After going 22-50 last season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were once again projected to be a lottery team this season. Even with all of their offseason changes, the Cavs still weren’t expected to be anywhere near the play-in tournament or the actual playoffs. Yet, that’s the position they found themselves in going into Wednesday night’s rubber match with the Boston Celtics (16-16, eighth in the Eastern Conference) at TD Garden in Boston. The Celtics defeated the Cavs 111-101. This halted the Cavs’ 6-game winning streak. It also means that Boston wins the overall season series 2-1.
As a result of Wednesday night’s loss to the Celtics, the Cavaliers dropped to fourth place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 19-13. They now trail the first-place Brooklyn Nets (21-9) in the conference standings by 3 games and they trail the second-place Chicago Bulls (19-10) by 1.5 games in the Central Division standings.
Even after the relative success that the Cavs had to begin the season, such as going 3-2 on their early-season Western road trip and going 8-6 in the month of November, there was still a lot of skepticism about the legitimacy of this team. So, if the Cavs really wanted to prove themselves, they would have to come out with a winning record in the month of December.
The schedule makers still always seem to put the Cavaliers in a really bad spot, and I would love to know why that is. When the schedule came out, the month of December stood out like a sore thumb. Why? To start, the Cavs would be finishing up a challenging three-game road trip that began at the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 29, and led them to take on the Miami Heat and in Washington to face the Wizards.
Then they had to play 5 games in 7 days, including two sets of back-to-backs. The first back-to-back of that week was against the Utah Jazz (home) and the Milwaukee Bucks (away), which I would argue was the Cavs biggest test of the season to that point. Then another three-game road trip against the Bucks, Atlanta Hawks, and Celtics. Milwaukee and Atlanta would’ve been a Saturday-Sunday back-to-back for the Cavaliers. However, the game against Atlanta was postponed because of COVID-19 issues.
Although December isn’t over yet, as we still have four games remaining, you can still say this month has been a success for the Cavaliers. To this point, their record is 8-3 this month. All they have left, barring any more postponements is home versus the Toronto Raptors, at the New Orleans Pelicans (which has been a very place for the Cavs), at Washington, and home versus Atlanta (that’s a back-to-back). Given the way that they’re playing right now, that doesn’t seem too daunting. It looks pretty manageable for the Wine and Gold.
Or at least it was supposed to look pretty manageable. But COVID-19 has come in and completely changed things for this team. Several players, who have been key contributors to what this team is doing so far this season, are in the NBA’s health and safety protocols. These players include Isaac Okoro, rookie sensation Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, Lamar Stevens, and a few other players as well.
Not having those players to close out December and heading into January could be extremely detrimental to the team. The main reason is that it’s going to create a learning process for a lot of guys. With so many players being out of the rotation/lineup, head coach J.B. Bickerstaff is going to have a tough task on his hands.
He’s going to have to figure things out kind of on the fly since guys who aren’t used to playing together are going to have to learn how to play with each other. That way, the Cavs can stem the tide and stay in the mix in the Eastern Conference.
But overall, though, the group has done great work in this month so far, regardless of some opponents banged up, which has been encouraging, and they’ve had plenty of big wins.
So after passing the December test, what’s next for the Cavaliers?
Well unfortunately January isn’t going to be the relief month that the Cavs could be seeking.
Instead, they have to embark on a six-game road trip that includes stops at the Golden State Warriors (which could be Klay Thompson’s return to the court), the Sacramento Kings, the Utah Jazz, the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder. Those Kings and Thunder games are on the second leg of back-to-backs.
After that road trip, the Cavaliers will come home for one game. That one game will be against James Harden, Kevin Durant and maybe Kyrie Irving, and the Nets. Then the Cavs will go right back out on the road to face the Central Divial rival Bulls. Then they get a three-game homestand against OKC, the New York Knicks, and the Bucks. The month of January finishes with a back-to-back at the Detroit Pistons and then home against New Orleans.
All things considered, January looks somewhat foreboding. But the Cavaliers have seemingly already proven themselves, so they should be able to handle it.
And fortunately, February doesn’t look too bad, but it has a couple of challenges. Then March appears to be very difficult, however, we will cross that bridge when we get there.
Either way, one could make an argument that the Cleveland Cavaliers have been the biggest surprise of the season thus far.
As stated earlier, they finished last season with a record of 22-50. Thus they weren’t expected to do anything this season. So for them to be playing as well as they are, has been a really pleasant surprise. Especially because they passed the December test.