1 stud and 1 dud for Cavs in their loss to 76ers on Wednesday

Cavs dud: J.B. Bickerstaff

Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has been pretty solid for the most part this year, being a defensive-minded coach and orchestrating the Cavs defense to being one of the best in the whole association. Bickerstaff is in the running for Coach of the Year but straight up got out-coached Wednesday night. Granted his matchup was against one of the best in Doc Rivers but his rotations and decision-making were just inexcusable.

My first gripe is with Cedi Osman getting no playing time. I get starting Lamar Stevens in place of Dean Wade but I think the Cavaliers really could have used Osman. Admittedly, Osman is wildly inconsistent but there wasn’t a time in the second quarter to throw him out there and see how he is feeling? Not to mention the 10 empty minutes given to Dylan Windler who just recently got back from a G-League stint.

Did Bickerstaff think sending him down would ignite some type of fire in him? Well, it didn’t and he basically did nothing going 0-of-1 from the field to go along with 2 rebounds and a steal. I really think Osman would have done more in that same amount of playing time; in fairness, Windler is better defensively. He’s just not providing much, if anything, on the other end, and Osman should’ve gotten some playing time.

My second issue is Kevin Love just not seeing enough time. This team is young and inexperienced at times and as we saw in the first half, this can snowball into poor situations like giving up 72 first half points and taking rushed shots.

With a veteran like Love out there, he can help slow the pace down and stretch the floor with his shooting ability. Love has had a career revival scoring 14 points per, to go with 7 rebounds this game. Love has been reliable for the Cavaliers this season and is putting himself into the Sixth Man of the Year conversation.

Overall, the rough start was hard to come back from even after a stellar 3rd quarter. The Wine and Gold will look to bounce back from this loss when they take on one of the other MVP candidates in Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Friday.