3 big questions for Cavs team after bad loss to the Pistons

The Cleveland Cavaliers suffered one of their worst losses of the season Sunday night up in Detroit as they got beat up badly in the fourth quarter and bowed down to the lowly Pistons 115-105. The Pistons were 11-37 coming into the game. This new and improved Cavs team was supposed to run away from the Pistons, but they never could shake them and got outscored 31-17 in the last quarter.

There were many reasons for this complete collapse by a Cavaliers team, but the team couldn’t hit any shot from the outside, missed too many free throws in the second half, and their head coach, J.B. Bickerstaff, again didn’t play his bench or rotate players very well. He put in aging Rajon Rondo in the fourth quarter in place of Dean Wade and that backfired horribly as Rondo couldn’t hit the side of a barn with his jumper.

Even though Wade was playing great defense like usual and had a good game going, scoring 14 points by going four-for-five from three-point range, the coach still replaced him with Rondo. There were some other bizarre moves by the Cavs coach. Where was Kevin Love? And what about Lamar Stevens? Both have been, if nothing else, motivators to a very young team that is still trying to find its way.

There are so many questions for the week ahead. There’s been a lot more sudden media attention given to the Cavs this past week. With that comes pressure to perform. This iteration of Cavs have never been in this situation, nursing a winning record at 30-20 and expected to win from this point forward. The loss to the Pistons, though a very bad one, can be forgotten if they can come back and win Monday night against the New Orleans Pelicans.

On paper, the Pelicans aren’t much better than the Pistons. So, there should be a win in store for the Wine and Gold. But the game is played on the court and if Cleveland is stuck in reading their own headlines, then this season could go south in a blink of an eye. Let’s hope not and with that, let’s ask a few more questions.