CLEVELAND, Ohio – Sometimes a loss is just a loss.
It is an amazingly terrible performance that does not require a deeper dive. It does not speak to a poorly assembled list. That doesn’t mean much on the big picture. This does not indicate that the rebuild is not working. Friday night’s 102-81 clunker against the New York Knicks qualifies as one of That games.
It was not possible to take external shots to alter the collapse strategy of New York painting. It was not possible to finish around the edge. I couldn’t avoid pressure from Collin Sexton, who was stifled by the Knicks’ sixth defensive unit. I couldn’t do much.
Cavs coach JB Bickerstaff knows what it was. He admitted this when asked if the loss could be seen as a setback in the progress meter.
“Not at all,” said Bickerstaff defiantly. “We will be better on Sunday. We need to do a much better job of passing the basketball to the open man. It is a simple thing. It is a simple adjustment to be made. It is an easy thing to fix. “
It is difficult to blame Bickerstaff for this perspective. Here’s the hard truth: the Cavs are going to have those nights. Each team does. They are a little more susceptible, considering where they are as an organization. More are coming, especially in February – a tiring month filled with landmines on their playoff journey.
Despite hovering consistently around the 0.500 mark in the first month, Cavs are nowhere near a finished product. This is only Year 3 of post-LeBron James reconstruction. It is an evolving team that has not been at full strength, lost the second largest number of games due to injuries, had one of the most difficult calendars in the league and is still learning to win while trying to build a culture.
In any measure, the Cavs – now 9-10 in the season – have surpassed so far. They have been ahead of their pace for the past two seasons.
In 2018-19, it took 44 games to reach the nine-win mark. Last season, that didn’t happen until game 30. They reached that number in Wednesday’s victory against the Detroit Pistons. This was their 18th game.
Some bad displays from time to time, including Friday night, don’t change anything. Losses, when used properly, provide a useful roadmap for where improvements are needed.
“Patience. I think that’s the most important thing,” said Bickerstaff. “People are kind of shortsighted when they think of forming a team. A team isn’t something that happens overnight. Just because you play a lot of guys in a locker room. “It doesn’t make them a team. We are still working to become that, to have that cohesion, to have that trust, to have that understanding of each other in certain situations. That comes with experience. So we need to have these experiences to get where we want to It can be frustrating at the moment for all of us. ”
Kevin Love is still missing. It could have been the release of pressure in the attack – an additional 3-point threat, as Nance did not have his usual touch when trying to play with a sore sprained wrist. The Cavs did not have a real reserve guard throughout the year, forced to stagger Darius Garland and Sexton throughout the game, while Matthew Dellavedova is indefinitely concussed. Injuries forced Bickerstaff to scramble escalations and rotations. At this point, he probably doesn’t even know what his best group of five men is. He still hasn’t found the ideal sets when the tension hits and the attack moves out of place. Takes time.
“We definitely get ahead of ourselves sometimes,” admitted Garland. “But we are becoming a very good team. We just have to lock both ends and play with each other. That is the only way to win games, when all five on the floor just play with each other. “
Sometimes Cavs abandons the team ball philosophy. It happened against physical and defensive teams. Mainly, quality opponents. And yes, New York counts.
At this point – and it’s still early – the Knicks exceeded everyone’s expectations, currently residing in the Eastern Conference playoff mix, with a better overall record than Orlando destroyed by injury, Miami affected by COVID and evicted from their Toronto home. It is not as if Friday’s broken defeat came against putrid Washington.
First-year coach Tom Thibodeau put his team in an obstinate and uncomfortable defense style. It smothers even the most skillful offenses in the league. Cavs, um, are not that. Anyway, not yet.
“Not wanting to hit a dead horse, but we believe we have good offensive players,” said Bickerstaff recently. “Many of them had just left. If people want to look at these numbers and pay no attention to that, I think we are underrepresented in that. “
In two games this season, the Knicks have attacked Cleveland’s weakness. Others too. In eight of the 10 defeats, the Cavs failed to pass the 100-point mark. Difficult to win that way. Then again, these defeats came against teams with a combined record of 84-61. The worst team to win the Cavs this season: eight wins at Orlando. Twice.
Isn’t that expected from a borderline playoff team that won 19 games last season and doesn’t have the high-level talent to overcome identity lapses and fissures in the game?
The Cavs are not at Boston level. They are not there with the Bucks, Lakers, Jazz or Pacers – other teams that Cleveland lost this season. New York is clearly a difficult match.
Nets’ consecutive wins were impressive, but hardly indicative of anything. Even though the Nets are candidates for the title on paper, by reputation, they certainly did not reach that level. The Cavs caught them at a great time, capitalizing on a clear lack of chemistry and a pitiful defense without any appearance of an inner presence.
If a defeat can be considered a bad night, the victories can be circumstantial, right?
Just beyond the fourth point of this short 72-game season, Cavs are in a good position. It would be convenient for them to remember this, while addressing their correctable flaws.
“In Brooklyn, we were booed out of the arena. But we were never very sad. We have never been too high, even in our victories. We never lost much, even with our losses, ”said Jarrett Allen, who has already gone through this stage of reconstruction. “One of our main focuses, and we had amazing vets there to help us, and we still have incredible vets to help us now at Cavs, just to keep us level, keep our heads straight and keep playing our games.”
When things go wrong this season, it usually starts in the attack, where Cavs is in 29th place. They panic. They lose focus. Doubt insinuates itself. The ball hits.
“Basically, it’s just a boomerang effect,” said Garland. “When one person comes face to face, other people just start to follow and try to get theirs. But it wasn’t much this year. I don’t even want to talk about the individual part because we are growing and becoming a very good team. And we are starting to play with each other more often. And tonight was just not one of the nights. “
“Just trust the attack, move the ball and play with your strength,” said Sexton. “Keep improving on that and that’s all we can ask for.”
Friday night shows the growing pains of a young team still in formation. Just it. Nothing less. It is part of the process. There are no shortcuts. Another teaching moment.
“We have to deal with our bumps and bruises and continue to move in the right direction,” said Sexton. “We have to continue to trust each other. At the end of the day, the only thing we can control is to go out there and play hard. We cannot control the pitches, we cannot control what the referees do or anything like that. What we can control is how hard we play and we want to be the toughest team on the pitch, whenever we are pitted against whom and when.
“We have confidence in ourselves. If no one else is going to trust you, then you need to have confidence in yourself. Be confident that no matter what the situation, we’ll be fine. Adversity will hit us, but it is how we recover. “
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