Sir'Dom Pointer
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2016
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Folks...it's not about effort, and you can't turn it on like a faucet. You can tell when weak defense is just due to poor effort because teams will turn on the effort to get key fourth quarter stops to preserve a lead. Do you have any confidence in this team to get key fourth quarter stops? Do you really believe that they didn't care if Boston beat them the other day at Boston? Do you think they didn't care if Atlanta came back from 23 points down to win? Do you think the 29 points Boston hung on us in the 4th to win that game were because the Cavaliers weren't trying? Do you think the 42 points Atlanta hung on us in the 4th to make it a one point game with two minutes to go were because the Cavs weren't trying?
Thing is, people forget and even myself to some extent that the defense was better than this even in 2015-2016. Cavs were never that bad on the defensive end. And in 2014-2015 after the trades they were elite even before the playoffs.
But we really don't have a clue how the Cavs are going to look come playoffs time on the defensive end. It's going to be a problem if it persists for the first couple games of the playoffs.
Right now, we can't control it. What the coach can control is managing the minutes and rotations better.