John Beilein’s comments after Cavs’ blowout loss to Warriors show how unacceptable it was

The Cleveland Cavaliers were destroyed on Saturday by the Golden State Warriors, and head coach John Beilein’s postgame comments showed how unacceptable the performance was.

For the Cleveland Cavaliers, Saturday’s 131-112 loss to the Golden State Warriors was as bad as it gets. The Cavs were bludgeoned again in the third quarter, and head coach John Beilein‘s comments postgame were illustrated just how unacceptable the performance was.

How the Cavaliers lost by 19 to these Warriors, who have barely had Stephen Curry this year due to a reported broken left hand and might not have Klay Thompson at all due to a reported left ACL tear, is beyond me.

The Cavs were playing pretty well and had a seven-point lead nearing the end of the first half, and then the Dubs starting crushing them in transition and closed the half with a 61-59 lead. That came as a result of a back-breaking 9-0 run with the Wine and Gold completely unraveling, as Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor detailed.

Cleveland, all in all, got another good scoring performance from Collin Sexton with a team-leading 23 points on nine-of-16 shooting, to go with four assists and three steals, as noted by ESPN. Kevin Porter Jr., though he again had some bad giveaways (three in total), had his moments with 19 points and also shot six-of-six from the foul line.

Nonetheless, Darius Garland had a rough outing with five turnovers, and his 15 points and four assists were not of the impact variety in many meaningful minutes.

Anyhow, Beilein in postgame was clearly frustrated, and these postgame comments, as transcribed by Fedor, first in relation to Cleveland’s turnover issues, show that.

"“We try it every day with all our guys when the same turnover is made over and over again. We’re trying to teach them by individual film with their mentor or coaches. Somehow we’re not quite getting it or we’re not good enough yet to realize that play cannot be made. It can’t be made. It’s going to be a turnover nine times out of 10 and a turnover leads to a bucket at the other end,” Beilein said. “As they get better and stronger and can make plays, it will get there. It is hard, but you see it, it’s the same thing, the lob pass.“I told them at halftime, ‘Breaking news, Draymond Green is a really good defender. So don’t just lob it into Kevin like Kevin’s got some incredible mismatch.’ And we did that and we know that, but they still think Kevin’s just going to go and get every ball that’s thrown to him when Draymond Green’s on him — he’s a master at stealing that ball. They’re turning people over a lot and that’s because Draymond is so smart defensively. If you don’t see the floor on one end, you probably don’t see it at the other end and that’s one of our issues.”"

Even while putting up a modest eight points, Draymond Green would go on to dominate this game on the defensive end with terrific rotations, two blocks and two steals, and he tied a career-high with 16 assists, as indicated by Basketball Reference. That was in 26 minutes, according to ESPN.

Golden State shot 51.4% from three-point range and hit 18 triples, and as our own Robbie DiPaola touched on coming into the contest, the Dubs were just 26th in the Association in three-point shooting (as then noted by NBA.com). Golden State has the league’s worst record and the league’s worst offensive rating, too.

At any rate, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ performance on Saturday was unacceptable, and it was even worse than their play in blowout losses on MLK Day to the New York Knicks and a rough outing against the Washington Wizards last week, both of which our own Corey Casey hit on.

Clearly, Beilein’s postgame comments demonstrated how dismal things are for the Wine and Gold at this moment, who have lost 10 straight home games at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Kevin Love postgame echoed that sort of frustration, too, but it’s not as if Love played well, either, particularly when it comes to the defensive end.

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I get that Love said he’d be “happy” to be with the Cavs still following the NBA’s February 6 trade deadline, but those comments from him postgame show just how rough it is for Cleveland, and it’s reasonable that Love’s play could go downhill if he’s still here post-deadline with the likes of the expiring Tristan Thompson, who has had a career year, feasibly traded in coming days.

As Sports Illustrated‘s Jeremy Woo highlighted, it’s clear that the Cavs should not take a chance on losing TT for nothing this offseason by not trading him; Fedor also reported Cleveland and Thompson have not had any discussions about another potential contract/contract extension.

Though Love being due to make $91.5 million over the next three years following 2019-20 will make it difficult to move him by the February 6 NBA trade deadline, given that the big man reportedly prefers to be traded, per Fedor, I’d expect Cavs general manager Koby Altman to be weighing all his options and pull the trigger if desirable assets come along, anyhow.

Of course, this summer with a weak free agent class is probably a more realistic time to deal Love, but again, Altman should listen to any and all offers, because with this kind of performance on Saturday at this point in the season, the Cavaliers need to do all they can to acquire future draft capital, given that owner Dan Gilbert is more than willing to take on bad contract money.

Moreover, lets hope the Cavs can at least better efforts, by and large, as the season progresses, because even though Cleveland is rebuilding and playing young pieces such as Garland, Sexton and Cedi Osman big minutes, Saturday’s game versus Golden State was unacceptable.

Beilein also would essentially go on to say how each loss is “hitting me really hard,” as Fedor touched on, and this was one was especially surprising, too.

Cleveland picked up a W at the Detroit Pistons on Monday, and had a much better effort on Thursday against one of the best teams in the league in the Toronto Raptors, as Casey emphasized.

Lastly, when asked if it seemed that players are maybe tuning him out, here’s what Beilein said, as transcribed by Sports Illustrated‘s Sam Amico.

"Beilein’s response: “I can’t answer that. Our guys have to measure themselves. Have they bought in to playing winning basketball? There’s moments that they have. So, I can’t answer that.”"

Again, you would think, as Amico also expressed, that roster changes are coming very soon for the Cavaliers.

This sort of outing against the league’s worst team in Golden State on Saturday made it all the more apparent that the Cavaliers need to be ready and willing to trade expiring pieces, such as feasibly Thompson and John Henson, along with the likes of Love.

This team needs to accumulate as much future draft capital as they can.

Anyway, Beilein has to be hurting right now, along with others on the coaching staff, but the young guys have to keep getting meaningful experience, because the Cavs are in the early stages of a full-rebuild. That’s what is necessary for the team’s long term outlook.