Cleveland Cavaliers: Three reasons for disappointing loss to the Magic

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost for the third time in three matchups so far this season against the Orlando Magic to drop their record to 5-16.

Today was a bit of a rough day for the Cleveland Cavaliers. First, a story broke by Sham Charina, via the Athletic, and hit on by KJG’s Dan Gilinsky, hinted at possible disdain from the players towards new head coach John Beilein in regards to his coaching style.

Second, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke a story that the Cavaliers are now actively listening to trade offers for fan-favorite Kevin Love.

Third, the Cavs dropped another game against an undermanned Orlando Magic squad, by a score of 93-87.

There were three key factors that led to the Cavaliers struggling tonight, the first being a lack of timely shot-making.

Reason #1 – a lack of timely shot-making

For once defense wasn’t an issue for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They came into tonight ranked as the 23rd best defense in the NBA in defensive rating according to NBA.com at 112.7.

They faced an undermanned Magic team tonight who are still without their best player, Nikola Vucevic. The Cavs were able to hold them to just 93 points, but when they needed to make a timely bucket, the offense just wasn’t responsive. The Cavaliers also managed just 17 points in the decisive fourth quarter.

Larry Nance Jr. was inserted into the starting lineup for an under-the-weather Kevin Love and he had one of his worst games of the season from a scoring and efficiency standpoint. Nance played the most minutes, with 41, he had the best +/- rating on the team at +10, and he had 11 rebounds. However, he shot a horrendous 2-for-11 from the field, including 0-for-3 from deep. All stats are courtesy of ESPN’s official box score.

Reason number one, and Nance’s offensive performance leads us directly into reason number two for the Cavaliers loss.