3 takeaways from Cavs’ historically bad home loss to Clippers
By Corey Casey
Takeaway #2: The Cavs’ regression is alarming
No, the Cavs don’t have a ton of talent on the roster and anytime you have two guards this young in Darius Garland at 20 and Collin Sexton at 21 playing big minutes and starting (unless it’s a transcendent player), you are going to lose games.
It doesn’t help that in the starting lineup that even adding an interior defender like Drummond, that they are at such a disadvantage defensively. When you have a pair of inexperienced 6-foot-1 offensively-minded guards in your backcourt you’re going to have deficiencies on defense.
Cedi Osman has his limitations on defense, too, and despite getting better somewhat off the ball, still has issues at times in that regard, and obviously, Kevin Love is a liability on defense that also is too slow with his closeouts.
Anyhow, the Cleveland Cavaliers are still in the beginning of a rebuild and it’s a tough situation for head coach John Beilein and his staff. In the NBA, rebuilding is hard and again when you have young players playing key roles, especially in the backcourt, it presents a ton of growing pains.
Still, though, the way they have competed at home recently isn’t a good trend. Yes, the Clippers are a very talented and well-constructed team, but they were also missing two starters, and one of which was their best player and were on the second night of a back-to-back.
Recently, the Cavaliers had bad losses at home against teams like the Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, Washington Wizards and Chicago Bulls, none of which are quality teams.
It seems like the Cavs are more focused on the road and bring more gritty play, as was shown against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, and I’m not sure why.
All in all it seemed like last year even though most nights the Cavs were at a major talent disparity, they fought and were competitive in some of those games. That’s not a knock on Beilein, he’s a first-time NBA head coach and is still adjusting to the NBA, after spending so much time in college, and most recently, at Michigan.
Still, though, considering how the Cavs have played lately at home and with how they still have plenty of tough games post-All-Star break, with their youth, Cleveland looks like a team that will win 19-20 games.
Keep in mind, in 2018-19, Kevin Love was only active in 22 games for the Cavaliers mostly due to reported toe surgery, and on the season, the Wine and Gold were 19-63.