The Cleveland Cavaliers had a decent stretch of games from December 3rd, a win over Brooklyn on the road, through December 18th, another victory on the road over Indiana.
The wine and gold went 4-5 in that span, and the losses were pretty much against the NBA’s best squads, two losses to Milwaukee, and defeats at the hands of the Warriors and 76ers.
No one can complain about losing to those teams.
However, since the win over Indiana, the Cavs have lost to Charlotte, Toronto, a depressing home loss to Chicago, and Memphis.
The injuries appear to have taken its toll on the roster. Of course, Kevin Love has missed most of the season, but now Tristan Thompson is out as well, and David Nwaba and Rodney Hood have been out of the lineup in the past couple of weeks.
That’s two of the team’s best players, their best perimeter defender, and perhaps their best perimeter shooter. You take those spots off of any NBA team, and they will struggle, so it is no surprise the Cavs’ performance has dipped as of late.
The slump has coincided with rookie Collin Sexton hitting the proverbial rookie wall too, which hasn’t helped the team’s showing either.
Sexton has made just 20 of his 64 shots in those four games (31.3% compared to his season total of 42.9%), and he’s hit just one of his last 12 three point attempts, covering seven games.
His assist totals are up though, accumulating 15 in the past four contests, compared to 2.6 dimes per game for the season.
He’s also not getting to the free throw line either. In six of the last 10 games, he failed to get to the charity stripe, something that failed to occur only seven times before this stretch.
While many people have written Sexton off because he didn’t play like Kyrie Irving immediately, we still think the 19-year-old can still be a good player.
That said, it may be time to bring the rookie off the bench for awhile so he can watch the game develop before he gets in there. Besides, most of the time, the offense at the beginning of the game runs through Larry Nance Jr. and Cedi Osman a lot of the time anyway.
Hood and Nwaba are “day to day” and Thompson and Love will return after the first of the year, so help is on the way.
We were curious about a statement Nance made the other day about the team’s defense. It is funny that two of the team’s best defenders are Nwaba and Nance, two players who both joined the team in the last calendar year.
NOTE: The six best defenders, according to Defensive Rating are Nance, Sam Dekker (traded), Love, Nwaba, Thompson, and Jalen Jones, recently called up from the G League.
It is odd that only Love and Thompson are holdovers, and both came to the Cavs before Tyronn Lue brought Mike Longabardi on board to handle that side of the ball.
We have been critical of the team’s defense over the past few years, and although a lot of the faces have changed, one that hasn’t is who is coaching it.
One move we would love to see made after the season is bringing in a new mindset defensively. Cleveland is last in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage and defensive rating.
There are teams that play good defense in the league without having superstar players. Utah ranks 5th, Memphis is 6th, Miami is 8th.
It can be done.
This team doesn’t have an identity defensively, meaning a concept to hang their hat on. The points per game allowed is down due to the slower pace Larry Drew has the team playing at.
Until they establish solid defensive concepts, they are going to struggle to win.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 