The month of March. Presumably, that is the Cleveland Cavaliers’ deadline for figuring out what’s right, what’s wrong and how they need to play down the stretch of the regular season in order to hit the playoffs as the contender and NBA’s second-best team most expected them to be.
* Recap: Hawks 117, Cavaliers 115
Until March – well, unless their current hiccups and flaws grow so serious as to doom them to the East’s lower half of playoff seedings – there really isn’t much reason to panic over the Cavs’ slow (4-6) start. But that won’t stop the media that cover the Cavaliers, including Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com, from chronicling every up, down and melodramatic moment as LeBron James & Co. try to find their way through 2017-18:
“It’s no secret we’re starting games off awful, terrible,” Dwyane Wade said. “And they got it going early and the effort or the focus just wasn’t there to start off and you try to battle back, you waste a lot of energy trying to come back from 16-18 down and it’s tough nightly to do this.”
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But since Wade has joined the bench and J.R. Smith returned to the starting lineup, the Cavs have trailed by 10, three, 13, 10, two, and nine after one quarter in six of the last seven games.
The only night that was different was Friday, when the Cavs hung 42 on the Wizards in what turned out to be a 130-122 win.
“It’s no secret in this locker room, but our first unit, we’ve got to start off better,” Wade said, again. “I want one time for the first unit to get on the second unit because we blew a lead. I’m waiting for that day to happen. But we’ve definitely got to start off better, man.”
The Cavs are 4-6 this season and losers of five of their last six games. The Hawks entered play missing five rotation players and losers of their last eight games
In particular, Vardon digs into the lineup inconsistencies and shooting woes that have dogged the Cavs to open 2017-18:
Only two players — LeBron James and Kevin Love — have started every game. James scored 26 on Sunday, 57 on Friday night, and is third in the NBA in scoring. Love had a bad game against the Hawks (four points, 1-of-6 shooting, four fouls), but he was sent to the hospital before the game was over with an unspecified illness.
Neither James nor Love has been good defensively, but then again, who has? The Cavs are still the league’s worst overall defense and worst at defending the 3-pointer. The Hawks nailed 6-of-8 3s in the first quarter.
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In consecutive losses to the Pelicans, Knicks and Pacers last week, four or five starters on those teams scored in double figures in each game.
Smith is averaging 5.3 points and shooting .275 from the field and .234 from 3-point range. He was benched for Wade to start the season and hasn’t recovered. Sunday was Rose’s first bad game (4-of-12, four turnovers), but he missed four games with an injury. Crowder and Tristan Thompson (now injured) have bounced in and out of the lineup.
“We just have to try to find a way,” James said. “We’ve had guys in and out and different lineups, but the energy and effort from everybody. We don’t want to single anyone out, but everyone has to step up their play for us to be as good as we’d like to be.”
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