CRISIS: Is loss to Boston Celtics ROCK BOTTOM For the Cleveland Cavaliers? | Lack of HUNGER?
All [Music] right, three, two, and one. On today’s show, the Cavs better hope that Sunday night against Boston was rock bottom because if it’s not, the season’s not going to go the way it’s planned. If it is, they can turn it around. But we’ll dive into all of it. What happened in Sunday’s loss, the end of the game, and how we got here on today’s edition of Locked on Cavs. You are Locked on Cavs, your daily Cleveland Cavaliers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hi everybody, my name is Danny Cunningham and I cover the Cleveland Cavaliers over at my Substack, the Inside Shot. And you are listening to another edition of Locked On Cavs, which is of course a proud part of the Locked on Podcast Network. now the number one sports podcast network in all of America. You can find this show and any other lockdown podcast wherever you get them. That means Apple, that means Spotify, that means anywhere else. Please do us a favor. Make sure you are subscribed to this podcast so you don’t miss the latest. And if you watch on YouTube, do us a favor as we get started. Hit that thumbs up button for us. Click subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss the latest locked on caps contents. And today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new FanDuel customers can bet us $5. And if your first $5 bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets used all across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started today. The Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday. Lost to the Boston Celtics 117 to 115. And this to me feels like rock bottom for this Cavs team. And I understand that I am recording this. It is 10 o’clock at night on November 30th and there is a long way to go. We are 25% of the NBA season completed with the Cavs. There’s a lot of basketball for them left to be played and certainly things can get worse. Um I didn’t think that they could over the past couple of weeks. I thought this team’s going to turn it around. They’re too good. We know who this team is. We There are so many things that are known about this group. They need rest. They need to get healthy. And I do still believe they need to get healthy. But this is a team that has not played two days anywhere near their standard. In my opinion, they have had one, maybe two games where they’ve looked like the team that we expect them to look like. And the Cavs lost this game by two points, but the final score doesn’t matter. And we will talk about the end ofame situation because I know that the final play that Kenny Atinson and the Cavs coaching staff drew up is maybe not what you or I would have drawn up. We’ll talk through that, but ultimately like I just don’t think that matters because the Cavs shouldn’t have been in this situation. And I think that’s what needs to be the focus from this. So, they played a Boston Celtics team who is, in my opinion, a very average basketball team. They’re not a bad team. I don’t think the Celt the Celtics stink, but they’re not a good team. They’re not a contender this year. The Celtics are in the midst of a gap year, right? Like, they don’t have Jason Tatum. They traded away Drew Holidayiday. Chris Porzingis not on this roster anymore. They are not the Boston Celtics that we’re used to seeing. They’re not a team that’s going to win 60 plus games. They’re 11 and N on the season. They’re a very average team. But guess what? Now, the Cavs are the same thing. The Cavs, as of right now, are a very average basketball team. I think they can get better. I think they will get better, but if that’s going to be the case, this kind of needs to be their rock bottom because they have not played to their standard. They are a team that came into this season expecting to be a championship caliber team. And I think most people, myself certainly included, thought that was possible. I didn’t go so far as to predict that the Cavs would win the title. I predicted prior to the season that they would at the very least win the Eastern Conference though. And I don’t want to say that that’s not possible now because I think there is still a lot of basketball left to be played. But it’s also I think more than fair to be very concerned about where things are at right now with this basketball team. And the Cavs fell behind to a Boston Celtics team by 21 points in the second half of this game. And the Boston Celtics played on Saturday night in Minnesota. So, it was the second night of a back-to-back for them. They lost an hour. The Cavs had been off since Friday. They had played one game essentially over the past six days. The Cavs are the fresher team. The Cavs are the team that has certainly more talent. Like, I don’t think that’s an opinion there. I think that is an objective thing. Even with the guys that they’re missing right now, they are a more talented group than who the Boston Celtics are as present. But what the Cavs aren’t right now is the biggest problem. The Cavs are not a hungry basketball team. They are not a basketball team that wants it more than their opponents. And I think that to me is the most troubling part of the first quarter of this season is that they can because we saw it in this game, right? The Cavs fell down by 21 points in the second half and they found a way to make it close and they gave themselves a chance, an opportunity to win the game at the buzzer despite the fact that they had no business winning this game. They did that because they are still somewhere in there a pretty good basketball team. They are still capable of being a great basketball team. They are still without question an extremely talented basketball team. Donovan Mitchell, my opinion, one of the six or seven best basketball players in the world. Evan Mobley, who we will talk about him because I did think like if you want to look for a bright spot from this game, Evan was very good uh particularly in that third quarter and that is worth talking about if nothing else. They’ve got Darius Garland who didn’t play great until the fourth quarter. They’ve got a lot of talent on this basketball team even with guys that are out right now. Now, I understand they’re not fully healthy, and that matters, and context is always required, but I don’t look at this I don’t look at this issue as one of being healthy or not healthy because this Cavs team, despite being down, the guys they were down where they didn’t have Jared Allen, they didn’t have Lonzo Ball, they didn’t have Sam Merrell, they’ve not had Max Truce, they didn’t have Larry N Jr., Um, they’re down guys, sure. But the guys that they have, like, you can’t look at this box score and tell me that one through nine between Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, DeAndre Hunter, Dean Wade, Jaylen Tyson, Craig Porter Jr., Tyrese Proctor, like you can’t go down the list and tell me, “Oh, yeah, actually it’s the Celtics who are starting.” Jaylen Brown, awesome player. Peyton Pritchard had a great night, very good player. Xavier Tilman, Jordan Walsh, Sam Hower is a fine player, but like you can’t tell me that the Cavs were not the more talented team on Sunday night than Boston. Like, I don’t think it’s particularly close. But the other thing that was not particularly close is how much Boston wanted this game. How much hungrier the Boston Celtics played on Sunday night than the Cavs did. That is the biggest problem right now for the Cavaliers is that they are a team that they have this gear they can get to. And Jaylen Tyson, I thought, had some very insightful quotes in the locker room after this game. And I will read a couple of them verbatim because I do think they’re important. I don’t love reading quotes, but when they’re important, I’m going to read them. And the Cavs can show like the Cavs have this gear they can get to, right? Because they are super talented. You can’t be a team that is down 21 points and manufactured the kind of comeback the Cavs had without having that type of talent, right? They did it because Evan was awesome at times. Donovan was great down the stretch. Darius hit some big shots. Like they were able to come back because they have a lot of talent and they can when they have to push things into overdrive. They have a gear and I do think that we saw it on Sunday and we have seen it at times this year. We’ve not seen it frequently enough which is the problem. But they have a gear they can get to that very few other teams in the NBA have access to. The problem is the Cavs are so infrequently in that gear. They’re a team right now that looks to me like they’re coasting. They look to me like a team that thinks they can flip a switch. And the problem is, and I understand too, not there’s there are no teams that are going to be on 82 times a year. Like Oklahoma City has gotten off to this incredible start this season. They’re going to have a dud at some point. I promise you. The 73 and9 Warriors, they had a couple duds in there. So, I’m not sitting here expecting any sort of perfection from the Cavs or any other basketball team for that matter. Like, that is an impossible standard. But so far this year, the Cavs have so frequently been infrequently been able to find that gear. They are a team that is searching right now. They are a team that yes, there’s been some clunkiness. Yes, there have been guys in and out of the lineup. And those things are all understandable, right? Like if the Cavs offensively aren’t always on the same page, I think that’s very excusable at times. If the Cavs defensively, like if there are miscommunications, if guys are able to like struggle on the defensive end of the floor because of those types of things, I think that is a very excusable thing. When you have as many pieces that are shuffling the way the Cavs have, those things are bound to happen. But what’s not excusable is how frequently the Cavs lose the battles for the little things. I talked on Saturday’s show about the Cavs loss in Atlanta on Friday. And in that game, they gave up 36 fast break points. 36 fast break points, which is the most they’ve given up in a game all season long. And if you ask me, that is the reason why they lost that game because I do think that they did a lot of things pretty well. Well, let’s fast forward to Sunday because the Cavs did a fine job in the fast break department. It wasn’t great, but they only gave up 16 fast break points. I think you can live with that. Where they got hurt, particularly in the third quarter, was the second chance points where in the third quarter alone, they gave up eight second chance points. They gave up in the third quarter alone, they gave up five offensive rebounds. And it was cuz I remember because I looked at the box score at this exact point. The Celtics at one point in the third I think were leading the Cavs 16 to 14 just like third quarter score. And seven of the 16 points that the Celtics had at that point were second chance points. And that to me is the thing that cannot be excused because that to me and this was a result of like Jordan Walsh who if you are not like a balln knower if you’re just the casual fan or maybe you’re just a big Cavs fan and you don’t watch a lot of other NBA teams totally understand that. You probably don’t know who Jordan Walsh is. Why would you? He is a role player. like if and when the Celtics team gets good again, he either might not be there or will be like the 10th guy. Like that is who Jordan Walsh is as a basketball player. He played 38 minutes in this game, which was the most out of anybody. Scored 14 points, had six offensive rebounds. Six offensive rebounds. Jordan Walsh, a guy that most of you probably have not heard of, had six offensive rebounds in this game. And it felt like they all came in the big spot. Like for me, the biggest issue the Cavs had in this game was the hustle. It was the hunger. It was not finishing possessions because I thought the Cavs offensively, I actually thought they did a lot of good things. Thought their offensive process was really good. I thought they generated good looks without having gone back and looked at some of the like the the tracking data. I’ve not done that as of this recording. So, I maybe that changes, but like watching it live, I feel like, okay, the Cavs are getting shots that I think they should be happy with. And I think at times they were forcing the Celtics into shots that the Cavs should have been happy with, but they weren’t finishing the possessions. They were either fouling like Jaylen Brown got to the free throw line 16 times in this game or they were allowing offensive rebounds where the Celtics had 15 offensive rebounds that as I said led to 16 second chance points. That’s where this game was lost. The Cavs didn’t lose this game because they’re not a good basketball team. The Cavs didn’t lose this game because the Celtics are a better basketball team. Those things are not true. The Cavs lost this game because the Boston Celtics were the hungrier basketball team. Because the Boston Celtics were the team that has wanted it more. Go through a lot of the Cavs losses. And yes, some of them I think are excusable. Like when you’re playing for the fifth time in seven nights as the Cavs will be this weekend, that’s a tough spot to be in, man. It is. Especially when it’s a home road back toback at the back end. Totally get that. When you’re without as many guys as the Cavs have been at times, tough spot to be in. But I think when you get to a certain point, there has to be a want to. There has to be a desire. There has to be a hunger and that hasn’t existed yet for the Cavs. And that to me is the biggest red flag. So Jaylen Tyson talked after the game in the locker room and I thought he was very insightful. I’ll tell you what he said and why I thought it was insightful next right here on Locked on Cavs. But first, today’s show brought to you by Prize Picks. The holiday season, one of the best times for sports. You’ve got bowl games, big basketball matchups, playoff pushes, and it’s all happening all at once. 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That is L O C E D O NA to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Again, the code is locked on NBA to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup prize picks. It’s good to be right. Thank you again for making today’s edition of Lockdown Cavs your first listen. Thank you to those of you that make Lock on Cavs your first listen every single day. We will get to the end of the game situation that the Cavs found themselves in and why I don’t necessarily agree with the way that uh Kenny Atinson and the Cavs coaching staff handled that. But I want to get to Jaylen Tyson’s comments first because I think they’re important. And after the game, Kenny Atinson spoke and Evan Mobley spoke and Jaylen Tyson was the third person that met with the media. And he was asked by Serena, “What are your biggest takeaways from this game?” Very general question, a nice easy way to start off an interview. It’s something I do all the time when I’m asking questions. Said, quote, “That we can win any game that we play. We have a gear that we can get to that we get to in moments when we’re in rough situations, if that makes sense.” And I feel like we need to hit that gear from the jump. It’s a common theme from the jump. Even last year, we never start off good. So, adjusting the mindset going into games and then hitting that gear early and punching teams in the face. He means figuratively, of course, not literally. don’t actually punch people in the face. Um continues because I feel like we’re just getting hit hit and then we go wait we’re in cruise control and then the fourth quarter comes and we just expect a miracle comeback. That is exactly what this game felt like. The Celtics raced out to I think it was a 13-2 lead. Maybe it was a 14 to2 like they raced out to a big lead in this game which has been a common thing if you’ve watched this team this year where the Cavs have allowed other teams to dictate the style of the game that they play. This happened and part of it like the Celtics made some shots early. They hit their first four shots. They found themselves up 7 nothing like that. And that’s going to happen sometimes like that is what it is. But the way you respond is what is important. And I did think that the Cavs responded well to that in the first quarter. But then after being down in the first quarter, the largest lead that the Celtics had, like I said, was 12 points in that quarter when they were up 17 to5. They came back and they closed out that quarter well where it was 28 to 26 Boston at the end of the first quarter. And you get the feeling that okay, they weathered the storm. They’ll be fine. They’ve figured it out like it was just a rough start. No big deal, right? Well, then they I I’m not going to say like had command of the game, but the game never felt like it was in danger in the second quarter. And then they have an abysmal close to the second quarter where they’re up 51 to 49 with three and a half minutes left. They don’t score again at before the end of the first half. Boston goes on what was I believe an 80 run and the Cavs are lucky it wasn’t a 10- nothing run because Xavier Tilman’s basket got waved off at the end of the the first half after a terrible play. Like those are the things that the Cavs are dealing with right now. Th that to me cites lack of focus, lack of hunger, lack of drive, like all of the things that tell me that this is a team that right now thinks it can just sort of flip the switch, right? We’ve heard that term before in this town. So then I asked Jaylen a follow-up question. I asked him about the gear that he mentioned that they can get into because I do think he’s right about that. They do have access to that. I said, ‘Why do you guys think you’re not able to find that gear as consistently as you’d like? And Jaylen said, I just think we’re in cruise control, right? As a team, I think that we’re not hungry enough. What happened to us last year, like it’s a similar thing that was happening this year, getting ran out the gym, getting beat on the glass, toughness, right? So, I mean, it’s just a common theme and ultimately it’s on us to fix it. Now, Jaylen Tyson being the one to say this, I think is a good thing like personally for him. Like if you want Jaylen Tyson stock, good moment to buy. Like I I thought this was a good leadership moment. But I also look at it and say, well, what do the leaders of this team think? Because Jaylen had a great start to the season. There’s no doubt about that. And he was okay in this game. He had 17 points on 18 shots, which the fact that Jaylen Tyson is leading the team in field goal attempts, different story for a different podcast that we’re just not going to have time to get into today. But the fact that this was said out loud, I think is important because whether it’s Jaylen saying it or Donovan Mitchell who did not speak with the media after this game saying it or Darius Garland who also did not speak with the media after the game saying it or Moy who did speak after after the game. Um he didn’t quite go this far, but he did say like there is frustration. Um no matter who is saying it, I think it’s important that it was said out loud, right? Because I do think that’s where this team is at. I cannot push back on anything Jaylen said. I think he’s 100% right on all of this. And I think that right now, like it’s almost as if when you have a problem, the first step to fixing said a problem is admitting you have that problem. And the Cavs have a hunger problem right now. They to me have operated like a team that accomplished something last year. They won they won 64 basketball games. They were great in the regular season, but they ultimately they won the Central. Like their big accomplishment is that they won the Central division and that they kicked the crap out of a bad Miami Heat team in the first round. That’s their accomplishment because they lost in the second round. They were eliminated in the same exact game of the playoffs that they were eliminated the year before. They did not advance further. They did not grow in terms of playoff success. So, the way they have played this year, it’s almost as if to me they know they have that gear and Jaylen referenced it and we have all seen it, right? We saw it on Sunday night. We’ve seen that gear, but they’re operating like they don’t need to play with that gear. And that to me is a dangerous place to live. And that is where I think right now the Cavs are. And that’s why if this night, if Sunday night is rock bottom, okay, that’s fine. because there is still a lot of time left in the season. There’s no doubt about that. Like the Cavs have 75% or 74% of the schedule ahead of them. There is plenty of time for them to grow and get better and do all the right things. But I think at a certain point this becomes who you are. And maybe the Cavs are there. And if they’re there, they’re going to continue to do this stuff. They’re going to continue to look like this. They’re going to be underwhelming. and we will be talking about an early playoff exit and then we will be having conversations this summer of well how who needs to be traded how do you shake this team up because if that if the Cavs fail in the postseason like they’re not going to just they can’t run this back again or they can have this be their rock bottom and if this is their rock bottom they can figure it out. There’s plenty of time to do so but they have to admit that it is and they have to make it their rock bottom. They need to change things. They need to be a hungrier basketball team. They need to grow. They need to have that switch that they know they can flip. They need to have that switch in the on position far more frequently than it’s been so far to start this season. Okay, we are going to talk about the end of the game because after the Cavs were down by 11 with four minutes left, they had a chance to tie or win the game with less than a second left. Um Kenny Atinson talked about the inbounds play that was drawn up. Evan Mobley talked about it in the locker room afterwards. I don’t necessarily agree with the way they went about it. We will talk about it next right here on Locked on Cavs. But first, today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. And that is what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place live bets as the action unfolds every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. And live betting is the best when the game starts to shift, right? Maybe, and you would not have won if you did this, but maybe when the Cavs are down by 21 on Sunday and you started getting a sense, well, are they going to get blown out or are they going to fight back? And we know enough about this team that they do have some fight. They will fight back and they will make this at the very least a game. You could have grabbed the Cavs. I don’t know what the line would have been. I wish I would have checked FanDuel during this. You could have grabbed the Cavs at maybe, I don’t know, plus eight and a half. you would have found a way to win a bet with FanDuel right there or Monday Night Football. Of course, who can forget Monday Night Football coming up tonight because football just rolls on every night. We’re at the point in the season where basically there are games every single day and it is absolutely terrific. So, Monday night, New England playing host to the New York Giants Patriots 7 and a half point favorites. Maybe you don’t love that line. Maybe you want to see how the first couple of drives play out. You can see, you know what? I actually think New England’s going to win by 10. Or I think the Giants are going to keep this close. You can do that with FanDuel. FanDuel is the place to go. And if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com. That is f an due.com. And place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel. The game moves fast and so can you. Thank you again for making today’s edition of Lock on Cavs your first watch on YouTube. If you are watching right now, do us a favor. Hit that thumbs up button for us. Click subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss the latest locked on Cavs. And the Cavs ultimately did show a lot of fight in this game. And they waited too long to do it. And that led them to be in the point where they had the ball with less than one second remaining on the clock. Down by two points. They were down 117 to 115. They called the timeout after a free throw was missed. I believe it was Jaylen Brown who missed the free throw. And the Cavs drew up a play and Evan Mobley described it as a play that was either supposed to get Darius Garland an open three or get Evan a look in the paint. And when I asked Kenny Atinson after about this play, he said they wanted to get Evan the ball in the paint. Um Evan had had a great game would obviously have been a big moment for Evan. And I can understand that rationale especially with that little time on the clock. The thing that I am lost with though that I disagree with about what the Cavs did, unless they were trying to do a very specific thing, and even then I I don’t necessarily agree, but they had Donovan Mitchell as the inbounder, which I can’t get on board with because for as good as Evan was in this game, and he was very good. I I think that his game deserves a lot of credit. He had 27 points. He was 11 of 17 shooting. He had 14 rebounds, four assists, only one turnover, um only one foul as well. Like I think that we expected I know because I expected this. Um we expected to see this type of game, not maybe not that exact stat line, but this type of game from Evan Moley regularly to start this season. I know I expected this and I think the Cavs thought they would be seeing more of this and who knows like he had that game that I talked about earlier this week or last week I guess. I don’t know what day it is. Thanksgiving weekend always throws me off. But he had that game against Charlotte where he was just a monster last year and then from that point forward he was an allNBA player before that. I don’t know that he was. Maybe this will be that game for him. I don’t know. I don’t know what the future holds. But anyways, the Cavs should not have had Donovan Mitchell throwing the ball in in that situation. And Kenny Atinson said that, you know, Donovan in that situation they think is their best passer, especially with Lonzo Ball not available as he did not dress for this game because they’re load managing him and he’s not playing in both halves of back to backs. So I understand that you want a good passer there and you need a good passer in that situation, but you can’t have it be your best offensive threat. That is what I disagree with. Now, I know Darius Garland has had some very big fourth quarter moments, and I know that Darius Garland is probably a better three-point shooter than Donovan Mitchell. He is. He’s He’s an awesome shooter. And I understand also that given who the Cavs had available on Sunday night, they didn’t have their full complement of guys. But I look at this and say, well, what makes it more difficult for the Celtics to defend a play where they know because there is less than 1 second left, they know whoever is throwing the basketball in is not a threat to score. You cannot throw the ball in, get it back, and shoot with less than a second. Now, if the Cavs had like six seconds left on the clock, Donovan Mitchell trigger triggering, fine, no big deal. But less than a second, that takes your best player out of the play. And that to me is the thing that I think is the biggest issue. Like yes, with less than a second remaining, any inbounds play, unless you’re the Miami Heat against the Cleveland Cavaliers, as we saw earlier this year, any play like that has such a a low chance of working and tying or winning the game. But I think that having a good passer there matters, but having your best offensive threat, having one of the best scorers in basketball in a position to potentially tie or win the game matters more. Like what is more likely? Donovan Mitchell is able to make something out of a so- so pass or the Cavs are going to score in that situation when the Celtics know that Donovan Mitchell is not a threat to score. Now, the one thing that I could maybe say is if the Cavs were trying to draw up that same play that Miami ran against them, but even then, I think Darius Garland’s the better passer in that situation. And sure, Darius is smaller than Donovan, and the concern there is that the Celtics are going to put a big on the the inbounder. And I believe they had Xavier Tilman at first defending Donovan Mitchell and then they backed him off and played like this zone look because they probably snuffed out what was coming because they watched film and they know that you know every team kind of has these same plays drawn up in that situation. But I look at that and say that is the thing that you know maybe it didn’t matter like maybe Darius throws the ball into Donovan and he can’t get a good shot off because they have less than a second left. um maybe Evan throws it in and they can’t get a good May it does maybe it doesn’t matter like maybe there was just not enough time left that no matter what they did they weren’t going to get a good shot and I understand that um but ultimately I thought that this was not a good decision and it’s easy to second guess in the afterwards but even sitting there in real time I’m not sure I understood it and even after hearing the explanations from everybody it’s not something certainly that I agree with but ultimately I said earlier it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the Cavs should not have been in that position. It I’m not going to sit here and say, you know, it would have been a bad thing if the Cavs won this game. Nobody does that. But if the Cavs would have escaped with this, it’s with a win on Sunday, like say they would have found a way to tie the game and and gone to overtime and won. That’s almost like enabling their bad habits because I do think right now they’ve got some bad habits and I think they were on display in this game on Sunday against the Celtics and enabling bad habits is not a good thing. So maybe maybe this will be the wakeup call for this team. Maybe this will be the rock bottom and they will find their way out of it and they will turn back into the team that going into this season we all thought would be a not just an Eastern Conference contender but a team capable of winning the title. But right now, they look very, very far away from the team that they thought they could be and certainly the team that we thought they could be. But the good thing, as Kenny Atinson said, the good thing is they get a chance to go right back. They play the Indiana Pacers, who have been playing better basketball lately. They’ve been healthier. They’ve won a couple of games in a row. The Cavs second night of a backto-back tonight in Indiana against the Pacers feels like a bigger game than it probably should because of what happened on Sunday. I will be there in Indiana to watch that game. I will have a podcast after probably from the floor in Gamebridge Fieldhouse like I did last year. So I will have you covered on whatever happens in Monday night’s game. Also before then the whip round is back. Tony E stops by. Jeff Garcia from Locked on Spurs stops by because the Cavs play the Spurs on Friday. Chuck Walter of Locked on Warriors also stops by the Cavs play the Warriors on Saturday. So, I’ve got you covered with three of the four upcoming opponents for the Cavs this week as they continue through a five games in seven nights stretch. It will be difficult. It will test them. As I said, I think this stretch is going to tell us a lot about what this team is made of. And so far, it doesn’t look good. We’ll see if that changes tonight. And like I said, I will have you covered from Indiana right here at Locked on Cat. So, as you get out of here, if you’re on YouTube, hit the thumbs up button, subscribe, and notification bell. If you’re listening wherever you get your podcast, Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else, please do us a favor, hit subscribe. That’s the best way to help grow the show. And I will be back tomorrow talking more about the Cleveland Cavaliers.
On Monday’s edition of Locked On Cavs, Danny Cunningham discusses the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 117-115 loss to the Boston Celtics on Sunday night. With the team losing three straight games for the first time this season, Danny questions whether this will be rock bottom for this team or if things can still get worse. He also reacts to the comments made by Jaylon Tyson after the game about the team playing with a lack of hunger amid the struggles. Finally, Danny talks about the end of game situation that the Cavs found themselves in and how the team could have done things differently.
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26 comments
I noticed the Cavs this year dont seem to have that fight in them. It's almost like they dont care. Theyll finish 3rd in the East and lose second round again.
Team wholeheartedly believe that they “went too hard in regular season “ last year it’s obvious and its dumbest shit ever
The cav is a average team
Who is you the ant shit
I think perception is also playing into it, Cavs have played a very tough schedule
death… taxes… and the cavs going down by double digits in the first quarter. Seriously we fuckin suck in the first
You act like the player you name are good players
For the cav
Celtics fan here… Dealing with some injuries is a real thing, but I also think the team at large is learning that getting bounced early last year wasn't a fluke. Gotta compete every night and that bad habit of just running through the motions to win can kill you – Celtics fans know that well. Better to happen now than later.
I said may times already this season. Trade Allen and Wade.
They're not going to the playoffs!!!
Donovan Mitchell is gonna look really good for the pistons rocking that red & blue. It’s only a matter of time
The lack of hunger makes this team little fun to watch – unlike last year.
Kenny & Co straight to coaching jail for that last play (and this messy unmotivated szn honestly)
lol these titles are so dramatic
He ended his show when he called Boston avg. Cavs then r worse than avg.
If Payton Pritchard can do that to us…then what else do you need to see????? We got here Danny…because Koby has put us in SALARY CAP hell! The 2nd Apron is strangling our ability to do anything! His drafting of positionally undersized players has left a STAIN of STINK!!!!!!!! SEXTON/OKORO/AGBAJI/WINDLER/KPJ….WOW what a draft record!!! I won't mention Khalifa FLOP(DIOP) either! He was soooo busy puitting together a team of 6 4/ 6 5 2 guards over the years!
Does anyone think that DG or even DM will be healthy when the playoffs roll around? Yes..I'm talking about our 1/2 BILLION dollar backcourt $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Can you imagine what it will be like if JB's Pistons have a better record than us at the end????
You keep putting your this cavs team on a pedestal like they have won something. All while calling other teams average every time yall lose, all the time. Get over your self. Your team is just a regular season team. lol just to lose every year in the 1st, 2nd round. Get off your high horse
D.mitch is not top 20 in the league. Offensively maybe top 10 but defensively he is terrible.
I say how the cavaliers been playing there not going to make the playoffs thay have lose three games in a row to good teams now if the playoffs started today the cavaliers would be in the playin tournament there not playing good basketball and Mitchell is not playing good basketball either
You can just tell Mitchell not happy unless jacking a bunch of shots. And DG out here stealing money
The Cavaliers are a 2nd round exit waiting to happen!!😂
DEFENNNSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE
Hello my good sir.
Irony….. EVERYONE Constantly says the regular season means nothing then you say it's rock bottom now. Isn't it regular season still? Does it only matter when it's negative or does it not mean anything if The Cavaliers are doing well? It's not irony it's cherry picking and poor analysis.