The Cleveland Cavaliers Are SOFT

I shouldn’t even have used all caps in the title of this post. That symbolizes some sort of aggression, or energy, or enthusiasm. And the Cavs have none of that. NONE.

Their game two performance was soft. I’m talkin’ Chewy Chips Ahoy, Charmin toilet paper, fluffy mashed potatoes, whipped cream cheese, Michael Bublé pillow talkin’ Bridget Jones’s Diary, Puff’s Plus WITH the aloe lotion built-in soft. 

Kevin Love is lucky that he got a concussion. It’s the only thing keeping him from being included in his team’s pathetic marshmallow roll over and rub my belly performance. I am going to lay off K-Love. I have to. Scientific evidence proves that it’s not smart to continue playing after your brain legitimately rattles around your skull. But I will say this: in 7th grade, I witnessed Lem Wilkes get his head bashed into a concrete wall during gym class basketball, producing the most mind-numbing thud you’ve ever heard in your life. But did Lem lay down in the middle of the paint in the fetal position until Mr. Larsen blew a whistle?

“Yo, Lem, you all right, cuz?”

Yeah I’m good. 

“Dude, your head is bleeding.”

Check ball. 

“Blood is dripping out of your ears.” 

Check ball. 

“Ooooooooookay.” 

I’m not saying K-Love shoulda kept playing. He couldn’t. And he’s not the (only) problem here. So let’s lay off him for a sec, especially considering he’s currently laid up in a hospital bed having a deep, political discussion with a bowl of applesauce. But the rest of the gang?

Like J.R. Smith. Big, bad, neck tatted-up J.R. Smith, who got (slightly) clipped in the mouth during the first quarter and spent the next half-hour checking to see if his lip was bleeding. Every time the camera crew cut to him, there he was, feeling his little soft, gummy mouth. 

JUST SPOT UP IN THE CORNER LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO, J.R., AND CLANG SOME THREES. 

IF YOU’RE BLEEDING, GREAT. 

IF NOT, WHO CARES. 

NO ONE HAS EVER NEEDED A LIP TO PLAY BASKETBALL. 

#FACT.
 
And Kyrie Irving, who apparently decided this would be a good time to work on his one dribble pullup game. This guy (WHO I COMPARED TO ISIAH THOMAS LAST WEEK?) blew our minds the past few years by finishing in traffic with english-scooping lefthanded and righthanded layups, and now he’s settling for 20-foot pullups?! Go to the rack! Get out in transition! Do SOMETHING! Uncle Drew should disown your swedish fish sitting out on the dashboard during a 95-degree day soft ass. Elbow someone in the f***** mouth! Your sneaks look cool though, dude! So you’ve got that!

And LeBronski -- who at times goes hard, I’ll admit that, at times he goes to the rack, at times he rises high above everyone else in the damn arena to flush the ball home like a true renegade non-Trainwreck-starring Hollywood wanna-be -- BUT HOW ABOUT SHOWING A LITTLE SENSE OF URGENCY? How about locking in on D? How about going coast to coast? How about bringing that title to THE LAND?

The only dudes on the Cavs who show any semblance of fight are Tristan Thompson (who unfortunately has very few actual basketball skills, but at least he boards and gets after it), Dellavadorkenstein (who scrapps and claws but truthfully sucks) and Iman Shumperstein (who quite frankly I am embarrassed to even include in this paragraph considering his offensive skill set is most comparable to my Aunt Maxine’s). The rest of dem fools … ENTENMANN’S CHEESE DANISHES. 

And then there’s Ty Lue. 

And Tyronn Lue is sitting on a booster pic.twitter.com/XCEWYwqVTD— Sam Ro (@bySamRo) January 24, 2016

And I know it’s not the coach’s fault. I know, I know, I know. But dude is sitting over on the sidelines in a BOOSTER SEAT (what is that?!), watching his team whimper and wail and roll over in the fourth quarter, and what does he do? He pulls his starters out with nine minutes to go, resting them because they only have SEVENTY TWO HOURS until game three. If he had any backbone whatsoever, he woulda made his starters keep playing in the fourth quarter -- or even better, EVEN BETTER -- he woulda sat their asses and then make them go back in the game with three minutes left, making them play during garbage time, just to show them what hot piles of wet garbage they really are. 

Can you imagine if he did that? 

Can you imagine if he had any sense of actual power? And tried to make THE KING, and KYRIE, and J.R. SWISHBUCKLER go back in and play with James and Dahntay Jones?

The starters woulda puked. They woulda barfed all over themselves and refused to check into the game. Ty Lue would’ve stood there on the sidelines, stopping the action, demanding that they get back on the floor, while his players sat and moped, and the refs came over to see what was going on, and the Cavs would’ve received 16 delay of game technicals while millions of NBA fans watched and waited for who would back down first. 

But no. Lue didn’t do that. He just tossed in his cards and sat back waiting for game three. 

BECAUSE THAT’S WHEN THE CAVS WILL REALLY GET ‘EM.

In 1989, University of Michigan head basketball coach Bill Frieder announced that he was leaving the school to take the job at Arizona State four days before the start of the NCAA Tournament. So what did Bo Schembechler, Michigan’s hard-headed, maniacal, possibly abusive athletic director do? He fired his ass. And appointed assistant coach Steve Fisher as the team’s interim head coach. 

“A Michigan Man is going to coach Michigan.”

Michigan went onto win six straight games and captured the NCAA title (mostly because Glen Rice went Leandro Barbonkers™), but the point was proven. Loyalty. Honor. Passion. Toughness. I honestly don’t know what the point was. I mean, I know what the point was at Michigan, I’m just not sure how it relates to Ty Lue. I guess the point I’m trying to deliver here is that if I were Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavs, I woulda either fired Ty Lue immediately after the game or walked down to the court Mark Cuban-style and demanded that the starters lace their pretty multi-colored sneakers back up. 

IT’S THE NBA FINALS. 

YOU HAVE LEGIT BEEN PLAYING FOR THIS ALL YEAR. 

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

“BRING A TITLE TO CLEVELAND.” 

OKAY, BRON BRON. 

THERE ARE NO MORE GAMES LEFT AFTER THIS. 

DO SOMETHING. 

DO SOMETHING. 

Punch someone in the mouth! 

Box out!

Go to the rack!

Quit whining to the refs and jacking the first open look and running to Mommy whenever you get a little scrapey wapey. 

You’re ballplayers. 

Act like it. 

See you on Wednesday. 

Hard-boiled egg soft serve eatin’ bums.