ORLANDO, Fla. -- The most disturbing part about the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Christmas Day catastrophe against the Miami Heat wasn’t the fact that they fell down by 17 points in the first half to a sub-.500 team that was missing Chris Bosh and had just lost at home to the lowly Philadelphia 76ers.
It wasn’t the fact that they were outscored 44-28 in points in the paint in their first game without Anderson Varejao after the center went out for the season with a torn Achilles in his left leg.
It wasn’t even the uneasiness the Cavs’ front office must have felt seeing their already not-so-deep team experience two more injuries, with LeBron James feeling tightness in his left leg after leaping over the first row of courtside seats and Kyrie Irving hyperextending his left knee and aggravating a previous knee contusion (causing him to miss Friday’s game against the Orlando Magic).
Nope, the truly disturbing part about the loss was how the Cavs' players looked on the court during it.
The collective body language of the team vacillated anywhere between disinterested and disconnected. The only time LeBron James seemed to smile was when he was interacting with his former Miami teammates. On several occasions during the game, Kevin Love got so frustrated from not getting the ball on offense, he threw Veruca Salt-like “I want it now” hissy fits on the court.
Quite simply, the Cavs didn’t look like a team. And the disjointed showing brought to mind a quote James uttered back in Cleveland earlier this week before the Cavs embarked on their two-game Florida road trip that sounded even more damning looking back at it after the Miami loss:
“We’re so behind so many other teams just because of our chemistry and our camaraderie,” James said. “We have to continue to build that.”
Before the Cavs salvaged the road trip with a 98-89 win over Orlando, coach David Blatt was asked if he notices bad body language when he goes back and dissects game tape.
“We pay attention to everything,” Blatt said. “That’s what we get paid to do. What you do with it, of course, is something different, and that’s when you take into consideration a lot of different things -- not just what may be apparent to the eye.”
Blatt’s point was about patience and perspective. It’d be easy to paint Love as an awkward fit and a malcontent if you just watched his game against the Heat, in which he scored just 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting to go with five rebounds, two turnovers and a couple of temper tantrums.
What that small sample size didn’t show you was Love walking into the arena wearing an ugly Christmas sweater with “The Injections” printed across the chest. Love was one of four Cavs players to wear a variation of the sweater. His was green with his nickname “Menace” printed on the sleeve. James Jones wore a red one with “Champ” embroidered on it. Kyrie “Drew” Irving’s was gray and Mike “Killer” Miller’s -- the guy who came up with the idea to bestow the little Cavs clique with the garb as a holiday gift -- was blue.
“We just have a good time, man,” Miller said when asked to explain the sweaters. “Great kids. Great group of guys on this team.”
That’s the type of team-centric inside joke that suggests maybe there’s more togetherness in the Cavs’ locker room than James was giving this group credit for.
There were more tangible examples of the team looking out for one another against the Magic. Such as how Irving determined he couldn’t give it a go before the game and found James in the locker room to tell him the news, adding, “Do your thing tonight.” Or how Love, after starting the game with 22 points and seven rebounds through the first three quarters, didn’t play a single minute in the fourth; Blatt rode a small-ball lineup that was working, and Love, recognizing the momentum of the team that was out on the floor, was completely OK with it.
“There was one point where [Blatt] looked at me and I just said, ‘Keep them,’” Love said. “They matched up really well, especially Tristan [Thompson] with [Nikola] Vucevic. I thought he was doing a great job.”
Love stayed as engaged in the game when he was out as he was when he was on the court.
“They went small and it wasn’t hard for me at all,” Love said. “I was up [cheering on the bench] for pretty much every play I could be.”
Said James: “Tonight we took a step forward. With Kevin Love’s sacrifice in the fourth quarter, he didn’t play and was helping, cheering, slapping hands, every time we came to the sideline, we took a step forward in that. And I hope everyone seen that. I hope everyone saw it. You know I did, I saw it.”
As the Cavs have tried to mesh together so many new pieces on the fly this season, no one has been perfect in their behavior. Not even James, who has fully embraced his responsibility as the team captain but at times failed to get back on defense while arguing a call or has succumbed to slumped shoulders after a missed shot or two.
“We know that it’s a long season and you’re going to have some of those [plays] you didn’t get back, and you know you feel it when your teammates are looking at you, but you have to learn from it, and how you approach it the next time is what will make you a better team,” James said after personally outscoring the Magic 15-14 in the fourth quarter Friday en route to 29 points, eight assists, five rebounds, two steals and two blocks in the win.
Dion Waiters, who had a fine game with 17 points, three rebounds, three steals and a block off the bench, had one of those bonehead body language moments on Friday (just check out the Vine evidence).
But James forgave him. He knows it’s part of Waiters’ nature. The team is starting to understand its personalities.
“Dion, he loves the ball,” James said. “You know, he loves the ball. And we know that. On this team, there’s so many different options, and if you just be patient, the ball will find you. The ball will find energy and you don’t have to seek it out. And I think he’s done that over the last couple weeks where he’s just been very patient when he gets his opportunities he’s been able to attack.”
Waiters, minus that hiccup, seems to be starting to understand his role.
“I just know it’s going to be games where you have 30 [points], you have 20 or whatever or you have eight,” he said. “You just got to learn how to just stay in the same and don’t let it get to you, because the very next day, you got a game.”
James is someone who thrives when he’s comfortable. That’s never been more apparent than after seeing him cough up eight turnovers on opening night and then missing eight free throws in his return to Miami -- the emotions got the best of him.
Friday was different for James. The emotion of getting called for a double technical foul with Tobias Harris after Harris clocked him in the face on a sweep-through move in the third quarter powered him the rest of the way.
"That got me going,” said James. “I was actually in chill mode tonight, but chill mode was deactivated after that."
It was a nice reminder that (1) at this point in his career he’s channeled emotions to his benefit so many times that that shouldn’t be a trend Cavs fans should be worried about, and that (2) Cleveland is ready for James to go all-in.
“LeBron is the best player in the world,” said Blatt afterward. “That’s what he does, and obviously when he decides to lift us, he lifts us.”
Everyone on the team -- James included -- must walk the walk if the Cavs will become a team to be reckoned with.
Once they play for one another, everything will fall into line.
“That’s very important,” James said of creating a culture of togetherness. “I think it’s a huge thing. Every leader is different. My leadership consists of that. I think that’s part of what makes a team really, really good on the floor. I’ve been like that, I’ve preached that, I’ve learned from my coaches over the years when I was younger that the more and more that we’re close and the camaraderie that we have off the floor, it will make the game that much easier.
“Because you just start knowing where guys are. What guys are thinking. What guys are feeling. And what needs to be done. And like I said, tonight was a good step going in that direction.”