Written by Jesse Lamovsky

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The Cavaliers tried like hell to lose to Milwaukee Friday night at the Q and finally succeeded, bumbling and blundering their way to a 90-86 loss to the surging Bucks, who moved to 12-9 with their fourth consecutive victory. Cleveland fell to 5-19 on the season and looked every bit like one of the worst teams in the NBA in doing so.

Although Monta Ellis sizzled his way to a season-high 33 points for the Bucks, the dominant theme of the night was Cleveland’s utter ineptitude on offense- particularly when it came to taking care of the basketball. The Cavaliers shot 39.5 percent and committed 24 turnovers. Shot-clock violations, offensive fouls, blind passes into traffic, fumbled dribbles; Cleveland left no avenue unexplored in terms of gift-wrapping the ball for the visitors from Wisconsin.

No Cavalier played well on this night. Kyrie Irving tallied 26 and earned points for toughness by playing through a nasty first-quarter spill in which he hit the floor face-first, but the sophomore star shot just 9-of-23 and committed six turnovers. Anderson Varejao, perhaps affected by a second-quarter ankle injury, grabbed 18 rebounds but scored only 8 points. C.J. Miles had another solid scoring night with 17 but committed four miscues of his own. Daniel Gibson hit for 11 off the bench but contributed four turnovers to Cleveland’s total.

It wasn’t as if Milwaukee played especially well. Although Ellis had his big night the Bucks shot a chilly 39.8 percent. Brandon Jennings, the man whose last-second heave beat the Cavaliers back in early November, bricked away at a 5-of-20 clip. Mike Dunleavy and Beno Udrih, two of the main principals in the earlier meeting, sat out Friday’s game with injuries. But it really didn’t matter with the way Cleveland played.

Other than a brief stretch midway through the third period, Cleveland never led. The Cavaliers trailed by as many as sixteen in the first half. After fighting back and taking a 59-58 lead with 5:23 left in the third period, Cleveland promptly yielded a 14-2 run to fall behind by double-digits again- and this time there were no more comebacks.

All in all it was basically just another long night for one of the NBA’s worst teams. There’s plenty more where this came from.

Next: Saturday night at 7:30 when the Cavaliers head to the Big Apple to take on the New York Knicks.