Cavs get embarassed once again, this time by Rockets

The Cleveland Cavaliersshowed some good things in their Christmas Day loss to the New York Knicks despite the difficult ending. None of those good things got on the flight with them to Texas. The Houston Rockets embarrassed the Cavs on Saturday, running away with a 117-100 victory that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score would indicate.

Despite the final score, this game wasn’t lopsided from the jump. Cleveland had a slim lead at the beginning of the first quarter. They ended the initial quarter poorly and trailed by eight after one. That deficit increased to 14 at the break, but the Cavs were seemingly still in the game.

Then, the third quarter happened.

The Cavaliers came out with no sense of urgency, couldn’t make any shots, and once again seemed to give up. Houston went on a 15-0 run in the middle of the third quarter that extended their lead from 12 to 27. Any chance of coming back was completely lost during that four-minute stretch.

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Donovan Mitchell was forcing the ball for much of the evening. He single-handedly tried to break the Cavs out of their funk — as he did at the end of the loss in New York — which led to him giving into some of his worst tendencies. He led the starters with 16 points on 7-17 shooting to go along with six assists.

The Cavs didn’t have an answer for Kevin Durant. He poured in 30 points on 11-17 shooting with seven assists.

That third-quarter run has felt like the season as a whole. Once things turn against the Cavs, it takes them way too long to respond in any meaningful way. They’ve spent significant stretches in free fall this season, and don’t have the skill or will to limit the damage. In the end, you end up with 15 individuals playing without any joy or level of connectivity, who seem to have accepted that they can’t accomplish anything meaningful in the playoffs. And if that’s the case, there’s no point in getting up for games like this.

If this week was a measuring stick for where the Cavs are, then it’s clear that this current version isn’t anywhere close to where they need to be to compete. They played well in their loss to the Knicks, but it was the same problems this group has been battling for years that did them in. And in Houston, they just showed that they didn’t belong on the same court as a true title contender.

The Cavs desperately need to shake this roster up if they want to get out of this tailspin. However, with this many things going wrong, there seemingly isn’t one player or skill that’s the missing piece. And if that’s the front office’s conclusion as well, it may be better to shed salary and duck under the second apron so that it would be easier to retool and figure out what this next version of Cavs’ basketball should be in the summer.

The Cavaliers will conclude their road trip on Monday when they take on the San Antonio Spurs. We’ll see if they handle that test any better.