Struggling to come together with consistent teamwork around superstar LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers suffered their third consecutive NBA defeat on Friday, falling to the Washington Wizards 91-78.
Even with 22 points each from James and Australian star guard Kyrie Irving, the Cavaliers produced their lowest game total of the season and fell to 5-6 while the Southeast division-leading Wizards improved to 8-3, paced by 28 points from Bradley Beal.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” James said.
Photo: USA Today
“We have some work to do,” he added. “Right now I’m frustrated. Tomorrow I’ll be OK. That’s who I am. Tomorrow is a new day.”
James, a four-time NBA Most Valuable Player, left Cleveland for Miami in 2010 and won two titles with the Heat before returning to the Cavaliers last July, teaming with Irving, big man Kevin Love and new coach Dave Blatt to try and bring his home region team its first NBA crown.
So far, it is still a work in progress.
“We’ve got to fix this. We have got to get together as a team,” Irving said. “The most important thing for us to do is keep our heads up and keep working.”
“We have to figure things out pretty quickly. We’re going to fix it. I still trust these guys. We have to come out with better fight and it starts with me as one of the leaders,” he said.
After cracking 120 points in wins over Boston and Atlanta last week, the inconsistent Cavaliers blew several fast break chances and struggled in key stretches of the second half.
“I’m concerned about everything right now,” Blatt said. “We’re struggling. We’re a little bit in the dark. Ten days ago we’re scoring the heck out of it. It’s not a different group of guys.”
“First thing is guys have to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves where and how they can impact things positively. You’ve got to make a change or two but not recreate the wheel. You have to stay in there and show grit,” he said.
James, who ranks second in the league in scoring with just under 26 points a game, encouraged Blatt’s idea of self-reflection “if you need that,” but also lamented 19 turnovers that led to 24 Wizards points.
“That was a big part of it,” James said. “It has been a problem for us in our losses. We have to do better.”
“We can’t worry about individuals. We’ve got to improve as a team,” he added. “It’s for us to get out of it. It’s a winning league. We’ve got to figure out what needs to be done to win.”
The Wizards went on a 15-2 run over a 5:08 span late in the first quarter and early in the second to seize a 32-23 lead and never trailed again. Wall and Otto Porter each had four points in the key run.
At times, the Cavaliers were lethargic on offense, a problem that has hampered Love, whose power forward play has resulted in twice as many three-point shots as normal just to find a steady place in the attack.
“We just get stagnant at some points,” Love said. “When the other team scores on us we might hang our heads and slow down. When we play with pace, we play a lot better. When we play for each other, set screens and roll hard, we usually free up a great shot on the inside.”
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with