Game 1 | Cavs (0-0) vs Knicks (0-1) | October 30, 2014 | 8pm EST

I'm concerned about how badly players were overpassing tonight, LeBron especially. Many were wildly overtarget.

I don't get how this board never learns to stop overreacting so much to single games. When we won the opener last season it was this endless love fest about how great the team was gonna be...is there any middle ground?

King Stannis said:

Not sure it is panic. Maybe more outrage that they played so flatly tonight.

It is one thing to lose to a bad team because they are having a A+ night, it is another thing altogether to lose due to indifference during 3/4 of the game.

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True as one poster said the 2010 heat got off to a awful start and I expect the same here. This team might be 5-4 before we start to rattle off wins.

JSS2306 said:

LeBron played a horrible game and he's probably the main reason why we lost.



I like our chances.

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He is the main reason. He's having trouble communicating with everyone on the court and expecting them to be in certain spots, but they haven't gel yet and Coach Blatt made a big mistake for not playing LeBron enough with Kyrie and Love in the preseason. Right now, they all look uncomfortable at knowing when each other want the ball and where to be whenit comes to get shots.

LeBron definitely had a horrible game and a lot the turnovers were because he tried to be overly passive. It's the habit that he built in the preseason and it will take him more than a few games to really start playing aggressive on the offensive end.

For those wanting to watch the player introductions again or, if you're like me, I like to give it a little download for the Cleveland Basketball Library. Certainly a moment to remember:

We lost the game because NY kept making stupid contested mid range jumpers and the refs decided after the 1st quarter that the knicks could do no wrong. The defense wasn't that bad but this was the Knicks championship game. It'll be the best win they get all season and they had to take advantage of a emotional and out of sync team to get it. No biggie. Put it behind us and go get the Bulls.

What's with the rotations? Lebron and Irving playing over 40 minutes on the first night of a back to back, huh. Shawn Marion looked pretty bad and he is someone who should be absorbing some minutes for us.

And Lebron's performance doesn't worry me as much as not seeing his typical athleticism out there. Something just seems a little off.

One note: when I look at the box score I see Love shot only 6-14 tonight. And I thought he was clearly the best player on the floor.

I think I'm more excited to watch Kevin Love this season than anything. The dude is an amazing rebounder, passer, and shooter. His defense isn't great, but it's adequate to work well enough against all but the really elite PFs.

Everything about this game screamed "aberration". I'm not worried at this point. In fact, I'm very excited. The only thing I'd like to see is more involvement from the bench. We spent so much time in the preseason leaning on them that we went overboard in the other direction -- not enough minutes/shots for the bench tonight.

Overall, this game was more about chemistry than anything else. People were out of position, roles were not well-defined, rotations were a bit slow. Don't get me wrong -- we should have won this game, and we should be disappointed with our performance. But there's a lot to learn from here.

That's the biggest issue I have with tonight. LeBron will play his rare bad game from time to time. That's fine. But that's not why we lost this game.

We lost because we lacked energy and put up no effort at all on the defensive end. Effort has nothing to do with not playing together. It has everything to do with being lazy. We were extremely lazy on defense tonight. No excuse for that. No matter how bad the offense played, a better defensive effort wins the game.

Unfortunately, our schedule is very difficult. After Chicago, we have Portland and Utah on the road.

Utah is a different beast at home.

It isn't totally out of the question to start 0-4. In fact, if tonight is any indication, 0-3 might even be likely.

Going to really need to figure things out quickly.

Soar said:

Unfortunately, our schedule is very difficult. After Chicago, we have Portland and Utah on the road.

Utah is a different beast at home.

It isn't totally out of the question to start 0-4. In fact, if tonight is any indication, 0-3 might even be likely.

Going to really need to figure things out quickly.

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I just don't understand why? Is 0-4 some kind of death sentence?

I would love to know why James played 43 minutes. Even if he was playing well it isn't necessary. We have guys that are capable without LeBron out there dominating the ball.

Soar said:

Unfortunately, our schedule is very difficult. After Chicago, we have Portland and Utah on the road.

Utah is a different beast at home.

It isn't totally out of the question to start 0-4. In fact, if tonight is any indication, 0-3 might even be likely.

Going to really need to figure things out quickly.

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I do not think that 0-4 will happen but 1-3 and 2-2 and is very possible. The Knicks has the same team and a argued super star so I expected them to come out strong. If the Cavs team has a few games in we would have killed them. so we shall see.

Dion was too conservative. Love was often out of position on the block, JAmes kepts trying to force things, Irving slowed the ball down too much.and Blatt was using rotations we hadnt seen all preseason.

OptimusPrime said:

I would love to know why James played 43 minutes. Even if he was playing well it isn't necessary. We have guys that are capable without LeBron out there dominating the ball.

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I wouldnt be surprised if you se the starting lineup rack up alot of minutes in the next couple weeks.. Chemistry needs to be established right away and keeping them out on the court is the best way to do that,