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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The Cavs traveled to Atlanta and took on the Hawks on Friday night.  The game was one that had a lot of runs between the home and away teams.  It felt like every time the Cavs made a run, the Hawks made one as equally as strong.  The Hawks closed out the second quarter with a 20-4 run and they had a they had a 7-0 run to finish the third quarter.  The Cavs returned the favor and had a 10-0 run towards the end of the 4th quarter which put the game within reach.

The Cavs dominated the Hawks on the glass.  Any time a team out-rebounds their opponent 49-28, they will have an opportunity to win.  The rebounding differential afforded the Cavs 7 more field goal attempts than the Hawks which proved to be the difference between winning and losing the game.  History will remember this game as the one where Alonzo Gee rebounded Dion Waiters' three point shot attempt and laid it in with 0.3 seconds left, but that basket would not have mattered if the Cavs didn't put themselves in a position to win with all of the extra possessions.

What more can we say about Anderson Varejao at this point?  When news broke that Kyrie Irving would miss four weeks due to a fractured left finger, I was concerned that the team would be unwatchable until he returned.  Hell, they were pretty unwatchable with Irving.  Varejao has been playing out of his mind and is making a rock-solid argument for why he should be going to Houston for the All Star game.  Varejao had 15+ rebounds for the seventh game in a row.  In addition, this was his seventh double-double in a row.  The Brazilian big man had 20 points, 18 rebounds and 3 assists in 35 highly-effective minutes.  I could be wrong about this, but it felt like the Cavs didn't run a single play for Varejao.  There wasn't a single thing Varejao didn't do well against the Hawks.  He scored, rebounded, distributed, didn't foul and even made some clutch free throws with 15.8 seconds remaining in the game.  The only thing Varejao could have done that would have been more spectacular would have been hitting a game-winning three as he did in 2009. 

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A lot of people seem to think that Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters are the “exciting young cornerstones” of the current Cavalier roster. But for those of us who’ve been clamoring maniacally for more Jeremy Pargo and Omri Casspi, tonight was our night! Yes, the Cavs may have suffered an 89-79 defeat to the lowly Pistons (6-13) in a game devoid of meaningful ramifications, but no glowing numbers on a scoreboard were gonna rain on our parade.

It was just a few years back that Pargo and Casspi were plying their trades for Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Euro League (as if we need be reminded!). Now here they were—both in uniform and actually starting for the NBA’s 25th best basketball team on an electric Monday night in early December. So, with the usual starting backcourt of Irving (finger) and Waiters (ankle) on the shelf, did the Tel Aviv Tandem take the proverbial ball and run with it? Well, not exactly. Pargo (4-for-13) and Casspi (4-for-11) shot a combined 33% from the field for the night. But on the bright side, that simply brought them in line with the rest of the Cavaliers roster, as Cleveland shot a respectfully pedestrian 34% as a team, including a tasteful 3-of-20 (15%) from beyond the arc. 

Give credit where it’s due. The Pistons have leap-frogged the Cavaliers (4-14) in the Central Division basement in recent weeks by playing some pretty sound defense (Detroit ranks 12th in the league in points allowed per game and has won 5 straight at home). Still, one cannot help but marvel at the collective effort (or lack thereof) put forth by Cleveland’s makeshift lineup of ball-chuckers tonight. Coming off a genuinely gutsy performance in a double-overtime loss to Portland on Saturday, the Cavs never led after the 9:41 mark of the first quarter tonight. And everyone contributed to this contemporary art installation we’ll call “When the Bricks Came Down at The Palace (of Auburn Hills)."

Tristan Thompson: 4-for-13. Alonzo Gee: 2-for-10. Boobie Gibson: 1-for-6. Even the Cavs’ resident folk hero Anderson Varejao had to clank his fair share of bunnies (7-of-18) to reach his now increasingly “normal” line of 17 points and 18 rebounds. Outside of Andy, no other Cav eclipsed 10 points. Thompson did manage a double-double with 10 and 11, and Pargo tossed in 8 assists with his 10-point effort, but with Detroit out to a 56-39 lead by halftime, the bright spots were few and far between.

Brandon Knight led the way for the Pistons with 17 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds. Kyle Singler and Tayshaun Prince (yes he is STILL in Detroit) added 15 a piece, and Detroit’s quietly solid center Greg Monroe battled Varejao to grab 14 rebounds of his own, to go with 9 points (he’s averaging 16 ppg for the season).

Trailing by as much as 21 in the third quarter, the Cavaliers started chipping away at a glacier’s pace, eventually cutting the deficit to a manageable 12 when Tyler Zeller (8 pts and 4 rbs off the bench) and Rodney Stuckey exchanged jumpers in the final seconds of the third period, making it 75-63.

The Cavs rode that momentum into the fourth quarter by failing to score for the first four minutes of the frame. Even so, Detroit wasn’t exactly willing to run away with it, either. After extending the lead to 16, the Pistons fell into a dry spell of their own, allowing Cleveland to pull within 7 on a Varejao layup with 3:31 left to play. Andy added a pair of free throws shortly thereafter, making it an 85-79 Piston lead with 1:54 left. The Cavs never scored again, as our friend Pargo, in particular, put on a clinic of “ugh” down the stretch. In the span of two minutes, the former Gonzaga man racked up two offensive fouls, a missed layup, a blocked layup, and a pair of missed free throws. Ballgame.

Next up: The MASH unit welcomes the Rose-less Bulls for a game that might otherwise have been TiVo worthy.