Sloppy Cavaliers beaten in Big Apple

    The Cleveland Cavaliers played their worst basketball game of the season in a 102-81 loss at Madison Square Garden to the New York Knicks.

The Cavaliers shot an awful 34 percent from the floor and only thirty percent from behind the three-point lead the loss.

 Cleveland trailed by fourteen at the half, but as the third quarter progressed, the Cavaliers got as close as three points before the Knicks pushed the lead back to sixteen by the end of the third quarter with the game never getting close after that.

Darius Garland led the Cavaliers with 24 points.

Cleveland will next play Minnesota in a home and home that see the Cavaliers travel to Minnesota on Sunday with the Timberwolves playing a rematch on Monday.

Swashbucklings

1) Nights like this are going to happen with a team like the Cavaliers.

They simply aren't going to be able to win very often without their best game and this certainly was with perhaps the exception of the Boston loss their worst game of the season.

2) Thirty-four percent shooting isn't going to win many games, even against other mediocre teams such as the Knicks.

3) This was one of the sloppiest games that I have watched in a while as well.

One third-quarter sequence saw both teams go up and down the floor three times with layups and point-blank shots that both teams missed.

It was one of those times that you were glad that fans weren't in the building!

4)  Cleveland did have a good night from Darius Garland, hitting nine of seventeen shots, four of which were launched from beyond the three-point line.

Garland did take a shot to the shoulder that he had injured earlier in the season and cost Garland multiple games on the sideline.

It must have looked worse than it was as Garland remained in the game, but when I first watched the replay, I figured Garland was going to lose more playing time.

5) Andre Drummond grabbed his usual rebounds but finished with only four points on two for seven shooting.

Drummond played twenty-four minutes to Jarrett Allen's twenty-six and I wonder if this is moving forward in trade talks.

6) Cleveland seems to struggle against physical teams and in both games against the Knicks, New York has ground the Cavaliers down and have succeeded in making them settle for lesser shots and around the boards.

7) Isaac Okoro's game wasn't great, but the picture was cool and showed off the Knicks alternate uniforms.

I didn't care for them as they reminded me of the black Cavaliers uniforms of the nineties.

No thanks.