Repeat after me: the sky is NOT falling.
Yes, the Cavs lost another game to a sub-.500 team tonight. Yes, they were out-hustled and out-executed on their home floor. Yes, the haters will come out of the woodwork again to declare that the Cavs are not a championship team because of these supposed mental lapses, because they’re not taking certain opponents seriously enough, because Mike Brown is a bad coach, or because of any other number of grandiose and damning conclusions.
As I’ve written before, sports pundits don’t account very well for context. Every team ultimately plays 82 games before the playoffs start. But how and when they play those games can differ dramatically. As Brian Windhorst points out, the Cavs have now played:
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The most total games of any team in the NBA
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The most road games of any team in the NBA
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21 games in the last 36 days (1 game each 1.71 days)
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Their last 18 games in 18 different cities
One other fact I’d like to add to the above: of the 18 back-to-backs on the Cavs’ 2009-10 schedule, they’ve already played 12. That means only 6 more between now and their final game on April 14.
I suspect that we spectators tend to lose sight of the wear and tear this kind of a schedule can put on a team. The logistics of playing NBA basketball are not as simple as just showing up to an arena, doing a shoot-around, and then playing a game. There’s air travel. Bus travel after landing. An endless stream of hotels. The constant re-adjusting of your routine to an environment that’s constantly changing. The pressures of trying to maintain relationships in your personal life during a highly demanding season.
Instead of considering these elements, fans demand perfection from players and coaches at all times. On the relatively rare occasions when the team doesn’t deliver, there’s an uproar. Especially in the LeBron era.
Consider this, though: if the team with the superior record actually won every game they played against a lesser opponent, it wouldn’t really be a sport. It’d be math.
On top of the obvious rigors of their recent schedule (the link to Windhorst’s blog includes some more coverage on just how worn out the players and coaching staff are looking), some wacky things happened in tonight’s game. For instance, Flip Murray — a career 29.7% 3 point shooter who has submarined to a career-low 23.4% this season — hit 2 of his 3 attempts from distance, one with a hand in his face late in the 4th quarter. In a game decided by a single possession and a measly 3-point differential, a statistical anomaly like that can completely swing a victory.
In other words, some times weird sh*t happens.
By no means am I saying the Cavs shouldn’t have won tonight. In general, they’re a better team than Charlotte. But in my opinion this loss is nowhere near as troubling as a lot of people will try to make it out to be.
A final thought: a little less than a year ago (Jan 27, 2009) the Lakers lost to the Bobcats at Staples Center. That game marked the 5th time in the last 6 meetings between those two teams that the Bobcats emerged victorious. Coincidentally, the Cavs now dropped 2 of 3 to the Bobcats in the season series this year. Point being, some times certain teams just have your number — even if you’re ultimately a championship team.
-T
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