Cavs Played A Bad Game Monday, Nothing More

Last night, the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Brooklyn Nets to raise their record to 29-11 for the season, the best record in the Eastern Conference and 4th best overall in the NBA.

You wouldn’t know that by the conversation in town after Monday night’s beatdown of the wine and gold by the defending champion Golden State Warriors, 132-98 at Quicken Loans Arena.

In fact, until the Cavs beat either the Warriors or the San Antonio Spurs, some people won’t give them any credit for the rest of the season.

That’s ridiculous.

It was one game, and that’s all it was.

It is funny to us because the loss to the Warriors is also getting lumped in with the defeat by the Spurs a week ago, even though David Blatt’s team lost that game by four points, on the road, and led the game for most of the first three quarters.

Talk about overreaction.

The reality is it was one colossally bad game. Even Draymond Green, the Warriors’ antagonist, said after the game that they pretty much did everything right, while the wine and gold did everything wrong.

Golden State shot 54.1% from the floor, including an incredible 19 of 40 from behind the three point line. That equals shooting 65% from the field. They normally have a 56% efficiency rating on shooting. So, they were hot.

If your opponent shoots that percentage for an entire game, you are going to lose.

Conversely, the Cavs’ “Big Three”, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love combined to make just 11 of 32 shots, which is 34%. Those guys were cold.

If you combine hot shooting from your opponent, and the Cavs normally allow their opponents to shoot 44%, and poor shooting from your best players, you are probably going to get blown out.

And that’s what happened.

Also, keep in mind Cleveland played the Warriors on Christmas Day in Oakland, and lost by six. We were encouraged by this game because the wine and gold again demonstrated the ability to control the tempo, which is needed vs. Steph Curry and his crew.

On Monday, the Cavs started the game missing shots which allowed the Warriors to get out in transition and they made early threes, mostly by Klay Thompson, who Cleveland has kept in check since last year’s Finals.

We believe that Blatt and his team know they have to control the tempo, which means some isolation plays, in order to defeat the Warriors.

As for the criticism about the Spurs, yes, the Cavs did get away from what got them the lead, and they paid for it. Hopefully, they will learn from their mistake.

Fans and media alike also have to remember that if Cleveland makes The Finals, they will only have to play one of these two teams. They will not have to defeat both.

And could the wine and gold beat either team in a seven game series? Of course. We have always maintained that in the playoffs, coaches can game plan specifically against what the opposition does well.

In the regular season, there isn’t time to do that.

Also, remember that a year ago, the Cavs were a .500 team and they made a couple of trades, and were one of the final two teams playing.

The point is there is a long, long time to get things together and correct the problems, which are few, that this squad has.

The sky is not falling. The Cavs played a bad game on Monday night. They are still one of the league’s best teams. So, relax…

Salary Cap in Baseball? There’s One For The Tribe

Major league baseball is the one sport where there is no salary cap, unless you are the Cleveland Indians.

It is funny to us that fans and media members talk about the Indians’ payroll ceiling being around $90 million, like it is mandated by the sport.

It’s not. The Indians seem to put the cap on themselves.

Our point of view is one that we have because we believe, as do others who cover the sports, that baseball is thriving and plenty of cash is available throughout the sport, and the Dolan family is making a rather nice profit annually.

And they are entitled to make a profit. That’s why you own a business, to make money. We certainly don’t begrudge them that.

It’s the amount of the profit and the willingness to spend money to try to win. There is a business tenet that says you have to spend money to make money. For the most part, the Tribe ownership has not been willing to go all in.

There is no question that the Indians have a championship quality pitching staff. If they can get to the playoffs, they will be a tough out because of it.

However, you need to score runs to win in the regular season, unless you are the Dodgers of the late 1960’s. We don’t know if the front office has done enough to help the lineup put runs up on the board.

Last week, we heard local sports talker Bruce Hooley on WKNR say he doesn’t talk about the Indians on his show because he is in the “interesting” business. Let’s face it, the organization on Ontario and Carnegie aren’t exactly flashy.

The Indians are dull, there is no question about that.

Yes, they have Francisco Lindor, one of the top young players in the game, but Michael Brantley and Jason Kipnis, the Tribe’s other two best position players, aren’t being talked about regularly by the national media.

They aren’t involved in a lot of trade rumors, they aren’t talked about much on MLB Network.

Much of the local sports talk in Cleveland about the Indians centers around them not doing anything. It is based more on complaining than excitement.

The Tribe has become the stable good friend of the opposite sex that you like to hang around with, but there is nothing romantic on the horizon.

Unfortunately, they have chosen to keep the status quo, and not try to revive the dormant fan base.

That doesn’t generate any interest in the team, and that’s reflected in the ticket sales.

The problem is they can’t give up. You have to keep trying. It’s like they are an inventor who has a great product, but can’t find a market for it, and decides it’s not worth the hassle.

Perhaps going the extra mile and signing a big bat would revive interest.

The pro-front office faction will say they tried that with the signings in 2013 of Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, and people didn’t show up. They forget Cleveland won just 68 games the year before, and the starting rotation didn’t appear to be one of the best in the game as the 2012 season ended.

We have said it before, but whether it is fair or not, the perception of the Dolan ownership is they aren’t in it to win.

It’s up to them to change that perception.

Instead, what we have is a stalemate, and that doesn’t benefit the team or the fans.

That’s why change is needed

Stop Obsessing Over Cavs’ Losses

Sometimes, we think Cleveland doesn’t know how to handle it if one of their teams wins.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are proof of just that.

The wine and gold just finished their longest trip of the season, a six game trek in which they won five of the games, yet all anyone wants to talk about is the one they lost, at San Antonio, one of the NBA’s best teams, by four points.

That’s right, four points.

They lost to Golden State, the league’s darlings right now, in Oakland, by six points.

Both losses to these elite teams were by under ten points. And remember, the Cavs defeated Oklahoma City at home by four, without Kyrie Irving.

After the Spurs lost, the media and fans alike started with the age old remedies for the Cavaliers’ “struggles”, such as the coaching of David Blatt, and the play of Kevin Love.

We said this all last season. Whenever Cleveland loses, you can be sure that either Blatt or Love or both will be blamed.

It’s really ridiculous.

First of all, the Cavaliers have the best record in the Eastern Conference by four games over Toronto, and yet have played the least amount of home games of any East contender.

Cleveland has played 16 contests at Quicken Loans Arena. The other teams in the elite four, the Warriors, Spurs, and Thunder, have played 19, 23, and 24 at their arenas, respectively.

We wonder what the records will be when the home/road splits even up for the top four squads in the NBA.

And what would people say if the Cavs had played Golden State and San Antonio at The Q first and won both games, and then lost on the road? We don’t know if David Blatt’s crew will beat either in Cleveland, but what would be the narrative if they had or will?

And let’s remember that outside of the top three teams in the West, so can make a pretty good argument that the East is tougher top to bottom.

As for the criticisms of Blatt and Love, it is getting to be a tired cliche.

Yes, the Cavs sometimes go away from the ball movement they use when they play so well, and it shows up against good teams. However, we don’t believe Blatt tells them to play isolation basketball. It’s the confidence that LeBron James and Kyrie Irving have in their own ability.

Games like Thursday night should remind the team’s two best players they need to move the ball.

Also, the key to playing Golden State is to control the tempo, and the isolation game helps in that regard. So, you will see more of it tomorrow night than you would like, to be sure.

What Blatt and his staff have done is make the Cavs an excellent defensive team. Cleveland ranks second in points allowed and 11th in defensive field goal percentage.

As for Love, he is never going to average the 24 points per game he did in Minnesota with the Cavs. Up north, he was the number one scoring option.

He does average 17.6 points and almost 12 rebounds per night. Is he a great defender? No. But, we will freely admit he can’t stop Tim Duncan near the basket. So, the Cavaliers will have to defend that differently the next time they play the Spurs.

The one thing we will criticize Love for is his shot seems flat right now. He missed several good looks against the Spurs, and for the Cavs to win games like that, they need the former UCLA standout to make open shots.

He has three months to get that straightened out.

Remember, last year at this time, the Cavs were 20-21, and remade their roster with the deals for JR Smith, Iman Shumpert, and Timofey Mozgov.

The point is there is a long way to go for Blatt and his staff to correct the things that need to be smoothed out before the playoffs.

Until then, enjoy the regular season, and stop panicking every time the wine and gold lose a game.

It All Adds Up to Hue Jackson

When the Cleveland Browns fired Mike Pettine following the end of the regular season, we hoped they would hire someone with experience and someone who would hold the players accountable.

When Hue Jackson was hired yesterday, the first part of that combination was fulfilled.

He was the head coach of the Raiders in 2011, the last season Oakland went 8-8. He was the offensive coordinator of the silver and black the year prior, when the Raiders had the same record.

As for the accountability part, we won’t know that for sure for awhile, although the 50-year-old Jackson comes highly respected throughout the league.

Which, of course, is another feather in Jimmy Haslam’s cap.

Jackson was also interviewed by San Francisco, and the Giants were to talk to him tomorrow regarding their head coaching position, but the Browns never let him get to the Big Apple.

This wasn’t hiring Pat Shurmur, Rob Chudzinski, or Mike Pettine, assistant coaches on no one’s radar to be promoted. They were the equivalent of coaching leftovers, with the brown and orange left to pick up table scraps.

He’s also an offensive coach, which we prefer to head coaches with a defensive background, because those guys tend to play not to lose. Offensive coaches are aggressive and play to win football games. We would be surprised if the Browns “manage” games when they have the lead with Jackson at the helm.

As a coordinator, Jackson’s offenses ranked in the top half of the league in yardage while at Oakland and Cincinnati, and also were in the upper tier in scoring.

And he likes to run the football, which is something the Browns have been inconsistent doing since 1999. His Raider attacks and last season in Cincinnati all produced top ten rushing offenses, before the Bengals dropped to 13th this past season.

In reading about the new coach, it has been reported that he likes physical play from his offense which is supported with these running numbers. The Browns absolutely need to have a mindset to run the ball down opponent’s throats, and we hope that whoever the defensive coordinator is, he has the same mindset. You have to win the line of scrimmage to be successful in the NFL.

Although we wouldn’t do this, we are resigned to Jackson and however the personnel man the Browns hire using the second pick in the draft to get the franchise quarterback, and our guess is that it will be Jared Goff from California.

One reason for our begrudged change of mind is that the Browns have a guy who can develop a quarterback. Between the head coach and Josh McCown, the rookie will have two mentors developing him as quickly as possible to play in the NFL.

Although Jackson wasn’t there at the time, remember that the Bengals started Andy Dalton right away, and Jackson was the Ravens’ QB coach in Joe Flacco’s rookie season.

The new coach didn’t come out and say it yesterday, but Johnny Manziel’s days with the Browns are numbered.

We also believe wide receiver will be a focal point in the draft. The days of the small, quick wide outs will be dwindling.

We don’t know what Jackson will be as a head coach until he actually starts the regular season, but we like the hire because of the reasons stated above. Cleveland still needs a personnel guru, which Jackson will have a hand in.

It will be interesting to see how much of a roster turnover and who the assistant coaches will be. However, the Browns have an experienced NFL head coach. That’s a great place to start.

This Year’s Tribe Trial? Old Vets On 1 Year Deals

It seems that every off-season, the Cleveland Indians’ front office looks at their club and decides to conduct a science experiment.

The science involved is sabermetrics, and they seem to be always trying a different “theory” in terms of making the team successful for the upcoming season.

While they have put together three straight winning seasons (last year is kind of up for debate because they played only 161 games and finished one over .500), their victory total has declined since Terry Francona took the Indians to 92 wins in 2013 and a berth in the wild card game.

Over the years, GM Chris Antonetti took a look throughout baseball and saw the majority of pitchers were right-handed, and decided to make his team left-handed hitting dominant.

While the Indians were successful vs. righties, the problem became situational southpaws came out of the opponent’s bullpens and other teams decided to adjust rotations to throw lefties against Cleveland, with great success.

After the Tribe was burned by the signings of Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, two players in their early 30’s when inked, the Indians’ front office seems to be staying away from the long term deals to free agents.

Actually, this theory has merit. Don’t you think the Angels would love to get out of the Albert Pujols deal right now? And we know Boston would love for some team to take Hanley Ramirez and/or Pablo Sandoval off of their hands.

If you sign a player over 30 to a long term deal, you are paying top dollar for a player’s declining years. After a year or two of doing that, teams get tired of it.

The best free agents to sign are guys who hit that position in their mid-to-late 20’s, let’s say from age 27-29. That way you still get some prime years at big cash.

The problem is the players and agents are now looking for agreements which last six or seven years. This means it is inevitable that you will be paying big money to a player when he is no longer producing at an optimum level.

We totally understand why the Indians, and their payroll constraints, either self imposed or market imposed, stay away from the free agent process.

This year’s plan du jour is to improve the offense, which was a major trouble spot in 2015, with a series of veteran free agents, giving them non-threatening one year contracts.

1B Mike Napoli will play all of the 2016 season at 34 years old. The problem with him is his OPS has declined each of the last three seasons (842, 789, 734). Cleveland hopes his second half resurgence with Texas is the player they will get this season.

Rajai Davis is 35 years old, and although his OPS rose since he started playing in Detroit, he is a platoon player with an OPS vs. lefties at 798, but only a 654 figure against right-handers.

And there are rumors the Indians are talking seriously to another veteran, 3B Juan Uribe, who will turn 37 in March. Uribe is a good clubhouse influence and was well respected with the Dodgers and Mets last season.

He is starting to slow down a bit, with his OPS dropping 40 points last season.

If signed, his presence will allow the Tribe to start Giovanny Urshela at AAA to begin the season.

Signing these guys is a gamble, because if they don’t produce because age is catching up to them, then the Indians are in the same boat they were in last season. Actually, a little worse because Michael Brantley will likely miss the first two months of the season.

The Indians could have just went out and acquired a solid middle of the order bat, and they still might, although it isn’t likely.

They chose this latest experiment.

That can’t make the fan base all warm and fuzzy.

Don’t Go Overboard on Browns Analytics

Since the Cleveland Browns made their moves last Sunday night, they have been the fodder for many jokes about their new “analytical” way of looking at football.

It didn’t help when they hired Paul DePodesta, a former baseball general manager with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

We aren’t saying that DePodesta is a bad hire, because by all accounts he is a very smart man, and certainly can be viewed upon as a man who knows something about being in good organizations.

No, the problem is that he was portrayed in the movie “Moneyball”, by Jonah Hill. That lead to a great number of jokes.

And while we would love to see a guy with success in the football business as the guy in charge of the organization, we don’t think the Browns will be run by people looking at minute statistical details.

Most of the numbers they will look at will just make sense, just as Bill James’ number crunching did when he came out with Baseball Abstract.

The analytics in drafting players may be used to show there is a better chance that a player coming out of a major conference is more apt to succeed in the NFL than a player out of a small college.

They could show what we have looked at earlier in this season, that team who can run the ball and can stop the run have better success in today’s professional football, even though it is dominated by the pass, than team who can do neither well.

It may also tell them you can’t try one running play in a half, like the Browns did in the first game against Cincinnati this year.

It will probably involve other more subtle things as well, but the numbers will be used to create a competitive advantage for the Browns’ coaching staff.

We can all agree they could use that.

The problem could be finding a coach and GM who is open to getting those numbers and understanding what they mean. That could cause the Browns to lose out on some coaches we would like to see here.

We have said before that we want someone with head coaching experience, and that person needs to be a tough-minded individual that will change the country club atmosphere that has permeated Berea.

Cleveland has hired several “player’s coaches” in a row. Mike Pettine, Rob Chudzinski, and Pat Shurmur would all be described that way, and that is too many to hold the job consecutively.

It’s time to bring in someone who will demand accountability, and who coaches like this is their last chance to handle the reins of an NFL team.

The other thing we think the analytics will show is the Browns need more draft choices, and as many high ones, as they can get to rebuild the roster quickly.

Our guess is that several of the veterans who have been here the last two seasons, will not be back.

If you are over 30 years old, we wouldn’t be too comfortable this off-season.

And we are fine with that. As we always say, the only thing worse than being bad is being bad and old.

You don’t need to be someone who studies numbers to know that is a bad combination.

If Tribe Is Done, They Didn’t Do Enough.

Earlier this week, Indians’ president Chris Antonetti announced the signing of free agent 1B/DH Mike Napoli to a one year contract, and then said the Tribe is pretty much done when it comes to adding talent this off-season.

Let’s hope he is being coy.

Because if the front office is finished with the roster for the 2016 season, they haven’t done enough to improve the offense.

Getting Napoli and Rajai Davis are okay moves, and in a vacuum, you can’t complain about either player, especially because they were both brought in on one year deals.

Cleveland was 11th in the American League in runs scored last season, and will be missing their best hitter, Michael Brantley, for at least the first six weeks of the season.

Yes, we know that Francisco Lindor will be with the team all season, and Yan Gomes, a Silver Slugger winner in 2014, will hopefully be healthy for the entire season.

That will help the offense without a doubt.

Still, the Tribe didn’t get the impact bat, they so desperately need. They have a lot of players who will be put in the middle of the order in Cleveland, but for good offensive teams, they would hit somewhere between 6th and 9th.

That can work, but it requires every hitter in the lineup to have a solid season. There can’t be more than one spot where you aren’t getting offense.

We feel they will be better offensively in 2016, but not enough to put the Indians in the 90+ win conversation they need to win the division and avoid the one and done wild card game.

There is no question they have the pitching to contend and stay in the race. They finished 2nd in the AL in ERA, and their top four rotation hurlers might be without peer in the league.

But without better hitting, the Indians are going to lose too many games, 2-1 and 3-2. Games where they get excellent starting pitching and waste it.

Why not do something about it?

In a sport without a salary cap, it is funny to hear discussions about the Indians and talk about a $90 million payroll ceiling. Let us remind you that it is a self imposed figure.

There is nothing to prevent the Dolans from spending more than that figure except their own economical restraints.

Right now, the market is flush with free agent outfielders, and Terry Francona would have to start Davis, Abraham Almonte, and Lonnie Chisenhall out there if the season started today.

The Indians may have played the market correctly, and may be able to get a quality outfielder at a lower year commitment, something that is preferable for a smaller market team.

There was talk yesterday that Justin Upton may take a one year deal with Texas. And you know there is nothing bad about a one year contract.

So, the price tag for guys like Yoenis Cespedes and Gerardo Parra may not be as high as originally thought, and the trade value of players like Marcell Ozuna and Carlos Gonzalez may also be coming down.

We hope the Indians can take advantage of this and go out and get another solid bat to help length the lineup.

We hope that Antonetti was just being coy with the media and his people are still working feverishly to upgrade the hitting.

The Cleveland Indians can’t waste another year of excellent pitching without making the playoffs.

That would be a shame.

Browns In No Position To Gamble

The big shake up in Berea is now two days old, and quite frankly, we are still shaking our heads.

There is no question at all that Mike Pettine and Ray Farmer needed to go. The rumors of discord between the two appear to be true, and owner Jimmy Haslam felt he needed his coach and GM to be on the same page.

However, we are still stunned at the direction that Haslam chose on Sunday.

When your franchise has floated in the abyss for 16 years, and 10 loss seasons becoming the norm, the smart and prudent thing would seem to be hiring a football guy, someone who has been involved in rebuilding projects.

Instead, Haslam chose a lawyer. Sashi Brown may be a brilliant man and has been around football for awhile, but that doesn’t make him the ideal choice to get resurrect the Cleveland Browns.

As we have said, the house staff for rich and famous people are around money all the time, but it doesn’t make them rich.

We have seen people out there, contrarians, saying there are several ways to accomplish building a winning football organization, and there is no question that is true.

But it would seem to be prudent that if you are trying to change the culture here and develop a winning team, you should hire someone who is a football man and has a history of evaluating talent.

The way it appears now is that Haslam is trying to be Jerry Jones, with the ultimate control over the franchise. He seems to want the head coach of the team reporting to him, not a general manager or a head of football operations.

Since Jimmy Johnson left Dallas after a disagreement with Jones, how many Super Bowls have the Cowboys won? Just one, a couple of years after Johnson left, with the talent that he accumulated.

It appears that the owner doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and that is a major problem.

Again, no one is saying that it won’t work for sure. Heck, winning the lottery is a way to get rich. It just isn’t a high percentage way to do so.

And that is how we feel about the Cleveland Browns’ “plan”.

They hired Paul DePodesta, a former major league baseball executive as a vice president today.

This smacks of trying to show everyone how smart they are. They have a new, exciting way of building a football team. Maybe it will work, maybe it will fail miserably.

The reality is that Haslam is conducting a scientific experiment with our football team. It’s a risk that may payoff with a string of playoff appearances, or it could blow up in their face and extend our current misery by several years.

If the ownership had tried getting a solid, successful, football man in place and it failed, we could understand trying a different approach. But they never did that.

We will keep our fingers crossed, but right now, we don’t see how this power structure works.

The tried and true method is usually just that for a reason. We wish Jimmy Haslam had done that at least once.

Browns’ Upheaval Not Off To Promising Start.

The Cleveland Browns’ 28-12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers was the least news making event of the day for the beleaguered franchise.

The rumors started over the weekend that GM Ray Farmer and coach Mike Pettine would both lose their jobs following today’s game, regardless of the result.

It turns out that Farmer was informed he was out prior to the game, while Pettine wasn’t officially told until his club finished the season with a 3-13 record and 18 losses in the last 21 games.

Farmer’s mistakes were well documented by the media, but as we have said many times, we believe there is some talent on the roster. The former GM’s weakness was not getting a playmaker on offense outside of RB Duke Johnson.

Pettine’s issue was stubbornness, an unwillingness to not change schemes and personnel that were obviously not working. The run defense has been poor since the day he was hired, and several stories have come out, including one quoting former Bills and Colts’ GM Bill Polian said the Browns’ defensive concepts were too complicated.

And while offensive coordinator John DiFilippo and quarterback coach Kevin O’Connell were given credit over the course of the season, they too seemed to abandon the run too often, including today where they threw twice as much as they ran even though they were getting close to four yards a pop on the ground.

The Johnny Manziel issue reared its ugly head last night when it was reported he was in Las Vegas, and then didn’t show at Berea this morning for a mandated examination as part of the concussion protocol.

We have supported giving Manziel a full shot at the starting quarterback spot going into next year, but no more. The young man obviously doesn’t take being a starting quarterback in the NFL seriously and we would dissolve ties with him as soon as possible.

His cloud can no longer linger over this franchise.

However, it is very concerning how the new hierarchy in Berea will play out.

Owner Jimmy Haslam once again has decided against putting a football man in charge and letting that man make the football decisions.

Haslam instead announced Sashi Brown, a lawyer and salary negotiator for the Browns as the vice president of football operations.

Brown will play a part in hiring the coach, along with the owner, his wife Dee, and a high powered recruiter who has helped NFL teams in the past.

Then Brown and the new coach will hire the general manager.

If that sounds different, it’s because it is.

As for a new coach, we will reiterate that the Browns do not need another first time head coach.

They need someone who will instill discipline and accountability throughout the entire organization and the forty man roster.

They must rid themselves of the excuse makers that permeate the roster. They need to find players who aren’t tolerant of losing, even if some of those players are headed Pro Bowl players.

The thing that disturbs us is that the Browns are in the football business, yet Haslam seems to be giving more power to lawyers and accountants, who are studying game films to learn about the game.

Why not hire people who already know about the sport? Wouldn’t they know what is needed to move this franchise in the right direction?

Haslam made the correct move in ejecting Pettine and Farmer from positions they weren’t capable of handling.

However, we don’t like the first step in solving the problem. If Haslam owned a law firm, or an investment group, Sashi Brown might be a great choice.

He owns a football team though, so we will keep a jaundiced eye on who they will hire to guide this team back into the winning column.

Cavs Still Searching For Proper Rotation

It is hard to believe that the NBA season has reached the 30 game mark, and Cavaliers’ coach David Blatt is still searching for the proper player rotations.

This is what happens when you have had the injury problems the wine and gold have suffered through over the summer, during training camp, and even more since the season commenced.

The recent additions of Iman Shumpert and then Kyrie Irving to the active roster have caused the head coach to reshuffle minutes, and as of right now, he’s still searching for a healthy medium.

Those two missed all of camp and the exhibition games. Timofey Mozgov has struggled with off-season knee surgery, and even LeBron James missed the last two weeks of training camp with back issues.

Since the season started, JR Smith and Mo Williams have both missed some time with bumps and bruises too. Even Matthew Dellavedova sat out one game with a bad calf.

That has caused Blatt to have to scramble to find a rotation that works on a night to night basis.

Even going into tonight’s game against Denver, Blatt will not have Irving available because the Cavs don’t want him playing in back-to-back games just yet.

That means Dellavedova will start and probably Williams will get more time.

Dellavedova is a different type of player than Irving, and that’s what make it tough for the coach and the players.

Blatt moved Tristan Thompson into the starting lineup for Mozgov last night, which takes a rim protector off the floor, but they get a better defender away from the hoop instead.

That also forces a change in the substitution pattern.

The good news is the Cavaliers have three and a half months to have everyone be healthy (cross your fingers) and develop a rotation Blatt can go to on an every night basis.

The problem with Williams is Blatt doesn’t trust him defensively. He said they moved him out of the starting lineup because of the inevitable return of Kyrie Irving, but really it was starting point guard torching the Cavs with penetration.

That was the reason for our indifference in signing Williams in the off-season. He’s not a good defender and in the playoffs, that’s what the wine and gold’s success was built on.

The other player usually mentioned when playing time is discussed is Anderson Varejao. The Brazilian’s problem is the Cavs have three solid big men in Kevin Love, Thompson, and Mozgov, and when Cleveland goes small, they shift James to power forward.

It simply doesn’t leave a lot of time for the veteran.

Our guess is that the coaching staff is taking it slow with Varejao because of his long history of injury and he will get more time as the season goes on.

He can still rebound and defend, and he has a pretty reliable jump shot from the elbow. Those are all things any team can use.

It is tough to be patient for fans because they have been waiting so long in northeast Ohio, but the constant shuffling of players because of injuries is partly to blame for the Cavs’ inconsistency.

There is still more than half of the season to go, and our guess is Blatt will settle on a rotation that will work and the Cavaliers will go on another hot streak.