29 points. The Cavaliers blew a 29 point lead to the Philadelphia 76ers. This was an absolute embarrassment on the Cavs part. What started off as an amazing first half where the Cavs led 69-45.
Let's start with all of the bad before any of the positives.
Overreactions
Despite absolutely destroying the 76ers and outworking them in every way, the team over reacted to some of the slightest changes that Philly made.
Philadelphia started running full court presses and immediately everybody started freaking out. Once that started, everybody on the team that was not Donovan Mitchell and James Harden would immediately pass out into the most outrageous moves.
There was so many runs that the Cavs could have easily shut down with a timeout or a reset, that brings me into my next negative.
Kenny Atkinson Still Calls No Timeouts
To open the third quarter, the 76ers went on a 16-0 run and Atkinson did not call a timeout until they were outscored 28-11 in the third. After that he again, would not call timeouts until the team was down 7 in the fourth quarter.
This is a running theme, in the playoffs when James Harden was getting cooked by Brunson, there was no reaction from Atkinson as well. He wants the team to play out of those runs, but they really struggle to get the confidence back.
Mobley and Allen Usage Fell Off a Cliff
In the first half, they scored 29 points between the 2 of them. At the end of this game, they combined for just 3 points. This is so bad, Embiid did not change how he was defending either of them, they both just did not get the ball or make something happen when they did.
Evan Mobley was actively trying, but it was just not working. Mobley’s positives outweighed the negatives for the team though. It looked as if he gained some major confidence, but in that second half he lost all of it.
Onto some of the positives
Rotation Looks Locked
Early into the game it looked as if Atkinson did find who his 9th and 10th man would be. As expected it looks like Craig Porter Jr. and Tyrese Proctor are going to be the last guys off the bench.
In this game though, Proctor got no time to make something happen with the team. He played less than 5 minutes.
Watson's Presence Is Important
Despite an abysmal offense, Peyton Watson was successful in stopping Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, and Tyrese Maxey when he was lined up against them. In the first half only.
Once they started playing faster, he was struggling to keep up, but he was still one of the very few positives in this game.
This was a bad bad game for the Cavaliers. This kind of basketball can not keep happening or changes are going to be made soon.
I wish I could go into more details about this terrible outing but I have a word limit.
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