The Cleveland Cavaliers came into their Wednesday night contest against the Miami Heat looking nothing like the team that defeated Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime on Tuesday. From the get-go, the Heat looked like the livelier team, with the Cavs going down by double-digits early on in the contest and never really getting into much of a rhythm on both ends of the floor.
While this uninspiring performance can be chalked up to a few extenuating circumstances, Evan Mobley isn’t trying to justify the Cavs’ less-than-stellar play by citing the factors beyond their control. Mobley, in his postgame presser, didn’t want to use being on the second night of a back-to-back, as well as their late arrival back in Cleveland from Philadelphia, as excuses for their disappointing showing in what ended up being a 129-96 loss to the Heat.
“I think [the overtime and late arrival in Cleveland] definitely played a factor. But that’s no excuse. We just got to come out here and do our job,” Mobley said, via Spencer Davies of Cavs Insider. “Some of the guys, you can tell, a little step behind. We just got to dig deep and fight through the fatigue, but we just never got to that point.”
Despite getting Caris LeVert back from injury, someone who presumably has fresh legs given that he has missed the past two games, the Cavs simply did not have the legs to keep up with a more rested Heat team. The Cavs’ lethargy showed in their inability to take care of the basketball as well as their slow rotations on defense, which allowed the Heat to make 20 threes on the night on a 57.1 percent clip.
At the very least, the Cavs will now have two full days of rest before they return to action on Saturday night against the Los Angeles Lakers. Perhaps by then, Evan Mobley and company could have Donovan Mitchell back from injury. But for a young Cavs team, they will have to get better when it comes to working through adversity if they were to take the next steps in becoming a legitimate title contender.