1 stud and 1 dud in Cavs’ latest loss to the 76ers on Friday

The Cleveland Cavaliers are in the make-or-break portion of their season, and after running off to a fast season start and climbing the rankings in the Eastern Conference, they are squarely in the grasp of reality and are starting to fall back down to Earth. The Cavs ran out to a big lead against the second-place Philadelphia 76ers at the beginning of the game on Friday night. They scored 42 points in the first quarter and led by 21 in the first half but couldn’t stave off Philly’s comeback and eventually bowed down to them 125-119.

The Cavs now have slipped to sixth place in the Eastern Conference standings and have the Toronto Raptors and Brooklyn Nets eyeing them and the Cavaliers could fall out of the playoff picture sooner than later if they can’t get things corrected.

After this latest loss, fans of the Wine and Gold seem to be split on what we saw in that one. While the team did seem to play with more vigor they still couldn’t hold on and put the 76ers away when they had many opportunities to do so.

That second half collapse may have also had to do with the Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff running his eight-man rotation (which has often been what he’s gone with) into the ground once again and not making needed adjustments. The team looked gassed again after putting up a valiant fight, but the outcome of the contest could have been different with some well-needed substitutions in crunch time.

Despite that issue, several players played well while there were a couple of others that really had a poor game. Isaac Okoro played well especially early, as he finished with a season-high 22 points on 7-of-8 shots as he kept attacking the rim. Kevin Love started out well, coming off the bench and scoring 10 points in the first half. Fellow bench player Cedi Osman also had a nice game going for 20 points in 26 minutes, and has been playing well in recent weeks.

On the other hand, big man Lauri Markkanen was off again and only scored six points in 17 minutes. He only attempted one three-pointer on the night which he missed. And why Bickerstaff refuses to insert forward Dean Wade in for Markkanen off the bench is still a big mystery. Wade can shoot the three-pointer like Markkanen and has better ball-handling skills to drive to the rim, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day.

Anyway, we’ll get into the stud and dud for the Cavs from this one.