Cleveland Cavaliers: What we learned in the home loss to Golden State

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CLEVELAND, OH – JANUARY 15: LeBron James #23 of the Cleveland Cavaliers shoots the ball against the Golden State Warriors on January 15, 2018 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images) /

The Isaiah Thomas and LeBron James alley-oop combination is fun.

While Thomas didn’t finish with great numbers, he showed some chemistry between him and LeBron.

Thomas showed that he and James could form possibly form a lethal pick-and-roll combination similar to Irving and James could. Besides that, he showed that he isn’t afraid to throw it up to LeBron when the opportunity presents itself.

Isaiah to LeBron #PhantomCam alley-oop! #AllForOne pic.twitter.com/u4JyFS57Lo
— NBA (@NBA) January 16, 2018

It’ll be fun to see how this duo progress once they get more familiar playing with each other. They have the potential to be one of the best one-two punches in the league.

The Cavs can’t win when they aren’t making their shots.

Going off the previous points, the Cavs need to play great offensively to cover up their defensive issues. They can’t beat good teams when they aren’t hitting their shots. Their margin for error is too narrow to allow for that.

The Cavs are 1-10 when they have an oRTG under 102
The Cavs are 6-8 when they have a dRTG over 117
When their offense is bad, it's a much larger deterrent to winning games than their defense (despite the defense being a larger long-term issue)
— Mike Zavagno (@MZavagno11) January 16, 2018

Cleveland’s offense was good to start the game, but they finished with an offensive rating of 101.2 and an effective field goal percentage of 49.5%. These numbers are due to an off night shooting from distance (25.0%) and attempting just 28 threes.

Simply put, the Cavs can’t overcome poor offensive games like this. It’s hard to beat just average teams when they shoot that poorly. It’s surprising that they were in the game for as long as they were with those numbers.