It’s bee
n a tumultuous week for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After a solid four-game win streak against teams like the New Orleans Pelicans and Atlanta Hawks, the script has been flipped in Northeast Ohio.
The Cavs are now on a four-game losing streak. An ugly losing streak. At times, we’ve seen glimpses of the brilliance of coach David Blatt’s offense. Unfortunately, at the same time, we’ve seen a nonexistent defense and a let’s-stand-around-and-watch-someone-dribble offense.
During their losing streak, Cleveland has looked downright disinterested in every aspect of the game. It started with an embarrassing home loss to the Denver Nuggets last Monday, followed by the last second turnover by LeBron James to seal their 92-90 loss against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday.
Over the weekend, the Cavs faced a daunting task to stop their losing skid by traveling to Washington to face the second place Wizards on Friday, followed by the first place Toronto Raptors on Saturday in Cleveland.
The Cavs lost both of those games by double-digits by a combined 30 points.
LeBron James had plenty to say about the losses, calling his team “fragile”. Can you blame him?
Everyone knew coming into the new Big Three Era in Cleveland that it would be a process, a difficult one at that. It’s been a term that James has used after almost every game if you go back through his interviews with the media, basically coining it as Cleveland’s catchphrase.
A tagline, if you will, that gets more and more frustrating with every loss.
Joe Vardon of Northeast Ohio Media Group via Cleveland.com has more from LeBron and the Cavs:
“We’re a very fragile team right now,” James said, following a 110-93 drubbing by the Toronto Raptors at home for the Cavaliers’ fourth consecutive loss. “We were a fragile team from the beginning. Any little adversity that hits us, we just shell up.”
“Once I sat down they made a run,” James said. The Cavaliers are too “fragile” to overcome such a momentum swing that saw the Cavaliers go from 18-points ahead to trailing by two at halftime.
James and the Cavaliers are seemingly in a world of adversity. They’ve lost three straight at home and dropped the last two games by a combined 30 points to fall to 5-7.
James said times are going to get lower. And if you’re a Cavs fan, here’s where you should rejoice.
“This is not even the lowest it’s going to get for us,” James said. “I told a few guys the lowest it can get is being up 17 in the fourth quarter in Game 2 of the Finals and losing.”
Of course, they’re only 12 games into an 82-game season. There’s still plenty of time for the Cavs to right the ship, it just might take longer for this offensive juggernaut to work out the kinks.
ANTHONY DAVIS SCORES CAREER HIGH 43 POINTS
Seriously, what can’t Anthony Davis do?
The Unibro
w flat out dominated against the Utah Jazz on Saturday night in a 106-94 victory where he dropped 43 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. The 43 points were a career high for Davis, breaking his previous personal best of 40 points, which in he recorded in March of this past season.
The point-center was all over the place on Saturday night, scoring in a variety of ways. He made 16-0f-23 shots from the floor and was 11-of-12 from the free throw line.
Davis was dominant in the game, rendering his defenders useless. Derrick Favors was the man who was abused the most. You can watch his highlights from the game below, courtesy of NBA.com:
Perhaps the expression that sums up how the Utah Jazz were feeling about Davis’ night, check out Dante Exum right around the 2:10 mark in the video.
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE
TAJ GIBSON OUT WITH SPRAINED ANKLE, ADDS TO BULLS’ INJURY LIST
The Chicago Bulls have had a rough start to the season. The team has been decimated by injuries to Derrick Rose, Pau Gasol, Kirk Hinrich, and now Taj Gibson.
During their matchup on Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers, Gibson left the game after he sprained his left ankle, a recurring injury for the sixth man for the Bulls.
K.C. Johnson from the Chicago Tribune weighs in on Gibson and the rest of the ailing Bulls:
The Bulls sent Taj Gibson back to Chicago to have the left ankle he now has sprained three times in seven months examined by team physician Brian Cole. Gibson will miss the back-to-back set of games beginning Monday in Utah at least, and coach Tom Thibodeau said Cole would determine whether Gibson would rejoin the team by Friday’s matinee in Boston.
Given that Gibson made clear late Friday that he needs to put the nagging injury behind him for good before returning, missing the remainder of the trip is likely.
“The encouraging thing is there was not much swelling,” Thibodeau said.
There were more encouraging developments. Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol both participated in Sunday’s session at the Trail Blazers’ practice facility. Gasol said chances are “pretty high” he’ll return from missing three games with a strained left calf on Monday.
Kirk Hinrich, who missed Friday’s loss to the Trail Blazers with bruised ribs and a chest contusion, did limited portions of practice but is doubtful for Monday.
Rose, who is questionable for Monday, has missed four straight games with his strained left hamstring and eight of 13 games overall. He has finished only three games all season because he left the Oct. 31 home opener against the Cavaliers early after spraining both ankles and followed suit on Nov. 13 in Toronto with his hamstring injury.
Chicago is still 8-5 on the year, a solid mark for having injuries to many key players for coach Tom Thibodeau.
A good sign from Friday’s loss was the rookie Nikola Mirotic stepping up in Gibson’s absence, posting 24 points and grabbing 11 rebounds in 35 minutes of action.
NERLENS NOEL DISAGREES WITH ERIC BLEDSOE
Before the Phoenix Suns faced off against the winless Philadelphia 76ers, now 0-13 on the season, Eric Bledsoe was asked whether or not the 76ers could beat the Kentucky Wildcats in a hypothetical seven-game series. And, if you haven’t heard already, Bledsoe responded by saying he would “definitely take Kentucky” to beat the Sixers.
From Brett Pollakoff via ProBasketballTalk:
“I’m definitely taking Kentucky,” Bledsoe told Brian Geltzeiler and Malik Rose Wednesday morning on SiriusXM Radio when asked who would in a 7-game series. “I think Philly would get probably, maybe one game. I know they’re (Sixers fans) gonna be mad, but I love my Wildcats.“
As you can imagine, the 76ers did not take kindly to that.
Nerlens Noel proved that not even 30 seconds into the game on Friday:
After the game, Bledsoe had this to say regarding the foul from Noel, from Alex Kraft of CSNPhilly.com:
“They were telling me before if I came into the paint they were going to do something dirty,” Bledsoe said. “I did it on purpose.”
“You can tell if you look at the tape,” he said. “Like I said, they did it on purpose.”
Noel said he was simply playing defense and he and his fellow Kentucky product are good friends.
“I just tried to protect the rim and I gave him a pat on the butt,” Noel said. “[Bledsoe] is my good friend. We rehabbed together down in Birmingham, Alabama so it was nothing personal.”
Bledsoe is a good young player who just received a nice pay day, but you can’t take a shot at NBA players and their pride. Things could’ve gotten worse for him.
It takes a lot to convince NBA players playing for their lives and paychecks that they are apart of a tanking effort and that they couldn’t beat a talented college team.