Cleveland Cavaliers: Takeaways from a loss to the Boston Celtics

The Cavs can’t stop the bleeding.

For the second game in a row, the Cleveland Cavaliers were playing a quality playoff team competitively before things got out of hand. Cleveland did a great job of hanging with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first half on Wednesday night, but things quickly got out of hand when they allowed the Thunder to go on a 57-27 run in the second half.

The same thing happened Friday night in Boston as the Celtics went on a 64-32 run.

The Cavs are vulnerable to these extended runs because they don’t have the ability to slow the game down and execute properly in the half-court offensively when things get bad. Not having Kevin Love in the lineup hurts most during runs like this because they don’t have a crutch to lean on when things bog down in the half-court.

Basketball is a game of runs, but they can’t keep letting these runs snowball like this if they want to remain competitive.