that and keep using positive reinforcement, letting them kind of build into who they are as a person and a player, guys are going to be more comfortable.”

As for that Bickerstaff guy, well, he landed softly. The Pistons hired him almost immediately, and all he did was oversee arguably the greatest turnaround year over year in NBA history. The Pistons became the first team to more than triple its win total during an 82-game season, going from the worst team in the NBA in 2024 to the No. 6 seed in the East. Detroit made the playoffs for the first time since 2019, and franchise cornerstone Cade Cunningham enjoyed easily the best season of his career, making the All-Star Game for the first time under Bickerstaff.

Udoka piloted a Rockets team built without superstars, mostly young, hungry players and a few tested veterans to the No. 2 seed in the West. Houston finished 11th in the conference in 2024.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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