NBA teams
Dave McMenamin, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

LeBron: Cavs will face more adversity

NBA, Cleveland Cavaliers

CLEVELAND -- LeBron James bluntly criticized his own play amid the Cleveland Cavaliers' uninspiring 5-7 start to the season.

"We got a four-game losing streak, so I stink," James said after shootaround Monday in advance of the Cavs' game against the Orlando Magic. "I'm not doing my job. I got to do a better job, and it will help our team."

Through 12 games, James is averaging the fewest points (24.7) on the lowest shooting percentage (.467) since his rookie season in 2003-04. He is also off to the worst win-loss start of his career since that season, when the Cavs went 4-8 out of the gate.

Kevin Love, who is going through his own struggles on the court with his scoring average (16.5 points) dropping nearly 10 points from his 26.1 points-per-game average with the Minnesota Timberwolves last season, said it's imperative that the Cavs start moving in the right direction beginning with the Magic game.

"I think it's a chance for us to pick ourselves back up, and tonight is a game that we must win," Love said.

James repeated the comments he made after Cleveland's 110-93 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Saturday when he called the team "fragile" and alluded to the possibility of even tougher times to come.

"For me, being the leader of the team, if I start hanging my head low, then I think it's going to go to everyone else," James said. "They look up to me. They look to me to make a difference, and I got to stay positive even throughout the rough times. Like I said before, this is not the darkest point that we'll see this year. I've seen very dark, and this is very light to me."

After the Raptors loss, James referenced the Miami Heat crumbling against Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 Finals as true adversity. James explained the comparison Monday.

"I'm just saying this is not the biggest adversity point that we'll hit," James said. "Obviously, do I think that we're going to get to the Finals? I don't know what the future holds. But from my perspective, it's not as bad as it may seem. That basically was the [context] of the comment."

Even after winning two championships since losing to the Mavericks, James said he's still haunted by that series, which saw the Heat fall in six games after being up 2-1.

"It's still here with me," James said. "I think about it every day. Every day, at some point something happens throughout that series that pops into my head."

Similarly, with the Cavs having an off day Sunday, James chose to not take his mind off the slump his team finds itself in.

"I can't," James said. "I don't like to forget about it. That's not the makeup of who I am. I'm not one guy to just throw away things that go on. I got an opportunity to spend some time with my family, watch some football -- the Browns won, Cowboys won, so I had a really, really good Sunday -- but I watched some basketball last night, too, so my mind was back in the flow of things."

Much has been made about Cleveland's apparent lack of chemistry and bad body language during the recent downturn, but Love said that it's more about problems with execution rather than relationships.

"It's going to take a little bit of time, but we're going to clean this up, I guarantee you that," Love said. "Team morale is great. We get along, but we know we have a ton of work to do."

It's a workload James said he is prepared for.

"It's something that I was ready for," James said. "I knew that it was going to be my biggest challenge of my career thus far, so I accept the challenge, and when we lose, I take full responsibility. When we win, the team wins. That's what it's about."

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