Call it as you like. Say we lost due to fatigue, or the road game factor. I think it was an honest loss, but an acceptable one. Good teams lose sometimes. We just have to shake it off, look at what we did wrong, and recommit to our system.
My two big takeaways were that 1: We played like we have something to prove, and it ended up biting us in the ass.
And 2: Nothing about the Cavs team looked scary or dominant. This team is really beatable. The only quarter I feel like they really outplayed us was the 4th. But the only players that really seemed to play well were Delly and TT.
Lebron was settling for so many open jumpers that looked awful. He's just not powering through to the bucket as often as he used to. He's still a dominant player, and probably will play more aggressively in the playoffs, but his shooting has really fallen off and its honestly a little sad.
Love was such a non factor they didn't play him in the fourth. He's a role player on the Cavs team. A shooter you should respect but such a defensive liability it evens itself out.
Kyrie is a weirdly ISO heavy streetball savant who plays worse for the team than Delly, who honestly really impressed me.
I'm not saying we're going to beat them in a series. I'm saying they're beatable. They're not as scary as last year and they've got legitimate issues with their roster. This might be the last year LBJ can power them to the finals just by himself, and the way he reacts after every loss to an Eastern conference team makes it seem like he knows it.
And like all good teams do, eventually we as fans are going to have to shake regular season losses like the Cavs fans do. Just smile and say, we'll see you in the postseason. Hope y'all make it next year.
Submitted March 06, 2016 at 09:51AM by desmedt24