Even in victory, the Cleveland Cavaliers can’t seem to run away from controversy. During Friday night’s 115-108 win over the Indiana Pacers — which was only their fourth in 14 games — Cavs teammates Kevin Love and Isaiah Thomas had a curiosity-inducing moment.
As Love grabbed a routine rebound, he handed it to Thomas in a very strange way. It’s like a big brother getting annoyed with his little brother.
Of course, this will be regarded as a non-story if it happened to any other team, but because it’s the Cavs, it has to be magnified and dissected.
Then again, garnering such attention comes with the territory — expectations are naturally high when you have three-straight conference titles, including one championship.
Also, in all the hoopla, pretty much all the blame should be rested on the Cavs themselves. If you have an elite status in the league, and you string together losses, have publicized trade negotiations, have team meetings that did not seem to end well, and then have odd things like the one above occur on the court, you can’t expect to get good things out of it. You have to know that you are giving the world ammo to gossip and spread a can of who-knows-what.
But, despite all of that. Thomas did a nice enough job to help diffuse what others are assuming. He spoke to reporters about the headlines that the team is in, including his supposed feud with Love:
“There’s nothing between me and Kevin Love – at all. I approached him about his situation and it went out of house like it shouldn’t have been, but it was not nothing bigger than what the world was trying to make it, like some type of beef between me and him.”
The 28-19 Cavs will return to action Sunday night, and they will have back-to-back meetings with the Detroit Pistons.