Cavs must refocus up on fundamentals, as John Beilein and Tristan Thompson alluded to

The Cleveland Cavaliers had a season-high in terms of turnovers against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, and as John Beilein and Tristan Thompson alluded to, the Wine and Gold need to refocus up when it comes to the fundamentals.

It’s understandable for a Cleveland Cavaliers‘ team that’s playing so many young pieces for turnovers to be a problem.

That’s going to happen with players such as Darius Garland and Collin Sexton still getting a feel for each other in a considerable minutes-share in the backcourt, and with the Cavs’ trying to have more consistent ball and man movement, some miscues are always going to arise.

A key issue, though, that Cleveland head coach John Beilein touched on postgame after the Cavs’ 116-104 loss to the Orlando Magic on Wednesday was traveling violations, and though the league is putting an emphasis on traveling this season, Beilein seemed to think that some of the calls were a bit ticky-tack, and were a prime culprit as to Cleveland having 25 turnovers, a season-high.

Either way, he did note that the Cavs need to focus up on not traveling, and seemingly, nail down on the fundamentals again, as transcribed by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

"“It’s like holding in the NFL, they could call it every time,” Beilein said. “But should they? Would that be good for the game?”Those comments came on the heels of remarks he made during his postgame gathering moments earlier.“The walk is the frustrating thing,” Beilein said. “It’s not even a judgment thing, it’s a thing you’ve been doing for years and now you can’t do it anymore and that’s what really gets me frustrated.“I am going to look at every one, I am going to slow it down because sometimes the guy moves his foot ‘that much’ and they’re calling it a walk. And that’s really not fair. It’s like every time a guy touches him it’s got to be a foul. It’s not fair. So we have to continue to work at it and get aligned with the officials and get on the same page there. I’m sure they will do a great job with it.”"

Fedor would go on to mention how Beilein is particularly well-versed in this sort of thing, as he was a part of “college basketball’s competition committee,” before, and Fedor also demonstrated how Beilein has stressed that players need to land on two feet to prevent traveling being an issue and therefore having a clear pivot foot.

The Cleveland Cavaliers again are a really young team, and Garland, who had a career-high eight turnovers, was whistled three times for traveling, and Cedi Osman even traveled on the Cavs’ first possession, as Fedor highlighted.

To me, though, it was disappointing to see that, and it being a result of hesitation, typically, instead of letting shots fly or moving it to get ball-swings going when feasible, Garland is a rookie, and when facing great length, I can get why there were issues.

Nonetheless, the Cavs have had traveling violations often called on them throughout games this season, and it’s clear that yes, several key pieces are young, but it’s something they need to get corrected, as Tristan Thompson alluded to, per Fedor.

"“What can I say so that I don’t get fined right now? It’s a point of emphasis, they stressed it at the beginning. Couple of them were questionable with travels, but we’ve got to make those adjustments. We just got to do a better job, like Coach said, of landing on two feet,” Thompson said. “When you land on two, you can make a better decision so they can’t call a travel. So we just have to get back to the basics. And we were doing that a lot in the beginning of the year, but we got away from it.”"

The whole traveling issue being stressed more by officials from a Cavs’ perspective seems a bit of a stretch to me, but regardless, it’s clear that the Wine and Gold do need to focus up on the basics again.

The Cavaliers are amid a brutal stretch of their 2019-20 schedule, yes, but some of the issues they’ve had as of late are correctable if they play disciplined.

More from King James Gospel

• 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
• The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
• 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
• 6 players Cavaliers might replace Jarrett Allen with by the trade deadline
• This stat is one to keep an eye on for Cavaliers’ Max Strus in years ahead

On the bright side, when the Cavs’ young pieces have been more decisive, as they were against the Brooklyn Nets in a close loss on Monday, it’s led to more consistently productive possessions and quality catch-and-shoot looks.

For the Cleveland Cavaliers, starting with a tough matchup on Friday against the Milwaukee Bucks, another team that poses great length and shot blocking capability but also is one of the league’s best shooting teams, the Cavs can’t beat themselves close to as much as they did against the Magic.

Hopefully Kevin Love can be effective and play more than 24 minutes in that one as well, but given his reported back ailment, he’s seemingly not fully there yet.

Anyhow, Thompson and Beilein are right in stressing that the Wine and Gold needs to be more mindful of not getting themselves in potential traveling situations, and realistically, refocusing on the fundamentals in coming games.

That’s also related to cutting down on live-ball turnovers, being more mindful of spacing, having high hands when helping on defense and making disciplined closeouts.

Refocusing on those fundamentals, and being more detail-oriented, should increase the Cavs’ ability to be more competitive and get players such as Osman and Sexton being more aggressive in attacking the rim after clearer decision-making.

We know at this point that Beilein and the coaching staff are always going to try to build the right habits, and I’d think these sort of things such as cleaning up traveling can be corrected moving forward.

On the bright side, though, it’s been good to see the young guys, including rookie wing Kevin Porter Jr., who seems to getting more and more comfortable, in there getting plenty of reps in a rebuilding scenario, anyway.

Furthermore, it’s been encouraging when Garland has let it go, that he’s shot 39.6% from three-point range in his last 10 games, according to NBA.com.

Again, hopefully the Cavs get the traveling issue nailed down and at least have fundamentally-sound intentions more, which was the case more often in the first few weeks of the season.