CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers played an uninspired first 43 minutes against a tanking Indiana Pacers team that only had nine available players in early April. The final five minutes were different.

Cleveland was up four with five minutes to play before hitting the accelerator. They scored 11 points over the next three minutes to push their lead to 13 as they cruised to what became a stress-free victory.

Controlling the last few minutes has been a trend over the back half of the season. Since the beginning of February, the Cavs have registered the third-best offensive rating (131) and best net rating (+34.6) in clutch situations (when the game is within five points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime). Before February, Cleveland ranked 23rd in offensive rating and 13th in net rating in that setting.

According to their head coach, there’s one reason for their success: James Harden.

“Give him the ball and get out of the way,” Kenny Atkinson said.

That simple plan has worked. The Cavs had an outrageous 143 offensive rating and a +57.9 net rating in just over 40 clutch minutes Harden has played since the trade. That has resulted in a 13-2 record in clutch-time games during that stretch.

The Cavs have done a good job of incorporating some of Atkinson’s motion-based offense with the traditional, isolation sets that Harden is used to working with. However, at the end of games, they’ve opted to slow the game down and space the floor.

“We do some stuff and some sets, and it’s more him getting the right matchup,” Atkinson said. “We have really worked on our spacing in his iso situations or pick and roll, we have worked on that. But 99% of it is James Harden making the right play.”

The simple and effective plan has worked for the Cavs, but only because the team’s franchise player has been willing to cede control of the offense late.

“A lot of the times I feel like if you want to deny me the ball, go ahead,” Donovan Mitchell said. “This man’s done it for 17 years at the highest level, you know what I mean? And vice versa.”

The two have had conversations about how to best work in the postseason, which shows through in the results. Mitchell pointed to multiple clutch-time plays from earlier this year to prove how those discussions have paid off. The first was from their win over the Golden State Warriors on April 2.

The Warriors were denying Mitchell on the wing, so he allowed Harden to dictate that possession. “James gets to his stuff, hits Evan, Evan hits Max, I cut. That’s one.”

Next, Mitchell pointed to a play late against the Denver Nuggets shortly after the trade to help seal a road-win.

“Then you can go to Denver, where they blitz him. He hits me, I hit JA,” Mitchell said.

And lastly, Mitchell highlighted the following possession. The defense didn’t blitz Harden, allowing him to take the off-the-dribble three. Sequences like this are possible when you have two elite playmakers. The defense can really only try to take away one.

“Sometimes our best offense is letting him operate and being able to find a way to manipulate the game and trust him that it’s going to be the right play,” Mitchell said.

The spacing is the key to making these three plays work. Harden’s game is built on creating mismatches. Having everyone properly spaced forces the defense to commit to a double or leave individual players on an island. No matter which the defenses chooses the Cavs are betting their talent can win out in the end.

“The spacing is the most important thing,” Harden said, “and once we got the spacing, then everything else should take care of itself, which is very, very key going into the postseason because you’re in late-game situations; you’ve got to make sure you execute.”

“They know he’s got to have the ball,” Atkinson said. “They know where to space. Communicating with them all the time. He’s always communicating with our screeners on what to do. So he’s coaching it too, Right? It’s not just making the plays. He coaches it with the guys out there, which is what the great quarterbacks do.”

Quarterback play often decides tight playoff games in the NFL. While it isn’t a one-to-one comparison here, it’s fair to say that the Cavs didn’t have great quarterback play last postseason. They dropped all three games in the second round against the Pacers that entered a clutch situation. When games got close, the Cavs weren’t able to generate efficient offense. That cost them, especially in Game 2 when they blew a seven-point lead in the final minute and were outscored 36-21 in the fourth quarter.

Harden should help in this equation. Despite his previous playoff shortcomings, he’s at the very least shown he can solve what was previously an issue for the Cavs in the regular season by consistently generating quality looks late in games. That will need to translate over to the playoffs if the Cavs want to reach their goals.

“We’re not going to have our best games [all the time], it’s just natural,” Mitchell said. “No one’s had a perfect playoff run, right? So when the going gets tough, when you have a guy like him alongside you, you’re very calm. We’re very calm as a group and understand that, hey, we’re going to get the best shot somehow, some way.”