Cavs: Collin Sexton’s comments following L to NYK are encouraging

The Cleveland Cavaliers will not be going undefeated this season.

Darn it! The Cleveland Cavaliers are no longer undefeated on the 2020-21 campaign; Cleveland lost 95-86 to the New York Knicks on Tuesday.

It wasn’t a game to write home about for the Cavs, who hit only 36.4 percent of their shots in that one, and only knocked in 21.9 percent of their three-point attempts. In that realm, Cleveland hit just seven-of-32 from deep.

Overall, the Cavaliers had a tough go of it. They were trailing by 14 following the first quarter and were down by 16 at one point in the game, but they didn’t just go away, if you will.

And when you consider the Knicks outscored Cleveland by 21 points from beyond the arc, and made shots whenever the Cavs were seemingly knocking on the door, that effort from the Cavs was nice to see.

Collin Sexton seemingly sensed that sort of thing, too, and had this to say following the L, via Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

"“I felt like if it was last year, or the year before, and we was missing this many shots, we probably would have lost by 20, 25, 30,” Sexton said. “But tonight we just continued to fight, we continued to play hard, we continued to scrap. We’re definitely growing. I can see the growth just because I’ve been here three years now. I know what type of team we have. And I have never played with a team yet like this. I’m excited.”"

Fedor would go on to transcribe comments from J.B. Bickerstaff and Darius Garland that essentially hit on how the Cavs are working to keep building a winning culture through hard work and team play, too. Bickerstaff, via Fedor, praised the likes of Andre Drummond, Sexton, Garland, Dante Exum and Thon Maker, who got in workouts following that first loss of this season.

Sexton would also have this say, via Fedor.

"“I was missing some shots that I normally make, especially some of my floaters and a lot of 3s,” Sexton said. “I’m shooting the ball pretty well, then tonight I think I missed two corner 3s and I was like, ‘Dang, I wish I could have back.’ I shot a lot of them after the game. I’ll be ready to go on Thursday against Indiana.“I don’t think it went wrong for us. We just didn’t make shots. We got a lot of open looks in the first half, we just couldn’t buy anything to go in. We lost by nine? That was a really good game for us, just the fact that we shot it that poorly. We still scrapped. And plus, we gave up 95 points. That’s not a bad job tonight.”"

These Sexton comments about this Cavs group are encouraging.

These Sexton comments were definitely on the mark, and though the Cavs will miss Kevin Love (calf strain/reaggravation), who will be re-evaluted in three-to-four weeks, and missed some others, the way Cleveland got back into it with defense and grit was a positive. Granted, Cleveland could have used Isaac Okoro still on defense, who was out due to a foot sprain, and he was reportedly placed into the NBA’s health and safety protocol.

Nonetheless, no, the Knicks aren’t going to be a great team, albeit they did make it tough on the Cavs, and that was sans Obi Toppin (right calf strain), and credit New York for making some big shots. That was even from guys like Julius Randle and Elfrid Payton, neither of whom are exactly known as sharpshooters, albeit Randle has started off well from deep and he had a triple-double in the game.

Offensively, though, the Cavs did have the ball stick a bit too much, but they did get back into it at different points, and on the plus side, Cleveland did still have meaningful ball movement throughout.

They just simply could not knock down open perimeter looks often; in a long season, those kind of nights will happen, however. And Sexton, who was just six-of-17 from the field, was right for praising the way Cleveland still, via Fedor, “scrapped.”

Moreover, as Sexton alluded to with his above comments transcribed by Fedor, the way the Cleveland Cavaliers still made this a game, and fought and clawed their way into it was encouraging.

The Cavs did generate plenty of open looks via the pass that just didn’t fall nearly enough, too, and their defense clearly got them back into it.

Sexton played into that with his ball pressure, and I thought Garland’s instincts off-ball were a positive there, to go with Larry Nance Jr., and Andre Drummond was uber-active inside. Randle did get his via jumpers a fair amount, which I’ll live with, but Nance did still have four steals and two blocks, and still had an impact.

Drummond, meanwhile, had six blocks and three steals, too, which helped Cleveland’s chances. Unfortunately, again, the Knicks got the W, and credit to them.

But watching this one, and factoring in Collin’s comments following it, the way the Cavs wouldn’t go away was a very positive sign, and props to the team, and J.B. Bickerstaff/the coaching staff for helping build a winning culture.

That culture change, from my perspective, is underway from a mindset/approach standpoint. We’ll see how the Cavs fare in their upcoming six-game roadie.