What Is Going On With The Cleveland Cavaliers?

The Cleveland Cavaliers have struggled and lost their game on Saturday in alarming fashion to the Portland Trail Blazers.

It was a tough 48 hours for the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and Saturday.

After a tough win against a Carmelo Anthony-less New York Knicks team on Wednesday, the Cavaliers came in against the Golden State Warriors with their heads high and ready to challenge the NBA champions. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the contrary.

The Warriors didn’t do anything differently than they have all season. They were aggressive defensively and played with a sense of urgency throughout the entire game. The Cavaliers played well, but missed opportunities at the free throw line and missed wide open shots ended up hurting them.

They shot 31.6 percent total from the field and 16.7 percent from three-point range compared to the Warriors’ 41 percent from the field and 27.8 percent three-point range. They missed numerous open shots and struggled with interior defense for most of the game. While the team was inconsistent in every facet of the game, no struggles were more evident than those of Timofey Mozgov.

Since I first brought his struggles up in a recent article, he’s only had a few solid games while the rest have been sub-par.  He’s had one double-digit game that was against the young Orlando Magic with 17 points.

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At times, he seems to have no interest in dunking the ball, and would rather lay the ball in which makes it easier for opposing centers to block the shot. His small hands are also becoming more of an issue now. It was easy to ignore last season since his backup Tristan Thompson came in and played at a different level, but when a team is losing in the fashion that the Cavaliers are, it becomes very noticeable.

Just like last year, Mozgov hasn’t played in many fourth quarters. However, coach David Blatt barely plays Anderson Varejao, and he only plays Sasha Kaun if the game is a blowout. Could Mozgov potentially be on the way out? We’ll see in the next few weeks.

While Mozgov has been an issue, nothing compares to the way the Cavaliers got annihilated by an 11-20 rebuilding Portland Trail Blazers team on Saturday. They came out lethargic and had very little energy throughout the game. They missed easy open shots and were turning the ball over at an alarming rate. LeBron James looked disinterested and that is what potentially set the tone for the game.

Kyrie Irving didn’t play due to getting rest on a back-to-back and Damian Lillard missed the game due to injury. The Cavaliers shot 36.4 percent from the field and 35.5 percent from three-point range. They also had 17 turnovers, six of which were from James and Iman Shumpert combined.

The Trail Blazers shot 46.1 percent from the field and a phenomenal 40.9 percent from three-point range. Defense from the Cavaliers was nonexistent for most of the game and they had no answer for their former second round draft pick, Allen Crabbe, who had 26 points.  It could have been a hangover from the Warriors or just an overall bad game by them, but losing by 29 points to a team that is rebuilding when you’re supposed to have championship aspirations is beyond embarrassing.

It also didn’t help that during the postgame interviews with FOX Sports Ohio play-by-play man Fred McLeod, James told him that players don’t know if they are playing on a nightly basis and if they do, how many minutes they will be allocated.

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This isn’t the main issue, but it’s very alarming that Blatt has failed at the aspect with coaching. He had a similar issue with Irving at the beginning of last season. There were certain plays that Irving wanted to run, but at the same time Blatt had the plays he wanted to run and it led to miscommunication by both of them. But the biggest issue has been on the players and their lack of motivation with some of the games.

At the beginning of the season and even now, the biggest problem was the Cavaliers starting out slow in the first half–and then turning it on in the second half. While that might work with some teams, it doesn’t work with all of them and it has started to catch up with this one.

They sometimes play and act like they have won something when they have won nothing. They have to come out and play strong for all four quarters and act like they want to win a championship. I understand it is unrealistic for a team to be pumped up for every single game in an 82-game season, but to play lackadaisical and not even show up as they did against the Trail Blazers is unacceptable with all the talent on the team.

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They must have a short memory and be ready to redeem themselves against the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets. Hopefully they have learned from both losses and come out with a new attitude.