The Cleveland Cavaliers are Struggling, and That’s Not a Bad Thing

In Game 1, the Cleveland Cavaliers rumbled back from an 11-point third quarter deficit, to lead for most of the fourth quarter and take home a first-game win against the Boston Celtics.

In Game 2, the Cavs led for exactly one minute and fifty-three seconds, all in the first quarter. Then Rajon Rondo showed them the door, and they lost by 18 brutal points.

As someone who writes about basketball, I feel like I should panic. Or something.

But let’s be realistic. The Celtics haven’t proven to be terribly consistent this year, and the Cavs have been able to manufacture wins. There’s an excellent chance that this series will go back to Cleveland tied 2-2, and it’s not impossible that LeBron James & Co. will take both games in The Garden and then close it out in their boring, non-vacationable city.

I have to imagine, rather, that the adversity is good for the Cavs, who have been under pressure to bring home a title since LeBron wildly overachieved in 2007 and took the team to the NBA Finals (in case you forgot, they got swept).

Just think. One year ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers stormed through a first-round sweep of the Detroit Pistons, winning each game by an average of 15.5 points.

In the second round, they delivered a similar hulksmash on the Atlanta Hawks, sweeping the series with an 18-point margin of victory. Everything was sweet.

Until the Orlando Magic proved to be a matchup problem, and the Cavs fell apart in six games. They were completely unable to adapt, and they tried to win the only way they knew how—with sheer talent. And they still won two games that way.

This year’s playoffs have already had a completely different vibe for Cav fans. By all accounts this is a better Cavaliers team, with the addition of Anthony Parker (to add wing defense), Antawn Jamison (to add a scoring threat), and Shaquille O’Neal (to add physical post presence).

That all said, they still dropped one game to Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls, and their average margin of victory was single digits. Now they’re 1-1 with the Celts.

It’s true that the Cavaliers have, in LeBron, the best player in the NBA and perhaps one of the most transcendent to ever play the game—and it’s on that premise that we expect them to be untouchable.

But no team has ever gone “fo’, fo’, fo’,” and swept every round of the playoffs. Moses Malone’s 1983 Sixers only lost one game en route to a title, and the only team to get close in the modern, four-round playoffs was the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers (who went 15-1 in a dominant title rumble, led by the now-old-and-fat Shaq).

Last year’s Lakers had to go to seven games to out the Houston Rockets before earning their rings. The year before’s Celtics went to seven with the Cavs, before closing them out and eventually winning the title.

The member of the team that needs the jolt most could be coach Mike Brown. While he’s gotten his team into excellent defensive shape, his inability (or lack of desire) to assemble an offensive gameplan has long plagued this team. They added some playmakers to the lineup, who are capable of creating their own shots, but in Brown’s system all the offense runs through LeBron first, and everyone else is there to catch and shoot.

Brown got wildly outcoached by Stan Van Gundy in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals, and it may have been his own hubris—not the team’s—that made them so stubbornly stick to their failing plan. Maybe by losing a few games earlier in the playoffs this year, Brown will be a little more adaptable.

So I’m going to wait on panicking about the Cavaliers. Maybe the challenge now is exactly what they’ll need to take out the Orlando Magic in the next round, or the West’s champion in the NBA Finals.

A few extra games will just give them a greater breadth of experience, and lessen the number of surprises they’ll see later on. Unless LeBron’s elbow gets worse, of course.

Then it’s time to panic.