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Cleveland and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend
Tuesday, April 11, 2017 12:30
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Last Wednesday was one of the better days in Cleveland sports. The Cavs limped into Boston and proceeded to put an absolute whupping on them. And the Tribe roared back to cap a sweep against Texas on the back of the great Francisco Lindor.
Here’s Tom Hamilton calling Francisco Lindor’s Grand Slam!! Hammie is the man! #RollTribe #Indians pic.twitter.com/t3KQFYKIqL— Brett W (@Brettolsicw) April 6, 2017
Remember that? That was pretty fun, wasn’t it? We were living high. Whoo boy!
Because since then, it’s been ugly as can be. Seven runs in three straight losses for the Indians in Arizona. But more troubling, especially this late in the season, the Cavaliers with three of the ugliest games in four days that you will ever see.
Friday night, Atlanta rolled in with a D-League team, without all five starters they played against the Cavs in early March. And yet the Cleveland defensive woes continued and the Hawks blew out the 9-of-36 3-point shooting Cavs by fourteen points.
Sunday’s rematch had the Cavaliers looking much sharper, destroying the Hawks to cruise to a 26 point win fourth quarter lead that they proceeded to choke away. The fact that the officials just blew call after call that made a huge difference in the game does not overshadow the fact that the Cavs were gutted after this one. LeBron’s incredibly heavy, and many say short-sighted, workload was just exacerbated with a whopping 47 points on Sunday. I, for one, nearly flipped the game off to concentrate on The Masters, but was stuck watching the game in horror as the lead shrunk and eventually disappeared.
After that game, Coach Lue decided that the #1 seed might be all but gone, so sat Kyrie and LeBron Monday, and against the Heat, another blown lead, this time of 11 points as Miami won in overtime. Despite not one, but two four point plays for the good guys in OT. Looks like LeBron is going to be shut down for the last game of the season as well.
The bench looks horrible, the team has ridden LeBron way too hard in 2016 (and somehow it hasn’t shown up in his still-amazing quality of play), and team defense is a myth. There are these mysterious clues that Tyronn Lue has a magic defensive remedy up his sleeve, and we can only hope that is the case. Iman Shumpert looks to be far from the answer. And Tristan Thompson’s thump needs a very quick rehab.
The Indians open today at home, and their season is long. Hopefully some home baseball cooking can make us all forget about the four day weekend we just witnessed.
