NEW YORK: Sixteen thoughts for 16 shots by LeBron James in Thursday’s 104-95 loss to the Brooklyn Nets…
1. LeBron James can talk about working habits and preparing for the playoffs, as he did again Thursday night, but this turkey is too far cooked to change the ingredients now.
2. The Cavs have varied between bitter, salty, undercooked and underwhelming for 72 games now. It’s difficult to see that changing at this late stage. They are what they are: Very, very frustrating.
3. It’s difficult to say that about a team that won a division title and surpassed 50 victories, but that simply isn’t good enough for a team with this type of talent and this type of payroll. They trailed a hapless, hopeless and helpless Nets team by 13 in the second quarter. They missed 10 straight shots when it mattered most and essentially went scoreless for the game’s final 6:11. Jordan McRae made a meaningless 3-pointer in the final seconds, but no one cared by that point.
4. It’s easy to call this loss inexcusable, but it’s no more inexcusable than the 21-point loss at Miami, the home loss to the Grizzlies’ D-League team, the blowout loss at Washington, the late collapse at Toronto and on and on and on. This time they managed to lose to the second-worst team in the East, a team with a miserable present and no hope for the future.
5. “A lot of times when you look at a team’s record or you come in and not respect your opponent like we should, things like this happen,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “We want to try and pick it up and compete when it’s too late.”
6. Such as the third quarter, when James was a one-man freight train. He began the night 10 of 10 and ended 13 of 16. He was relentlessly attacking the rim and the Nets were helpless to stop him. James scored half of his 30 points in the third quarter to turn a 10-point halftime deficit into an 83-80 lead to start the fourth. But James, Kyrie Irving and J.R. Smith played the whole third quarter and Timofey Mozgov played all but one minute. The starters needed a break to start the fourth, then even when they returned, Lue thought they were out of gas.
7. “Just gotta play hard, that’s it. Every time,” Lue said. “We just have to compete.”
8. It sounds so simple, but the Cavs have mangled it so badly this season. James said he doesn’t believe there is an issue as to why the Cavs can’t play hard for 48 minutes every night, but he couldn’t find the right word to describe how they’ve played, either. Likely because it doesn’t exist.
9. “Tonight we took a step backwards,” James said. “And we can’t afford to do that late in the season like this.”
10. Love looks lost right now, particularly on offense. He was 0 for 5 from 3-point range and is down to 25 percent from deep in the month of March. He missed two important 3-pointers in Wednesday’s win against the Bucks, but was bailed out by J.R. Smith. Thursday he air balled a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter and continues to fumble around for consistency.
11. I’ve written this before, but the Cavaliers are predicating themselves on being a drive-and-kick team. The only problem is once they kick, very few are consistently knocking down 3-pointers. Iman Shumpert, Kyrie Irving, James and Love are shooting some of their lowest 3-point percentages of their careers. Smith and Matthew Dellavedova have carried the Cavs in 3-point shooting most of the season.
12. James has often called this a make or miss league and rarely disputes the amount of 3-pointers the Cavs attempt until recently. He conceded again after this game that the Cavs’ ineptness at shooting 3-pointers forced him to tell guys to start attacking the rim. That poses problems, too.
13. “I mean, we are who we are,” James said. “I mean, besides myself and Kyrie and Kev at times, we don’t have many guys that’s going to live in the paint, that can create and get into the paint … We spray out to our shooters and we believe in their ability to knock down shots – Kev, J.R., Shump, Delly, Channing. They had some very good looks tonight. They just didn’t go down.:
14. Both Lue and James acknowledged they had a talk after the loss at Miami, but neither wanted to divulge specifics of the conversation. Lue made it clear, however, that James needed to do more. He has responded by averaging 29.6 points in his last three games while shooting .596 over his last three games. But it wasn’t enough to beat the hapless, helpless, hopeless Nets.
15. “I thought he did a great job,” Lue said of James. “Offensively he was attacking the basket. He tried to get everyone else involved but we just didn’t make shots on that end of the floor. It’s not about LeBron, it’s about the team. We have to play hard for 48 minutes and if we don’t, things like this will continue to happen.”
16. The Cavs will get a day to think about it before playing the Knicks on Saturday. Talk to you then from the Garden.