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Kyrie Irving was out with a shoulder strain.
LeBron James got the night off from Coach Blatt.
Timofey Mozgov got the second half off because I don't really understand why.
Matthew Dellavedova took 18 shots.
This happened:
Kevin Love just bounced the ball off his face in frustration after IND went on a 7-0 run to push lead back to 13. Timeout CLE w/ 5:46 to go
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) February 28, 2015
C.J. Miles hit some three pointers, but he doesn't play for our team anymore.
Iman Shumpert was the Cavs' best player and had 14 points on 17 shots.
James Jones played over 30 minutes.
Kendrick Perkins played 12 minutes, though our frontcourt was healthy. So that's a thing.
Alright, honestly, the Cavaliers played really hard in this game. Matthew Dellavedova is limited, but he played his heart out as always. Iman Shumpert did everything he could on both ends. J.R. Smith got the team out to a good start early on. Tristan Thompson was playing good defense on David West late and stood up for Delly when things got a little rough with West and him. A three point shot by Rodney Stuckey extended a Pacers lead that had shrunk to just four with under two minutes left. This was a great effort, but a win would have been nice.
The team just didn't have its two best ballhandlers. I think we appreciate what LeBron James does. I'm pretty sure we appreciate what Kyrie Irving does. They might cover up some of the oddities above, or keep them from happening at all. I don't think this means much moving forward. If the Cavs are going to win a title, they'll need their Big 3 healthy and working. Kevin Love struggled tonight. The other two didn't play. Maybe the math on the two seed gets harder. We will see you Sunday for the Rockets game.