It was a typical night for the Cavaliers Wednesday in Boston’s TD Garden. Playing without the injuried Anderson Varejao and displaying its usual slipshod effort on both sides of the ball, Cleveland dropped to 5-22 on the season with a 103-91 loss to the Celtics. It was the fifth straight defeat for the Cavaliers, who fell to 1-10 in the month of December.

The game plan for Cleveland on this night seemingly featured a determination to not guard Paul Pierce. Apparently no one on the Cavaliers either a.) studied film of the Celtics or b.) watched an NBA game after 1998. Either way, the Catfish was given one wide-open look after another, and he responded with a season-high 40 points on 13-of-16 from the field and 6-of-7 from downtown. Pierce led the way to a scorching offensive night from the Celtics, who got off at a 59.7 percent clip against Cleveland’s lackluster-as-usual defense.

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As if Kyrie Irving weren’t already Cleveland’s best hope for a new folk hero, the 20 year-old phenom added a bit of costume flair to his repertoire last night, sporting a badass Zorro mask while dropping a career-high 41 points on the New York Knicks at the Garden. Kyrie’s Cavaliers still fell a free throw short in the end, 103-102, but as long as the masked man wears the wine and gold, the people of this land will still have something to believe in. 

Some say he wears the mask to shield his identity from his foes. Others say he wears it as a show of solidarity with his people— a faceless servant of the greater good. Still others claim he fractured his jaw slamming his face into the floor the previous night against the Milwaukee Bucks, and was merely wearing the mask as protection against injury. Whatever. Cleveland already has two other masked men in Tyler Zeller (fractured cheekbone) and Tristan Thompson (nasal fracture), but their transparent plastic visors are silly and cartoonish in comparison to Irving’s medieval assassin look. 

It didn’t hurt that Kyrie was an assassin on the court, as well, connecting on 15-of-25 shots and 5-of-8 threes in an absolutely electrifying performance. Behind his efforts, the Cavs (5-20) once again battled an elite team right down to the bitter end—a noble pattern that unfortunately hasn’t resulted in a lot of W’s. This one was a particularly tough pill to swallow, as Irving’s 17-point fourth quarter set up a chance to tie the game in the final second of regulation. With the clock winding down and Cleveland trailing 103-101, Kyrie found an open Anderson Varejao in the paint. Andy (9 pts, 8 rbs) was swiftly mugged, setting up a pressure-packed pair of free throws with 1/10 of a second on the game clock. As you may have surmised, Varejao—a much-improved foul shooter—splashed the first attempt, bringing the Cavs one bucket from overtime. But the second toss rattled in and out, sending the Knicks (18-5) to their fourth straight win and a league-best 10-0 home record. 

New York was without Carmelo Anthony—sidelined after taking a smackdown from Dwight Howard the night before. But they got plenty of offensive aid from Raymond Felton (25 pts, 7 assts, 5 rbs), Tyson Chandler (23 pts, 10 rbs), and bench players Steve Novak (13 pts and 4 three-pointers) and J.R. Smith (16 pts). Jason Kidd had a brutal night shooting (3-for-14, 9 pts), but it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to say that his defense was lacking against Irving. In the fourth quarter especially, Kyrie was launching threes with Kidd’s paw jammed in his mask. It didn’t matter.

To be fair, though, even Zorro needs allies, and the Cavs were within 3 points at halftime, 48-45, largely thanks to the outside shooting of C.J. Miles, whose recent accuracy from downtown is looking a bit more like a trend than a fluke. Miles had 12 points in the first half and wound up with 17 (including three more triples) and a surprising 8 rebounds.

As for the other members of the Masked Gang, Tristan Thompson added 10 points on 5-of-5 shooting (in just 17 minutes) and Tyler Zeller was solid off the bench: 4-of-5 shooting, 8 points, 6 boards.

With Dion Waiters still out, though, it was solely up to Irving to turn things around in the fourth quarter, after a Jason Kidd three put the Knicks up by double digits for the first time, 85-75, with a little over 8 minutes to go. From that moment forward, Irving factored in every Cleveland point scored (27 in all), either by dishing out the assist-- or in most cases-- handling things himself.

In the final minute, with the Knicks draining their free throws and holding the surging Cavs at bay, Zorro made his last stand, connecting on back-to-back three-pointers, then a pair of free throws, to pull Cleveland within one at 102-101. After Steve Novak split a pair from the line on the other end with 9 seconds to play, Kyrie elected to pass to an open Varejao rather than force a possible game winning three. Perhaps on this night, our masked hero was a bit too selfless. 

The Cavaliers tried like hell to lose to Milwaukee Friday night at the Q and finally succeeded, bumbling and blundering their way to a 90-86 loss to the surging Bucks, who moved to 12-9 with their fourth consecutive victory. Cleveland fell to 5-19 on the season and looked every bit like one of the worst teams in the NBA in doing so.

Although Monta Ellis sizzled his way to a season-high 33 points for the Bucks, the dominant theme of the night was Cleveland’s utter ineptitude on offense- particularly when it came to taking care of the basketball. The Cavaliers shot 39.5 percent and committed 24 turnovers. Shot-clock violations, offensive fouls, blind passes into traffic, fumbled dribbles; Cleveland left no avenue unexplored in terms of gift-wrapping the ball for the visitors from Wisconsin.

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As if one fuming, bug-eyed Hansbrough weren’t enough, the Cavs got to play against a pair of ‘em tonight, as Tyler’s diminutive brother Ben took a Tristan Thompson elbow to the face in the fourth quarter—the only bright spot in a pathetic second half collapse: Indiana 96, Cleveland 81.

Fresh off a feel-good win over the Lakers in Kyrie Irving’s return, the Cavaliers (5-18) headed to Indiana (11-11) with a wee bit of momentum, as evidenced— most conspicuously—by the improbable re-emergence of C.J. Miles. A couple weeks ago, the former Utah guard was so ice cold his label had turned blue. But after dropping a season high 28 points on the Lake Show Tuesday, Mr. Miles came out like a man possessed again tonight, dropping four triples and 16 points in the first quarter alone. What in the sam hill has gotten into Calvin Andre Miles? And how does a guy named “Calvin Andre” wind up being a “C.J.”? So many questions piling up! Anyway, Miles’ hot hand helped send the Cavaliers out to a 29-25 lead after quarter number one, and it was only more of the same in the second frame.

Despite taking on the NBA’s #3 ranked defense, Cleveland racked up 29 points in both of the first two quarters, as Miles—fresh off a visit to the crossroads—just kept on swishing jumpers, adding seven points to his total and helping the Cavs stretch their lead to as much as 16 with less than four minutes to play in the first half. It was at that point that the Pacers shrewdly began trudging a path to the foul line, pulling to within six at 58-52 at the intermission. Looks like we got a good ballgame on our hands!

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