The Cleveland Cavaliers are 9-7, which has been a fine start, all things considered. Going into the very difficult back-to-back on Wednesday and Thursday, first at the Brooklyn Nets and secondary versus the Golden State Warriors, the Cavs had only lost twice in the month of November.
This upcoming stretch could be very, tough for head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and company, though.
Things just became 10 times harder for the Cavaliers.
Going into Monday night’s game against the Boston Celtics at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the Cavs were already shorthanded.
They were already without guard Collin Sexton due to a torn meniscus, forwards Lauri Markkanen and Kevin Love due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols, center Jarrett Allen due to an illness, and wing Lamar Stevens (ankle sprain). After Monday night’s game against the Celtics, you could add rookie forward/center, Evan Mobley, to that list because he has a sprained right elbow and is expected to miss 2-4 weeks as of Tuesday. Love was back in Cleveland’s loss at Brooklyn, but it’s still working his way back into the swing of things.
The next few games are extremely challenging for the Cavs as following that loss at Brooklyn, they host Stephen Curry (who is questionable, though) and the Golden State Warriors on Thursday, then they host the Nets on Monday, and then they host the Phoenix Suns next Wednesday. The schedule doesn’t get any easier in December or January, so these injuries are coming at the absolute worst possible time, regarding Mobley and Sexton potentially, in particular.
Before the season began, I predicted that we would get to 30 wins. Given how the season started and where the Cavaliers are currently in the conference, it looked like they might be able to exceed that win total. But given the current situation, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll reach that number.
In order to stem the tide during this very difficult period of time, perhaps getting two-way RJ Nembhard Jr. some run with the Cavaliers could help.
I attended the Cleveland Charge (the Cavs G League affiliate) game on Friday night at Wolstein Center. The Charge was taking on the Windy City Bulls, the G League affiliate of the Chicago Bulls, and Cleveland came away with a hard-fought 111-110 victory.
In that game, Nembhard had 28 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists for the Charge. So he just barely missed out on a triple-double. Guard Kyle Guy, who won a national championship with the Virginia Cavaliers in 2019, went off for 33 points. He was the leading scorer for the Charge in the game. There were a few other players for the Charge who played well, also.
Maybe Cleveland could give Nembhard, given the wing scoring situation, some time with the Cavaliers, then? It’s maybe worth a shot at this juncture.
This whole situation is very frustrating because as stated earlier, the Cavaliers are 9-7 and sit in the thick of it in the Eastern Conference. Do I think that the Cavs could’ve stayed in this position without all the injuries? Probably not for a more extended period, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t possibly reach the play-in tournament or maybe, and I emphasize the word maybe, the #6 seed.
The task is very daunting considering the upcoming schedule as well as the injury report, but if the Cavs can get some wins and and stay above the .500 mark, they might start turning some heads. In fairness, they did do a nice job of fighting their way back into it against Brooklyn in the second half, which was encouraging.