Everyone knew it was going to be a process. No team comes into a NBA season with just five players on the roster from the previous season and takes the league by storm, no matter how much talent that team possess.
The 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers are no exception and that is starting to show now.
Despite having the talents of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on the roster, the Cavs are experiencing some growing pains, which was expected. Even though some experts were predicting the Cavs to win the championship this season, anyone with a high knowledge of the NBA knew it was going to take longer then one season for Cleveland to reach it’s full potential.
The defense has been mostly bad, which isn’t really a surprise; the offense has been good for the most part and the rebounding has been inexcusable poor. Now, we could dive into plenty of stats to break down these statements but that can be done another day. At this very moment, coming off a 23 point loss, at home, to the rival Detroit Pistons (the 7-win Pistons at that), there are some simple ingredients Cleveland is currently lacking- heart, effort, competitiveness and pride. None of these can be measured in stats.
Too many times this season we have seen Cleveland get out to big leads and then lose their competitiveness and just give up the lead. We can look at plenty of examples of this, including the blown 18-point lead to the Toronto Raptors earlier in the season or the game in which the Cavs lead the Charlotte Hornets 21-0, only to allow Charlotte back into the game but let’s focus on the Pistons game. The Cavs were cruising, leading by 15 points in the early parts of the second quarter. The offense was clicking, the defense was on point and the Cavs were on their way to an easy Sunday Evening victory. Suddenly, things changed. Detroit started hitting some three’s and Cleveland’s mood changed. No longer were the shots going in, the ball was being turned over way too may times (the Cavs had 17 turnovers) and they no longer looked interested in the game. Teams are going to make runs during a NBA game, it happens every night. What is more important though, is how the opposing team reacts to that run and Cleveland has gone into a shell whenever things don’t go their way and that needs to change.
Cleveland is currently lacking- heart, effort, competitiveness and pride. None of these can be measured in stats.
After the game, Coach David Blatt said his team lost their “energy and competitiveness” and he also added “that shouldn’t happen.” James added, “Right now we are not very good. In every aspect of the game.” These two are absolutely right. For the coach of a team with championship aspirations to be saying they lost their energy and competitiveness during a game is simply unacceptable. No team in the NBA should loss the effort required to win during a game, especially in a game where you were up by 15 points. Like I previously mentioned, this isn’t the first time Cleveland has done this. Too many times, Cleveland has had teams down on the mat, only to allow them to get up at the nine count and mount a furious comeback. Fox Sports Ohio analyst Austin Carr also noticed this during the Pistons game, as he stated that “The Cavs had this team on the mat and allowed them to get back up.” This isn’t the first time Carr has said those words this season. Now, it would be easy to chalk this up to growing pains, new head coach, new team etc. If we were talking about some offensive or defensive issues, yes, those would be acceptable excuses. When talking about competitive energy though? No excuses can be made for that.
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While Cleveland has struggled to keep up their competitive energy during games this season, they also are struggling to find heart and pride and that is a problem. When the players are out there on the court, no one seems to be playing for the jersey a lot of the times. No one seems to take it personally when a 7-win team goes on a 18-0 run and no one seems to be taking it personally when the hometown Cleveland fans are booing the team off the court. Now when the team is winning, everything goes swimmingly and the team looks happy. That is no surprise, as winning cures everything. We don’t see the true colors of a team in the good times though. It is in the bad times when we truly find out whether a team has the heart and pride required to maintain the effort to play hard during 20-point losses. This is an area in which this current Cleveland team is lacking.
We have seen some pretty horrible Cavs teams over the past four seasons. 26 games losing streaks and 50+ point losses were not fun but those teams seemed to have heart and always seemed to play hard on every possession. Unfortunately, I simply haven’t seen this seasons Cavaliers play hard and show the effort required to win, for long periods of games. This is a major problem and the Cavs need to have a look at themselves in the mirror and change that.
I don’t have much more to say after a loss like that. Losing while playing hard I can accept. Losing, while not playing hard and displaying no heart, competitive energy or pride though? Simple unacceptable.
What do you think about the Cavs lack of heart, effort and energy?