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Game Night Observations: A Lack Of Energy And Hustle

Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell and J.B. Bickerstaff. ESPN Cleveland/Rob Lorenzo

Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell and J.B. Bickerstaff. ESPN Cleveland/Rob Lorenzo

Game Night Observations: A lack of energy and hustle

As of Friday, December 23, 2022

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Danny Cunningham covers the Cleveland Cavaliers for 850 ESPN Cleveland and thelandondemand.com

Some nights, teams just don’t have their best game for whatever reason. Friday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t as they lost to the Toronto Raptors 118-107.

Not much of anything went well for the Cavaliers. The Raptors outplayed them in every facet of the game. Defensively, the Cavaliers didn’t put forth a strong enough effort on the perimeter and the Raptors rarely missed, finishing with 19 made 3-pointers on 37 attempts. Offensively, not a single member of the Cavs reached the 20-point mark.

On paper, this is just one loss for the Cavs in an 82-game season. It’s not likely something that’s going to turn the season one way or the other. Bickerstaff, however, viewed it as a disappointing response to a big win on Wednesday night over Milwaukee.

“It was – the disappointing part was our response to success,” Bickerstaff said. “That’s what this league is about at the end of the day. You win a game on a Wednesday night in December, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t think we responded well and our approach wasn’t to go out and take a game.”

The win on Wednesday night for the Cavaliers over the Bucks was an important one for them. They needed that type of victory against a “big brother” type of team. In the same breath, this isn’t how a team should respond to that type of triumph.

“I think it’s human nature,” Bickerstaff said of his team’s response to a big win ”I think when you have success, you tend to get comfortable and the great thing about the NBA is as soon as you get comfortable somebody kicks you in your face and Toronto is just the team to do it.”

That complacency was most evident in the starting group when the second half began. The Raptors led at halftime by 16 points and opened up the second half on a 14-4 run, pushing the lead out to 83-57.

That prompted a timeout by Bickerstaff. After the conclusion of the timeout, all five starters – Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Isaac Okoro, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen – found themselves on the bench. None of them checked back in until the start of the fourth quarter.

“It was just our energy, man,” Mitchell said after the game. “They kicked our ass, to be honest with you. You can say you have nights like that, but after a win like we had against Milwaukee, it was kind of upsetting to come up the way we did as a group, especially the starters, I really don’t want to put it on the rest of the guys.”

The starting group let the team down on Friday night. They were out-hustled and outplayed until turning things on in the fourth quarter after the benching had taken place.

“They weren’t holding up their end of the bargain,” Bickerstaff said. “There’s a responsibility that goes with being a starter. Your responsibility is to set the tone to start the game and start the half and I don’t think our guys were doing that.”

It was a message that was received, as four of the starters played all 12 minutes of the fourth quarter and outscored the Raptors by nine points. Whether or not that carries over to Monday night’s game against the Brooklyn Nets is what matters just as much, too. 

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