3 ways the Cavs can have a successful home stand

#2: Cavs need to play better defense

What was so impressive about the Cavaliers start to the season was that they were winning games convincingly and usually winning the first quarter and playing solid defense. In their first 33 games of the season, they had 15 games where they didn’t allow their opponent to score 100 points in a game. In the 34 games since they’ve only been able to do those 10 times. That’s still decent but so many of these games, especially early in some, have shown the Cavs to play really poor defense.

Part of that is that the injury bug to the team has made playing together and communicating on defense amongst teammates difficult. But much of it is about effort. That effort has been missing. Maybe it’s that we’re 67 games into the season and after such a tremendous start to the season that mental side of the game has come back and made things more difficult because of a lack of focus.

Playing night in and night out can be rough. The team has these next five games at home, and they know the importance of these games. You could make or break the season as far as getting to the playoffs.

If the team can simply play better defense from the start of games, rather than finding themselves in a big hole and having to fight their way back, they’d be in far better shape.