Despite solid individual performances by the Cavs, the Detroit Pistons were able to easily leave Cleveland with a victory on Saturday night.  The Pistons were led by second year point guard Brandon Knight who had a career night.  Knight finished the game with 30 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists.  He came into the evening scoring 21.6 points per game against Cleveland, which is his highest average against any team. 

The Cavs are not going to win many games when healthy, but they do not stand much of a chance without their starting backcourt.  The good news is that there is a chance that both Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters might play against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.  Waiters is more likely to play than Irving, but the fact that they are both getitng close to returning is welcome news for the Cavs.  The team has lost all four of their games without the young backcourt. 

Anderson Varejao potentially began another double-double streak on Saturday night by scoring 16 points and securing 13 rebounds.  Varejao also had 5 assists, which would be cause for celebration in past seasons.  In this young campaign, he has had 5 or more assists in four different games.  As we are accustomed to, the Cavs did not lose due to a lack of effort from Varejao.  In fact, the entire team played hard.  They were simply lost due to a lack of talent and execution compared to their competitor.

A good indicator of whether a team played hard is rebounding.  The Cavs dominated the Pistons on the glass by pulling down 46 rebounds compared to 36.  The frontcourt of Anderson Varejao, Alonzo Gee and Tristan Thompson were too much for the Pistons to handle.  They secured 27 rebounds, which is two more than the entire starting five of the Pistons.  In addition, the starting frontcourt for the Cavs had 14 offensive rebounds, which is 4 more than the Pistons had in the entire game.

Tyler Zeller was highly effective in the first half.  The rookie 7 footer had 11 points and 7 rebounds in 20 minutes in the first 24 minutes of the game.  The Pistons made a stronger effort to contain him and he finished the game with 13 points and 8 rebounds.  It was nice to see Zeller score from inside the paint and from long jump shots in the first half, but it would have been better to see him do more than score 2 points and pull down 1 rebound after such a strong start to the game. 

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No matter how long a streak extends, it is always disappointing when it ends.  Anderson Varejao has been playing extremely well this season, but the truth of the matter is that his shooting has tapered off quite drastically in the past few games.  Anderson Varejao has shot 29.5% in the past three games.  What was once a major improvement for Varejao this season has become a liability recently. 

Speaking of streaks, the Cavs have lost four in a row and 8 out of 9 games.  The young team hasn't won on the road since Alonzo Gee won the game off of a Dion Waiters Kobe Assist in Atlanta on November 30. 

Injuries are an issue with this team, but there's no reason that they should be this completely incompetent and unwatchable.  Alonzo Gee went on a nice run of athletic dunks in the third quarter, but that was it about as entertaining as the game got for Cavs fans.  The rest of the game was a lot of missed close-range shots that seemingly had no way of not converting. 

A positive takeaway from the game is the fact that the Cavs kept the Timberwolves to 21.1% shooting from beyond the three point line, but Minnesota is a historically bad three point shooting team.  The Timberwolves are tied for last place with the Washington Wizards with a 30.6% success rate from the three point line. 

The Timberwolves caused problems for the Cavs in two main areas.  First, they recorded 12 more rebounds than the Cavs.  Considering the fact that the Cavs start a front court of two guys known for their rebounding, this is pretty unacceptable.  Second, Kevin Love proved that Anderson Varejao is not the Kevin Love stopper that Byron Scott claimed he had before the game.  Love finished the game with 36 points and 13 rebounds.  Kevin Love converted on more free throws (14) than the Cavs attempted (9). 

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The Cleveland Cavaliers paid homage to the 1983 film A Christmas Story on Wednesday night by giving out bobbleheads in the shape of the infamous leg lamp from the movie.  Perhaps the promotions department would have been better off doing a Groundhog Day promotion because games against the Bulls are starting to be all too familiar for the WIne and Gold.

The script reads as follows: The Bulls build up an insurmountable lead in the first quarter, a questionable player exceeds his season scoring average in the first quarter, the Cavs rally, Joakim Noah shoots some ugly free throws, Tom Thibedau leaves his starters in way too long and the Cavs ultimately lose by a lot.  The Cavs followed the script to a tee.

Cavs coach Byron Scott was not too disappointed with the outcome.  "I'm proud of our guys," said Byron Scott.  "They're battling. They're playing as hard as they can right now. " The Cavs have been losing their games badly, but they cannot be accused of not giving effort every night.  Wednesday night marked the 10th straight game that Varejao had a double-double with 15 rebounds.  The last time he didn't do so was on November 17th when he had a lackluster 4 point and 7 rebound game against the Dallas Mavericks.

An issue with this team as currently constructed and with all of the injuries is that the margin of error is minuscule.  The team cannot afford to get gown 16 points after the first quarter.  Combine that with giving up a career night to Marco Belinelli and winning will prove to be difficult.  "A lot of things are not going our way," said Scott.  "Besides that first quarter when we let it kind of get out of hand - couldn't make a shot and couldn't get stops - after that we played pretty solid. But that's the problem right now with us. We've got to play a damn near perfect game on both ends of the floor."  Byron Scott is correct in the sense that the Cavs outscored the Bulls 74-68 after the first quarter.  One has to wonder if the Bulls played a little more relaxed after starting the game on such a high note.

The new-look starting lineup featuring Daniel Gibson got off to a poor start.  The Cavs shot a woeful 31.3% from the field in the first quarter and went into the second quarter with a 27-11 deficit.  As dreadful as their offense was, the defense left much more to be desired.  The Bulls shot a blistering 66.7% in the first quarter.  To make matters worse, journeyman Marco Belinelli doubled his season average during the quarter with 10 points 80% shooting. 

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The Cavaliers had exactly one day to savor their last-second victory in Atlanta before being served with a dose of their own medicine. Nicolas Batum’s three-pointer with 0.5 seconds remaining in the second overtime gave road-weary Portland its first victory in the fifth game of a seven-game Eastern swing, 118-117. The loss dropped Cleveland to 4-13 on the season.

Cleveland hasn’t won back-to-back games since last March, and Saturday’s defeat was a reminder of what being an NBA bottom-feeder is all about. If a game was ever set up in advance to be won, it was this one- at home, against a substandard team deep into a fruitless and exhausting road trip and on the second night of a back-to-back. And the Cavaliers actually played fairly well. But they still lost.

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