CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands and Chris Fedor discuss a Cavs team drifting without a reliable identity. The conversation centers on a hard question the Cavs can no longer avoid: what evidence actually supports the “defense-first” label they continue to lean on?
Takeaways:
1. The Cavs Are ‘Searching’ For Answers, But Nothing is Working
The Cavaliers are in a “prolonged funk” and actively searching for solutions, but nothing has provided a consistent fix. The team has tried player-led meetings, accountability sessions, intense practices and even a starting lineup change against the Bulls. While the lineup change initially yielded a 12-point lead, the offense completely collapsed as soon as Chicago switched to a zone defense. This illustrates a core problem for the team: any adjustments they make are merely “temporary fixes” that fail to produce the desired long-term results. The inability to counter a simple defensive scheme highlights the depth of their struggles and the lack of a reliable identity to fall back on when adversity strikes.
2. The ‘Defense-First’ Identity is a Myth, Not a Reality
Chris Fedor is “tired of hearing” the Cavaliers referred to as a “defense-first team,” arguing there is no evidence to support the claim. Cleveland has dropped to 13th in defensive rating and consistently fails to show the toughness and resistance characteristic of truly elite defensive teams like the Detroit Pistons or Oklahoma City Thunder. A defense-first team would not allow a struggling Wizards team to have its third-best offensive night of the season, nor would it allow the Bulls to score 127 points with 68 points in the paint. The podcast points to lazy closeouts, a lack of resistance at the point of attack and poor individual defensive metrics as proof that the team does not play to that standard.
3. A More Accurate Comparison: The 2022 Utah Jazz, Not the 2023 Pacers
The popular comparison of the current Cavs to last year’s Indiana Pacers — a team that started slow but rallied — is fundamentally flawed. The Pacers had made the conference finals the year prior, giving them a foundation of proven success to build on. The Cavs, conversely, flamed out in the conference semifinals last season. A more apt comparison is Donovan Mitchell’s final season with the Utah Jazz. The year prior, they finished first in the West and were upset in the conference semifinals. Then in Mitchell’s final year before changing uniforms, they regressed with a worse record and a first-round playoff exit then the roster was broken up. The visible frustration of Mitchell and the team’s current trajectory show worrying parallels to that Jazz team’s decline.
4. High Turnovers and Ineffective Shooting Undermine Offensive Efforts
Even on a night where the Cavs shot a respectable 48.3% from the field, their offensive flaws were glaring. The team committed 20 turnovers — their second-highest total of the season — which directly fueled the Bulls’ fast-paced transition offense, one of their biggest strengths. Furthermore, Cleveland’s struggles from beyond the arc continued as they shot just 30.8% on 39 attempts. When the Bulls’ zone defense took away the dribble-drive, the ball began to stick, and the offense stagnated completely. This inability to protect the ball or consistently hit outside shots makes it difficult for the Cavaliers to win, even when other parts of their offense show signs of life.
5. Player Belief Clashes With On-Court Reality
When asked why he believes the team’s issues are fixable, Donovan Mitchell stated, “We’re not healthy,” and that the team knows what it is capable of as a complete group. However, the hosts challenged this assertion, arguing that this specific collection of players has never actually proven it can be an elite team. Their preseason hype was based on the success of last year’s roster and on-paper potential, not on what this current iteration has shown on the court. While injuries to key players like Evan Mobley and Max Strus are a valid explanation for some struggles, the podcast suggests there is a disconnect between the players’ belief in their potential and the lack of tangible evidence they have provided so far this season.
Listen using the player below:
You can also listen using your preferred podcast app. Subscription information is below.
Subscribe and listen onApple Podcasts or Spotify.
The video version of the podcast is on YouTube as well.
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and could contain misspellings and errors.
Ethan Sands: What up Cavs Nation? I’m your host Ethan Sands and I’m back with another episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. And joining me today from the Windy city, Chris Fedor, cleveland.com Cavs beat reporter and we’re coming to you guys after the Cavs latest loss, 127-111 to the Chicago Bulls, the Cavs fall to 15-13 on the season. It took until the Cavs 69th game of the year last season for them to have 13 losses. They’re at that point at just game 28 of the season. And after they came out of the five day break which where they had harsh conversations and difficult accountability sessions with player led meetings, this Cavs team has fallen back to 17 points at least to the Washington Wizards, the Charlotte Hornets, and now to the Chicago Bulls. Chris this is a game where the Cavs are going to have to play the same team once again on Friday night. And based on how this team is playing, I’m not seeing many indications that the outcome is going to change or the inconsistencies will be able to be addressed in the next two days.
Chris Fedor: I think the Cavs are searching right now, Ethan. I think Kenny Atkinson is searching right now. There’s so many different things that they have tried to do over the last month to get themselves out of this prolonged funk and nothing has worked. You mentioned the team meeting. There has been accountability sessions, there has been voluntary shootarounds, there has been intense practice sessions. They’ve tried a bunch of different things. And tonight they tried a starting lineup change because they thought, hey look, we have one of the least productive benches in the entire NBA. We have an inconsistent starting lineup that hasn’t been what we expected it to be. So let’s see if we can make one move that can fix both of those problems. And early on it looked really good for the Cavs. They got off to a great start. They were up by 12 midway through the first quarter and then the Bulls threw a zone at them and the Cavs certainly could not figure it up. And then all of a sudden the game changed in the blink and that’s been a problem. Like every time it feels like the Cavs try something or search for an answer or search for a solution, they just don’t come up with one that is going to give them the consistent desired results that they want. It’s a temporary fix essentially. And they’re searching. They’re going to continue to search lineups, rotations, schemes on offense, schemes on defense, all that kind of stuff until they figure out what the answer is. But they’re not in a good place right now. They’re not playing good basketball. Tonight they didn’t lead at any point in the second half against a Bulls team that has spent the last month losing to bottom feeders in the NBA against the Bulls team that got off to a great start and then all of a sudden completely crumbled and hasn’t been the same team since basically the beginning of October. We talked about it at the start of this whole run for the Cavs. Coming off the break that they had, coming off the film session that they had, there was an opportunity to change everything. The feelings around the team, the vibe in the locker room, the confidence, the morale, whatever you want to say, that opportunity was there. The schedule was favorable, the teams that they were playing against were terrible and so far they have not taken advantage of it. So far they look like another team slump buster and that’s not a good place to be. And tonight they trailed for more than 24 minutes in the game. They, they have now already at this point in the season trailed by at least that much as many times as they did last year. Think about that. It’s December and they’ve already matched the number of times last year in an 82 game schedule that they have trailed for 24 minutes or more. It’s a lot of inconsistency at both ends of the floor for the Cavs. And even though Kenny Atkinson is is trying to come up with solutions, he’s trying to come up with different things, none of that has worked. I think a lot of guys right now are kind of throwing their hands up saying what do we have to do now? What’s it going to take to get out of this funk?
Ethan Sands: Yeah, and I think that’s the difficult portion, right? Because we talked about how shots simply haven’t been falling for this team coming into tonight’s ball game. And then The Cavs shot 48.3% from the floor and that would tie the with the 8th best field goal percentage they’ve had this season. And it still wasn’t good enough to beat a Chicago Bulls team that is now 11:15 and had lost eight of their last nine contests coming into Wednesday’s game. And the only win that they had mustered was against the Charlotte Hornets in that stretch. So you mentioned the zone offense regression, right? When we talk about last season, opponents paid for even flirting with zone because Cleveland would simply shoot their way out of it. Tonight they just had 12 three point makes on 39 attempts. We know this Cavs team came into tonight as the highest attempted three point shooting team per game and that fell to number two after tonight because they took just 39 rather than their usual 44. But they still are ranked at the very end of the league when it comes to 3 point percentage. They’re 28th. They’re the third worst team in 3 point percentage at 33.8. Tonight they shot 30.8 from beyond the arc. So especially when you’re trying to deal with not having enough creation at the rim, which they were doing, as you mentioned, at a good capacity in the first quarter. And then the Chicago Bulls simply cut that water off by going to a zone which completely changed the flow of the game, taking away the dribble drive advantage. Then the ball began to stick. Even though the Cavs were originally getting the ball pinging around and bouncing around, the gaps weren’t attacked as heavily and the kickouts were then harder to come by. And the zone just isn’t going to win possessions on defense as much as it’s going to disrupt the Cleveland Cavaliers identity when it comes to them offensively, which I still believe that they’re searching for. And then Chris, you get to the point that Kenny Atkinson mentioned in his postgame press conference he didn’t want to necessarily look totally at the defense even though it was a struggle. He looked at the Cavs 20 turnovers as something that simply cannot happen in a game, particularly against the Chicago Bulls team that is known for running. These turnovers are going to fuel their biggest strength. Cleveland was holding its own in the reefbounding battle for a majority of the contest. They only lost by three, 43 to 40 when it comes to the rebounding battle. But the live ball mistakes when it comes to how they were turning the ball over and just not getting back in transition. Those two things kind of going hand in hand. The Chicago Bulls ranked second in pace for a reason. And this familiar hole is something that continues to make me worry about how this Cavs team is going to look on Friday and a similar situation, even if they’re on their home floor.
Chris Fedor: Even Kenny’s gotta look at it that way. He’s trying to be practical, he’s trying to be analytical. And. And there certainly were too many turnovers. It was the second most turnovers that the Cavs have had in any game this season. And this isn’t the team to turn the basketball over against. Not the Bulls. Not with Josh Giddy tossing out let passes. Not with Isaac Okoro getting out in transition Kobe, White getting out in transition, this is what they do. They play fast, they spread the floor, they space you out, they try and look for easy offense. And the Cavs certainly fueled the Bulls offensive attack. But three 30 point quarters to the Chicago Bulls, 127 points to the Chicago Bulls. This is a nasty trend. And there are two things, Ethan, that I think need to stop. I’m tired of hearing them. I am tired of hearing the Cavs talk about being a defense first team. 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. You know exactly what you’re going to see. You’re going to see toughness. You’re going to see fighting through screens. You’re going to see a defensive minded team. You’re going to see a coach that preaches that. You’re going to see a coach that makes moves based on that credo. You know else is a defensive minded team. The Oklahoma City Thunder, They’re a defense first team. You turn on a Thunder game, you know exactly what you’re going to see. Deflections, toughness at the point of attack. Making every pass difficult, making every dribble potentially chaotic because of all the on ball defenders that they have. Making everything difficult for the opposing offense. That’s what a defense first team looks like. Do the Cavs look like that? No. And they haven’t at any point this year. They’re 13th now in defense, outside the top 10. And I know they’re missing Evan Mobley, the reigning defensive player of the year. I know Max Strust competes on the defensive end of the floor. He might always, he might not always be successful, but he competes. He gives effort at that end of the floor. Sam Merrill is a better defender than he’s given credit for and the Cavs are missing him. But they’re not a defense first team. There’s no evidence of them being a defense first team. Defense first teams don’t allow the Washington Wizards when they have four of their top eight leading scorers missing to have their third best offensive performance of the season. A defense first team doesn’t struggle like the Cavs did against the Charlotte Hornets without LaMelo Ball, Colin Sexton, Pat Connaughton and Train man and some of their other good players. 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. A defense first team doesn’t have all these lazy, sloppy closeouts. A defense first team doesn’t have DeAndre Hunter, who’s in the 10th percentile of estimated defense of plus minus, or Darius Garland, who’s in the eighth percentile of estimated defense of plus minus. Like, I’m tired of hearing that. Because they don’t play to that standard, because they don’t hold themselves to that standard. Because they don’t get pissed off the way that Oklahoma City and Detroit and Houston does when teams are just turning games into layup lines and assaults on their paint. The other thing I’m tired of hearing is this whole comparison about the Cavs and the Indiana Pacers look like. I don’t think it’s panic time. It’s not even Christmas yet. The Calves are not full strength and that’s a real thing. I know a lot of fans don’t like that excuse. They don’t like hearing it over and over and over again. But we don’t have to conflate excuse with explanation. It is a real explanation of where the Calves currently are because they’re missing Max Stru, Sam Merrill, Evan. It’s a real thing. We’re not going to sit here and be disingenuous on this podcast and say it doesn’t matter that those guys are missing. Of course it does. They’re missing a huge element of their offensive game, their movement, their flow, their gravity, their three point shooting, because they don’t have Sam and they don’t have Max. They’re missing a big element of. Of what they could potentially be on defense because they don’t have Evan Mobley. So I don’t think it’s panic time. I don’t think you overreact. I think you continue to try and keep perspective. But this whole thing about the Indiana Pacers and that comparison, like, just because something has happened in history doesn’t mean that it’s also going to happen for this particular team. And here’s the other thing I believe the Indiana Pacers went to the conference finals the year before, because they did. They played against the Celtics in the conference finals and then they came back and they went through all of this adversity mainly because of injuries, Tyrese Halliburton, some of their other guys, and they also weren’t playing very well. So a lot of people bring up the Indiana Pacers and they’re like, oh my God, look at last year’s Indiana Pacers. They didn’t get above the.500 mark until January. Look at the Indiana Pacers at this same time last year, they had a worse record than what the Cavs did. Yeah, you’re right, they did. But they also went to the conference finals the year before that. The Cavs did not. The Cavs flamed out in the conference semifinals when they were heavily favored against the Pacers and a bunch of their weaknesses showed. And then that Pacers team that went to the conference finals and then came back the next year and went through all of those struggles, went through that adversity, dealt with all those injuries, it was the same freaking team that went to the conference finals the year before. These Cavs, they’re not the same team from last year. They’re a lesser version. That’s what it’s shown to be early on in this season. They’re a lesser version with a bunch of different personnel than the previous season. So not only did the Cavs not go to the conference finals, not only did they lose in the conference semifinals, not only did they get a lot of their flaws exposed in the conference semifinals, but the moves that they made to potentially improve their roster in the aftermath of that haven’t worked. Larry Nance Jr. Hasn’t worked. Lonzo Ball hasn’t worked. And yes, they are dealing with injuries, but there are so many things that make this a completely different situation than the Indiana. One that the Cavs like to bring up, that fans like to bring up, that other writers like to bring up. Like, yes, it’s true, Indiana struggled at the beginning of last year. They turned it around. That, that tested them in a positive way. They got healthy, they found themselves, and they advanced to the, to the NBA Finals. But just because that happened to an Indiana team, that has nothing to do with the Cavs, it doesn’t mean that the Cavs can just lean into that and say, hey, look, see, it happened for them. It can happen to us, too.
Ethan Sands: Chris, I want to get back into your point about the point of attack defense for a second before I jump into your comparison theory, because I think it’s a good one and, and telling. I do agree with you. The defensive identity thing is being played out. 1 and 2. When we talk about offensive identity of this team, it’s continuously changing as well. But the defensive identity of this team being that they’re changing the way that they guard at the point of attack than they have in previous seasons, the tweaks on defense that Kenny Atkinson has talked about has been the aggression at the point of attack, trying to create turnovers and to their credit, the Cavs have done that. The Cavs have deflections galore, but to that same point, they get caught in pick and roll defenses so often that the Chicago Bulls had two different players with double digit assists because they were able to give dump off passes and dribble drive passes into the lane for easy layups. And I think when we talk about a team that is so reliant on their bigs, and obviously without Evan Moby, this changes slightly. But I think the Cavs might need to go back to their old ways of funneling players to Jared Allen and Evan Mobley and forcing them to stay home rather than leaking out to the perimeter where the opposing big man is going to switch. And maybe if they do that, they have players on the perimeter like Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Tyson. Switch onto those players and if they decide to take those shots from beyond the arc, you let them. And then if they try to go to the basket, you still have the deterrent of maybe Jared Allen in this case, or Dean Wade in this case, or Thomas Bryant in this case, depending who’s on the floor. I just think the defensive identity that the Cavs have been trying to create hasn’t worked to this point in the season. 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. And also the other thing we keep talking about when it comes to the tweaks of this team is again the offensive production with three point shooting rather than getting to the rim, getting to the paint. And I think that is something that the Cavs need to get back into. And, and also DeAndre Hunter still has to be better, especially coming off the bench. And you look at the field goal percentages for tonight’s game, you got Craig Porter Jr. Who was perfect from the floor, Jaylon Tyson, who shot 80% from the floor on 10 attempts, Jared Allen 77.8% on nine different shot attempts, 47.8% from Donovan Mitchell. This isn’t horrible output, but you still need more from your players around them. Especially when you talk about Darius Garland taking 16 shots and only being 37.5% from the field. Dean Wade, Thomas Bryant, Lonzo Ball, Tyrese Proctor, Naquan Tomlin, all of those players being below 40% from the floor, it brings down the overall average of this team. Those are the different tweaks that I think this Cavs team needs to make. And of course that might Go away from the tweaks that Katie Atkinson has preached during training camp and obviously this five day break where they tried to reinforce those principles. But something needs to change and I think maybe going back on a philosophy that was so heavily relied on might be more beneficial than the defensive structure that they’re using currently. And to your point about the Indiana Pacers comparison, I think if anybody wanted to compare this team to any team of recent history, you compare it to the utah jazz from 2021, 2022 where Donovan Mitchell was in his last season in Utah. This came after the Utah Jazz finished first in the Western Conference in 2020, 2021 with 52 wins and then got bounced from the Western Conference semifinals against the Los Angeles Clippers. Does the semifinals bounce sound familiar to anybody? Now you look at the 2021, 2022 Utah Jazz, who were just 49 and 33, finished fifth in the NBA Western Conference and then got bounced from the first round of the Western Conference playoffs because they simply did not have the same juice. There’s so many different parallels to how this Utah Jazz team could compares to this Cleveland Cavaliers team. Sure, you could say there’s more talent, sure, you could say there’s more injuries for this Cleveland Cavaliers team. But I think Donovan Mitchell, as you got to see him on the bench after tonight’s game in Chicago, frustrated looking like he did not know what his next move was. That is the point we’re at for this team and trying to figure out what is most beneficial for Donovan Mitchell, how they can get him to, to play through some of the things he was under the weather and still had the most points in tonight’s game for the Cleveland Cavaliers at 32 and had four triples. I think you cannot continue to ask Donovan Mitchell to be his spider alter ego self without the support from players around him, at least effective and efficient support around him.
Chris Fedor: The other thing that I think is interesting, Ethan, we, we asked Donovan in the locker room tonight, why do you believe that it can be fixed? Because everybody has talked over the last week, two weeks, three weeks, that hey, this can be fixed. This is a bad stretch for us. We’re dealing with adversity. We haven’t been playing good basketball. We’re frustrated, we’re upset, but we believe, we believe that our issues are correctable. So we asked Donovan tonight why, like, what do you see that tells you that it can be fixed? And he paused for a minute and he said he didn’t want to make an excuse, but he said point blank, period. We’re not healthy. I don’t know how else to put it. There’s certain individuals, Max and Sam and obviously EV is now out too. They help with a lot of the things that we’re struggling with offensively. That’s what gives me belief. We know who we are as a complete group. We saw it in training camp. We had really good belief coming into the season. We played well to start the season. Obviously it gradually became an increase, inconsistent. But I believe in everybody in this locker room and we have shown that we can be that team. And this isn’t the forum to start like having an argument or a debate with a player. But they haven’t shown that they can be that team. When have they shown that? I don’t think we have any clue who this collection of cows players can be because we haven’t seen that because this isn’t last year’s. We saw last year’s team with last year’s personnel. We saw what they could be both in the regular season and in the postseason. Regular season, good. Postseason, not so good. But this team with these players, with this supporting cast around, Donovan Mitchell, with these lineups, with this rotation, have they shown that they can be that team? That team being in italics? I don’t think they have. And Jared Allen even said it earlier tonight. He said, you know, we’ve shown flashes of being the number one team in the Eastern Conference like we were last year. Have they? Am I missing something? I haven’t seen that. At what point did they look the part of the Eastern Conference favorite? The only point that was was when they came into the season before a game was played. So they got that title in large part based on what they did a year ago. And they got that title in large part based on who people thought the Cavs were going to be on paper, but they certainly haven’t looked the part on the court. So I think it’s understandable for players to say, hey, look, it’s December. We have no choice. We’re not just going to tuck our tail between our legs. We’re not just going to throw our hands up and say, what the heck are we going to do? We’re going to stick with it. That’s what we do. We’re going to continue to find solutions. But I don’t know that there’s an honest assessment to this point of who this team is and who this team can be. And I’m not ready to sit here and make definitive declarations. And I’m not ready to sit here and say that the Cavs can’t become the team that that a lot of people thought they would be coming into this season. All I’m saying is they have not provided evidence to this point that this group, this collection of players can be.
Ethan Sands: That Chris, this Cavs team is now dropped out of the top 10 for both offensive and defensive rating. That was kind of the fail safe for the Cavs. And Kenny Atkinson when he talked about where this team was at, why they could be better and sure they’re 11th in offensive rating, but they were within the top 10 in defensive rating before tonight and they dropped all the way down to 13th after tonight’s ballgame. Especially because they understand that this was again against the Chicago Bulls that are not favored when it comes to the their offensive production. Even after tonight’s game the Chicago bulls are ranked 24th in offensive efficiency and after tonight’s game the Chicago bulls are ranked 21st in defensive efficiency. So I think we understand that this Cavs team no longer can go into any contest and feel safe. We talked about the six game stretch before the Christmas Day game and as a potential for them to go undefeated and be 20 and 11 heading into that Christmas Day game. This Cavs team is now 15 and 13 and 1 and 2 in the first three games of that six game stretch and they have to play the Chicago Bulls again on Friday. Then they have to play the Charlotte Hornets who gave them a run for their money earlier this week, and then the New Orleans Pelicans who defeated the Chicago Bulls just the other night. And I promise you that Derrick Queen and some of the other players on that team are going to come into the contest hoping to set an example of where they are going rather than who they’re facing in the Cleveland Cavaliers. And when we talk about a team that is extremely aware of its timing, extremely aware of needing to get to the All Star break where potentially Max Juice returns and where Evan Mobley is back to being his Defensive Player of the Year self. I think this Cavs team has still a lot of questions that need answering. This Cavs team still has a lot of room for improvement and this Cavs team is still trying to find an identity that is readily reliable with whoever they have on the floor rather than being based on players we haven’t even seen yet this season. Max Stru has not played a singular game this season. Don’t know how he’s going to look when he comes back from offseason foot surgery. And if Darius Garland’s toe surgery is any indication, it is not going to be a smooth ride. But with all that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. But remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to Subtext. Sign up for a 14 day free trial or go to cleveland.comcavs and click on the blue bar at the top of the page. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. All you have to do is send text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris, and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast, it’s your podcast. And the only way to have your voice heard is through Subtext. Y’ all be safe. We out.