When it comes to bad losses, it doesn’t get any worse for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
They didn’t really move the ball. They didn’t get good shots. They couldn’t stop anyone at the other end. When they did do something right, they just looked overmatched.
Other than that, everything went great in Wednesday’s 133-95 hammer job of a road loss to the Denver Nuggets.
So make it five straight losses — and a season that began with cohesion, balance and determination has suddenly started to skid off the tracks.
“There’s no excuse for the way we played tonight,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff told reporters. “I can’t sit here and drum up reasons why we did what we did tonight.”
Worse than all of this, the Nuggets put on a show. They ran. They dunked. They laughed and the high-fived. The Cavs (10-16) just sort of stood around and watched.
“I can live with mistakes and missed shots,” Bickerstaff said. “But I can’t live with a lack of fight that we played with tonight.”
How bad was it?
Leading scorer Collin Sexton made one shot (on nine attempts) for a whopping four points. Center Andre Drummond also scored four.
With Drummond’s contract expiring and the March 25 trade deadline a little more than a month away, the Cavs will have no choice but to make a move. They won’t be buying out Drummond’s contract. They will try to trade him. And those calls will start soon, if they haven’t already.
Granted, the Cavs are missing starting power forward Kevin Love (calf) and forward Larry Nance Jr. (hand). But this isn’t about who isn’t here. It’s about digging deep and rediscovering the things that worked a few weeks ago.
One member of the organization told FortyEightMinutes the Cavs can go through spurts where “the guys are thinking about their (individual) stats.”
If that is indeed the case, it needs to end. Or this won’t get any better.
“It’s definitely frustrating because we know what we are capable of. We know what type of level we need to play at, what we can play at,” said center Jarrett Allen. “Every single game, just searching for that level, but we can’t find it. It’s getting to the point where we need to look inside of ourselves to see what we need to improve.”
