While the Cleveland Cavaliers still narrowly remain the top seed in the Eastern Conference over the Boston Celtics, their 2016-17 campaign has been anything but smooth, especially the second half of it. The Cavs have been about a .500 team ever since the beginning of the new year, which is unusually pedestrian for a LeBron James-led team. Head coach Tyronn Lue and his Cavs have had to face plenty of adversity over this stretch, a lot of it due to injuries to starters and key contributors Kevin Love and J.R. Smith.
Despite their struggles, down the stretch with only a couple weeks remaining in the regular season, the Cavs were able to string together four straight victories, including one over a more than formidable Boston Celtics squad. The streak provided hope that Cleveland had turned over a new leaf and that they were back to their championship form but in their last outing, the momentum came to a standstill, as they suffered an 114-100 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
While the Hawks are a respectable opponent, what made the loss worse was the fact that starters Paul Millsap, Dennis Schroeder, Dwight Howard, and Kent Bazemore all didn’t even suit up for Atlanta. In what was expected to be a blowout in favor of the fully loaded Cavs, the game ended up being an easy one for the Hawks to handle instead, as the likes of Tim Hardaway and Mike Dunleavy led them to a comfortable and shocking win.
After the frustrating loss, Tyronn Lue had strong words for his team’s lackluster performance. Following from ESPN’s Dave McMenamin:
“Obviously a bad performance,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said after his team failed to protect a nine-point lead midway through the third quarter and fell behind by as many as 20 in the fourth. “Beat Boston and have the game that we had, and to come back and not validate it against a team that didn’t even play their guys.
“I didn’t think we respected them tonight. I thought we thought we’d just mess around with the game until it was time to knuckle down. By that time, they already had confidence. That’s who we’ve been. That’s who we are. I hate it.
“These games like this come back and bite you, especially down the stretch when you’re trying to get some rest. Trying to hold on to that No. 1 seed and getting rest, and you come out and have a performance like this, it’s not good…”
“Just stupid, man,” said Lue, who compared the loss to others in the past when the Cavs fell flat against undermanned opponents (Memphis last season; New Orleans this season). “It’s tough because as a coach you’re searching and trying to get the right guys out there to bring some energy. Guys have been playing 38 and 39 minutes, and Bron, you know, he seems to have the energy every single night. A lot of times guys are not picking that up. Tonight is where we needed guys to pick up the energy and pick up the slack. We just didn’t do it.”
Lue seems as confused as the rest of us, as this Cavs team is hard to read. Cleveland still shows flashes of their championship caliber play last year, but at times, they seem to be ghosts of themselves and they frequently drop games that should be easy wins. With the playoffs right around the corner, LeBron James and the Cavs need to iron out their issues if he hopes to get to his seventh straight NBA Finals.
