Cavaliers lose to Pacers 107-85 at home, fall to 0-5 in preseason play

No LeBron James, no Kyrie Irving, no Kevin Love, no Iman Shumpert, no Matthew Dellavedova.

The result, if you can believe it, was no offense, either. The Cavs struggled to score consistently with Mo Williams and Jared Cunningham playing point, and Richard Jefferson as the best playmaker off the dribble, against a Pacers team that played all of their regulars save Rodney Stuckey and Solomon Hill. Five and a half minutes into the game, Indiana pushed their lead into double digits, and Cleveland never got it back to within ten. David Blatt's makeshift squad had more turnovers (23) than assists (22).

One of the few bright spots for the Cavaliers included Anderson Varejao, who looks to be playing his way into shape, but finished the night a perfect 4-of-4 from the field with 7 rebounds and an assist. With Kevin Love likely taking it slow to start the season, and the Tristan Thompson situation being the Tristan Thompson situation, a healthy, productive Andy would help a ton.

Speaking of the front court, Timofey Mozgov had a very productive 26 minutes, scoring 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting and pulling down 6 boards.

Another bright spot was J.R. Smith doing a J.R. Smith thing to poor Paul George:

The real story of the night was the Pacers, who looked excellent for stretches, but without the Cavs putting much of their rotation talent on the floor, it'd probably be alarming if they hadn't looked good. Time will tell if the Paul-George-at-the-4 thing is a good idea, whether they can be effective at either end with a big man rotation that will rely heavily on Jordan Hill and Ian Mahinmi playing big minutes, and if they really have the perimeter shooting to play as small as they seem to desire.

For what it's worth, young Myles Turner looks like a player. The rookie from Texas had 11 points and 6 rebounds in 19 minutes of action; if he can stay healthy enough to be a building block piece for the Pacers, they ought to have a very solid foundation.

Anyway, that's about everything I can muster on a lackluster preseason game in which none of the Cavs' top four players suited up. Can we just fast forward to January? Or June? Please?