INDEPENDENCE, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – As the calendar flips to March, crunch time arrives for the Cavaliers.
Spring is near. So are the playoffs.
With 36 victories already in the can, the next seven weeks will make or break their season.
Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was asked Tuesday afternoon if he the season is already a success regardless of where they end up in the standings.
“We’ve got to finish,” Bickerstaff said. “If we don’t finish then no, to answer your question. If we don’t put together a stretch of us playing our best basketball, then this year in my mind would not be a success, so we’ve got to focus on that.”
For a team that had won 60 games combined over the previous three seasons, being one of the play-in tournament teams – seeds 7-10 – was a realistic goal.
Center Jarrett Allen acknowledged they realize things have changed.
“As the season goes along, expectations change,” Allen said. “We’ve been playing at such a high level that now the expectation has grown for how we have been playing. So now I think the direction, the goal is no longer only to make it inside the playoffs, it’s now to go as deep as we can inside the playoffs.”
Monday night the Cavs jumped out to an early 14-point lead on Minnesota, only to watch the Timberwolves flip the game by 37 points over the next two quarters to go up 23. Cleveland rallied to tie the game with just under 34 seconds remaining before Minnesota closed it out for a 127-122 victory.
While the praise for mounting a rally is deserved, there’s also the feeling that the Cavs shouldn’t have had to mount one to begin with had they maintained their level of play, which ultimately cost them a game they could have won.
“They’re definitely frustrating knowing that we play at that high level however long we do and then we have those lapses where play free, we turn the ball over, we just don’t make winning plays,” center Jarrett Allen said. “I think it’s just a part of us learning how to win. It’s not a great excuse but we are a young team. We are exceeding expectations but still those are not excuses for us losing those type of games.”
The Cavs continue to show the ability – regardless of who they have available – to flip the switch and play at a high level on both ends of the floor which is something Bickerstaff hopes does not become a pattern.
“It’s more of a curse than anything,” Bickerstaff said. “That was part of our conversation today, and it’s a learning thing for us. How many of our guys have played meaningful minutes down the stretch of a season? How many of our guys have been on successful teams with winning records? And understanding what it means to be a good team.
“You look at the best teams in the league and they very rarely have an off night. They may get beat sometimes but it’s not because they didn’t play their best basketball consistently, and that’s what we’re learning is we’ve got to play our best basketball every single night.”
The schedule over the final 21 games is daunting.
“I don’t have a fear if we’re playing our best basketball,” Bickerstaff said. “If we’re playing to a level we’re capable of, there’s no fear that we’ll get our fair share of wins because I trust in these guys. We just have to make sure we’re doing that.”
Of the Cavs remaining 21 games, only five are against teams that are not current playoff contenders. They’ll play nine against teams seeded in the top six to clinch playoff berth and seven opponents are currently seeded 7-10 for the play-in tournament.
“We understand that every game we play teeters us on the scale of being the second seed or being the seventh seed,” Allen said. “It’s that close so we know every game we have to go into it with a winning mentality.”
