[Vardon] Yes, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert really rented 25 buses, filled them with nearly 1,400 people… The Pistons gave the Cavs “some” extra tickets, to quote a league source, but it was clear Northeast Ohioans were grabbing the tickets for Game 7 and planning to get up north
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7287721/2026/05/18/cavs-dan-gilbert-game-7-win-detroit/
Yes, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert really rented 25 buses, filled them with nearly 1,400 people and sent them on their way to see his team win Game 7.
While Gilbert was sitting with his basketball brains at dinner Saturday and giving them, as Atkinson said, sage advice, Gilbert’s business-side lieutenants saw there were 4,000 tickets for Game 7 available on the open market. They knew those tickets were being gobbled up by Cavs fans.
The Pistons gave the Cavs “some” extra tickets, to quote a league source, but it was clear Northeast Ohioans were grabbing the tickets for Game 7 and planning to get up north (it’s about 2 1⁄2 hours from Cleveland to Detroit).
So Gilbert’s aides lined up those 25 buses (rental cost, unknown) and made sure team employees who wanted to go to the game, and some of these fans who were jumping on the tickets, were on them. Gilbert had paid for smaller bus fleets to take fans to games earlier in the series, but not like this.
Life has been hard for Gilbert since. He suffered a major stroke that took years from which to recover and still requires him to use a wheelchair. His son Nick died in 2023 of complications related to neurofibromatosis type 1. And he and his former wife, Jennifer, released a joint statement last year announcing their divorce.
The players, and Atkinson, feel like Gilbert has their back. One by one, as they ran off the court after Game 7, with those bused-in Cavs fans going wild in the corner behind Cleveland’s bench, they stopped to greet Gilbert. Some gave him hugs. Others, handshakes or hand slaps.
Over the last five weeks, Mitchell and teammates have raved about the way the Cavs take care of the players and their families, through food options or travel arrangements or other ways to show they care. Merrill echoed those sentiments Sunday night.
“All the little stuff on the margins, he believes in,” Atkinson said. “If he thought (busing in the fans) was going to give us a tiny bit of a boost, which he obviously did, he is going to make the effort.”