CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland’s identity crisis continues to deepen following Wednesday night’s disappointing 127-111 loss to the Chicago Bulls.
As the Cavs fell to 15-13 on the season, cleveland.com beat reporter Chris Fedor delivered a scathing assessment of the team’s defensive claims on the latest Wine and Gold Talk podcast.
“I am tired of hearing the Cavs talk about being a defense first team,” Fedor declared emphatically. “There is no evidence of that. You know who is a defense first team? The Detroit Pistons. They play to that identity. You turn on a basketball game that the Pistons are playing, you know exactly what to expect.”
The numbers tell a damning story.
After Wednesday’s loss, Cleveland has officially dropped out of the NBA’s top 10 in both offensive and defensive rating, currently sitting at 13th in defense. This reality stands in stark contrast to the team’s self-proclaimed defensive identity.
“A defense first team doesn’t struggle like the Cavs did against the Charlotte Hornets without LaMelo Ball, Colin Sexton, Pat Connaughton and Tre Mann and some of their other good players,” Fedor pointed out. “A defense first team doesn’t have a defensive rating of 118.8 against the Bulls and allow the Bulls to have 68 points in the paint because there’s no resistance at the point of attack.”
Podcast host Ethan Sands echoed Fedor’s assessment, suggesting that fundamental changes to the defensive approach may be necessary before considering personnel moves.
“I just think the defensive identity that the Cavs have been trying to create hasn’t worked to this point in the season,” Sands said. “And if we’re going to talk about internal changes before we get to external changes, which I think is not too far away, then that’s one of the things that needs to be changed.”
The defensive woes were on full display against Chicago, with the Bulls registering three separate 30-point quarters and racking up 68 points in the paint.
What makes this particularly troubling is Chicago’s offensive profile — they ranked just 24th in offensive efficiency league-wide before posting their 127-point outburst against Cleveland.
This marks a disturbing trend for a Cavaliers team that has allowed bottom-feeding offenses like Washington and Charlotte to put up season-best numbers against them in recent games. The problem appears to be systemic rather than just effort-related, with the new point-of-attack defensive philosophy implemented by head coach Kenny Atkinson failing to yield results.
As Sands pointed out on the latest episode, the Cavs have deliberately shifted their point-of-attack coverage under Kenny Atkinson, prioritizing aggression, ball pressure, and deflections. That approach aligns with modern defensive trends and Cleveland has generated turnovers as a result, but the downstream consequences have been costly.
Over-aggression at the point of attack has repeatedly compromised pick-and-roll integrity, forcing early help and opening passing windows behind the defense.
Chicago exploited that pressure by flattening the floor, keeping their wings active in short-roll and punishing Cleveland with dump-offs and interior drive-and-kick reads led by Josh Giddey and Tre Jones, who finished with 11 assists apiece.
That breakdown is magnified by roster construction. This is still a team built around elite interior defenders, and Sands emphasized that reality cannot be ignored.
“I think the Cavs might need to go back to their old ways of funneling players to Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, forcing them to stay home rather than leaking out to the perimeter,” he said.
Cleveland’s defensive ceiling over the last few seasons was tied to its ability to shrink the floor, keep its bigs anchored near the rim and live with contested jumpers rather than layups or rhythm passes. By asking perimeter defenders to overextend and bigs to toggle between protecting the rim and racing out to shooters, the Cavs are blurring responsibilities.
The result is hesitation, not versatility, and hesitation is fatal against NBA-level decision-makers.
With Evan Mobley sidelined, the margin for error narrows, but the principle remains intact.
Funnel drives, keep the bigs home and trust that the wings can survive switches on the perimeter long enough to contest pull-up 3s. What they cannot live with is a defense that creates deflections on one end and uncontested layups on the other.
With a rematch against these same Bulls coming up on Friday, Cleveland faces immediate pressure to address their defensive shortcomings.
The challenge is clear: either embrace a truly defense-first identity through actions rather than words or acknowledge that this year’s team simply doesn’t have the personnel or system to be the defensive juggernaut they claim to be.
As the Cavaliers continue searching for answers during this midseason identity crisis, one thing remains certain—until they can back up their defensive claims on the court, Fedor and other observers will continue calling out what appears to be the team’s biggest collective delusion.
Here’s the podcast for this week: