Another night, another loss- and another ping pong ball in the hopper. Cleveland dropped its fifth in a row Wednesday night; Detroit rolling to an 87-75 victory over the cold-shooting Cavaliers at the Q. Cleveland has now been beaten by double digits in four consecutive games and hasn’t scored more than 85 points in any of them. Since beating these same Pistons a month ago on Kyrie Irving’s late free throws, the Cavaliers are 4-14. Pro-tankers, rejoice!

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The Game in 300 words or less

I don’t want to suggest that this season is going to end as unceremoniously as the last one, but right now it’s not looking good. Of course, just having Kyrie Irving out of the court makes any game this season much more palatable than last, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Cavs looked awfully rudderless as they fell for the fourth straight contest.

This wasn’t a heartbreaker and it certainly didn’t seem like anyone quit out there; it was just a case of playing a road game against a better team that’s zeroing in on a playoff spot.

The game was never really in doubt as the Sixers built a lead early, took a double-digit advantage into the half, and cruised through the second half.

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When I recap a Cavs game, I like to offer the readers analysis of what happened during the game.  I seek out statistics that may be overlooked by other blogs and major media outlets and attempt to offer an explanation for why one of the teams lost and the other didn’t.  To do this, I rely on what I saw while watching the game and by looking at statistics.  

Thanks to Time Warner Cable, the NBA’s proprietary blackout rules and Fox Sports Ohio, that is not going to be entirely possible today.  To make a long story short, things in Columbus get complicated when the Cavs games are on NBA TV and when the Columbus Blue Jackets are playing at the same time.  Channel 1310 on the digital cable guide stated that the Cavs game was going to be on, but it was mislabeled.  Instead, there was a college baseball game despite being labeled as the Cavs game against the Suns.  I checked the alternate stations and those were either repeat broadcasts of the college baseball game or the Blue Jackets game.  The game was even being aired on NBA TV nationally, but it was blacked out in my market.

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It just wasn’t meant to be for the Cavaliers in Wednesday night’s 103-102 overtime loss to the Hawks at Philips Arena. Despite leading by as many as sixteen in the first half, by three with 5.4 seconds left in regulation and by six with 1:27 left in overtime, Cleveland lost its seventh in a row to Atlanta and dropped to 0-3 in overtime games this season.

For the Hawks it was a much-needed salve for their frustrating home loss to Boston two nights earlier. For the 17-27 Cavaliers, the defeat dropped them further behind in the playoff race. They now trail red-hot New York by four-and-a-half games for the eighth spot and Milwaukee by three-and-a-half for the ninth spot.

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