CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Since beating the Brooklyn Nets in back-to-back games, the Cavaliers have fallen off a cliff.
Cleveland has dropped eight of 10 and they’re now on the outside looking in at the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
The road hasn’t gotten easier for Cleveland, who plays at Denver Wednesday night as they continue their most difficult stretch against teams above .500 this season.
“We try not to make any excuses,” Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “We give our guys the belief that they can go get it done no matter what the circumstances are and that’s kind of where we live.”
Excuses are one thing, but reality is a different animal.
The reality for Bickerstaff and the Cavs is this: Kevin Love has played 46 minutes this season and remains out, Larry Nance Jr. is lost for six weeks and it is unclear when or if Matthew Dellavedova will return.
Injuries have taken their toll and force Bickerstaff to juggle lineups and experiment with them too.
“I’ve never been part of [a situation] where you lose the entire position,” Bickerstaff said. “There was a moment where we lost everybody who played point guard, and now we’ve got everybody who plays power forward gone. So it’s a first for me.”
In addition to trying to end the recent slide, Bickerstaff is hoping to keep his players confident while shuffling lineups and roles.
“When you lose things that drastically you have to make changes and you put people in positions that they’re not used to being in,” Bickerstaff said. “And then, how does that impact the guys around them? I think that’s the challenge for us.
“Staying true to message [with] the level of competition and how selfless we are we can do that every single day. The basketball stuff we have to figure out because of those injuries, we just have to work on that.”
