CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s a trend developing for the Cleveland Cavaliers that’s becoming a concern for head coach J.B. Bickerstaff.
A competitive first half, followed by an unraveling in the final 24 minutes.
In Saturday night’s 124-99 drubbing at the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks, Bickerstaff noticed something particularly troubling.
“I think we’ve taken a step back with our defense,” Bickerstaff said. “
It doesn’t help when your opponent is the likes of Milwaukee, who in two separate occasions flashed multiple variations of flexing their offensive muscle.
“This is a high powered offensive team we’re playing but they make you do things that you don’t necessarily want to do,” Bickerstaff said. “One night it’s 70 points in the paint, the next night it’s 40-plus percent from three.”
Friday night the Cavaliers held down the Bucks prolific aerial assault from beyond the arc, limiting Milwaukee to shooting 31-percent from downtown. But the Bucks poured in 74 points in the paint as Giannis Antetokounmpo began to heat up in the second half.
Saturday night, the Bucks launched 34 3s and connected on 16 of them.
“I think we’ve gotten complacent defensively,” Cavs center Andre Drummond said. “I think it’s become so routine for us that we forget the simple things that we need to do like being at the nail. I think we’re so keen on how we play that we forget to to the little things.”
Drummond recorded a double-double Saturday night scoring 28 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. The Cavs big man has been adjusting to teams throwing double teams his way and recently has found himself exploring new nuances of his game.
“It’s been a lot of fun for me to try out new things being on the floor with different guys. Being on the floor with two bigs is always fun too to try and find the spacing and make it work,” Drummond said. “You’ve got to still remember I’m still new here too. I’m still trying to get used to the guys I’m playing with, having two new guys here as well and having our guards back in the lineup from being injured.”
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers find themselves adjusting as a unit on the fly with the constraints of a pandemic condensed schedule.
Things won’t get any easier for the Cavs moving forward. The next five teams on the Cavaliers schedule all have winning records.
Phoenix is up next, then Denver followed by Portland, The Clippers and Golden State.
“It’s figuring out how do we get enough on court practice time to rep out what we’re doing. The games are coming so fast that it’s hard to get high-quality practices in,” Bickerstaff said. “We just need to find a moment where we can get some time to get back to who we are. I think also trying to play a little bit faster, I think that’s taken a little bit of the steam.”
