Raptors Loss Shows Cavs Still Have Ways To Go

The Cleveland Cavaliers suffered a bad loss to the Toronto Raptors on Friday Night and it proved the reigning Eastern Conference Champions have plenty to figure out before the playoffs begin.

It wasn’t just because the Cavs lost.

The NBA season consists of 82 games, so teams are going to loss some. Not everything is going to be sunshine and lollipops from October to June. There will be games where things simply don’t go to plan and teams will need to face bumps and bruises along the way.

For the Cavaliers though, these troubles that every NBA team has are becoming worrisome. With every ‘bad’ loss Cleveland has this season, the same storylines and deciding factors are evident. When does it get to the point where these issues become the norm instead of outliers?

Cleveland may have reached that point.

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“When you lose the way we lost, mental mistake after mental mistake, those hurt more than anything when you can play better mentally,” LeBron James said after the loss to the Raptors, via Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. “People get so caught up on the physical side of the game. We lack mental right now, and we’ve got to continue to get better with it.”

Mental mistakes? Mentally weak?

These phrases certainly ring a bell when taking a look back at some of the Cavs losses earlier in the season.

In fact, just think back to the Cavaliers loss to Toronto on the 25^th of November. In that game, the Cavs held a lead for majority of the second half until Kyle Lowry took over late in the fourth quarter to lead the Raptors to victory.

That sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Friday’s game against the Raptors had almost the same storyline- for the preponderance of the game, the Cavs held the lead. That included a 13-point cushion late in the third quarter and a nine-point buffer mid-way through the final period. Toronto was missing their leading scorer DeMar DeRozan and was getting little to no production from their frontcourt.

It was the perfect opportunity for Cleveland to grab a big road win and create larger separation between themselves and the Raptors at the top of the Eastern Conference. Instead, déjà vu hit the Cavs, as Lowry once again lit them up in the fourth quarter, where he scored 18 of his game-high 43 points.

A flurry of mistakes committed by the Cavs included an Iman Shumpert technical foul, a flagrant foul from Matthew Dellavedova and numerous silly decisions on the defensive end in the fourth quarter, which all led to James going the mental mistakes route once again in his post-game press conference.

Cleveland had the second best team in the East on the ropes in their own gym. All they needed to do was to land the knockout blow and they couldn’t deliver.

Want some more examples of the Cavs not being all there mentally throughout the season? Sure, how about the 105-76 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on December the 26^th, where the Cavaliers seemingly packed it in after a tough loss to the Golden State Warriors the night prior. That isn’t a quality of a championship team.

How about the one-point loss to the Boston Celtics on February the 5^th, where Avery Bradley hit a corner three at the buzzer to steal the win for Boston. Mental mistakes were aplenty in that one, as the Cavs committed bonehead fouls in the dying moments to allow the Celtics to grab the victory.

Maybe of greater concern though, was the 132-98 embarrassment the Cavaliers were handed by the Warriors, in Cleveland mind you, on January 18^th. In a nationally televised affair, with the Cavs supposedly pissed off by some pre-game comments made from Stephen Curry, Cleveland wasn’t there mentally from the opening tip. They couldn’t get into the right mindset to play against the champs at home, which to this day is still something that should linger in Cavs’ fans minds.

After that game, James said, “We got a long way to go. Tonight was an example of how far we have to go to get to a championship level,” via Tom Withers of the Associated Press.

A coaching change and a trade later, how much has really changed?

As aforementioned, Lowry was unstoppable against the Cavs and this is becoming a trend that should be closely monitored as the season progresses into the playoffs.

Cleveland has had trouble defending opposing point guards all season long and every championship contender standing in their way has a superstar one-guard that the Cavs will need to stop. The signs that they have given us so far indicates they can’t.

Opposition point guards put up 22.7 points per game against the Cavs, which would pit Cleveland 22^nd in the entire league in that department. Since the turn of the All-Star break, starting point guards are shooting 59.7% from the floor when facing the Cavaliers, while scoring 26.8 points per game (numbers thanks to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.)

Point guards drive the lane with no resistance against the Cavs and Lowry exposed this, by connecting on 9-of-10 shots inside the paint on Friday Night. It is becoming an uneasy occurrence for Cleveland and there is no reason to believe why these point guards will slow down anytime soon.

“It’s the second time he’s done that to us so going forward we’ve got to get somebody who can guard him,” Lue explained when asked about Lowry’s performance, via cavs.com.

Finding someone who can guard not only Lowry, but also the likes of Curry, Russell Westbrook and Tony Parker, the true contenders that the Cavs will need to beat to win a title, isn’t going to be easy.

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Kyrie Irving, despite being a magician on the offensive end, is being exposed on the defensive end in these marquee point guard battles. Sure, Irving has improved his defense since entering the league and he does seem to be more in-tuned and focused on making a better effort on that end. However, he still gets lost way too often in the pick and roll and allows his man into the paint with no hindrance. Dellavedova, for all of his effort and intensity on the defensive end, still isn’t quick or athletic enough to shut down opposing point guards for the entire game.

Now, let’s remember something. Cleveland is still 41-16 and top of the Eastern Conference. We have seen plenty of examples this season where the Cavs show their potential to be a championship team. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers have shown their ability to internally implode as well this season and the warning signs are becoming more frequent on the Cavs road to a title.

“I don’t fear that,” Lue asserted when asked if the Raptors may have found something that makes them believe they have the upper hand over the Cavs, via Haynes.

Lue is right. The Cavs shouldn’t fear the Raptors or anyone else in the East at the minute.

Right now, Cleveland should just fear themselves.