Welp, it happened again. The Cleveland Cavaliers lost a basketball game in breathtaking fashion on Tuesday night, falling to the Orlando Magic, 116-98. Now, the Cavaliers losing to the Magic — which are a half game above the two teams that are tied for the worst record in the league — is bad under any circumstance. The Cavaliers losing to the Magic, which did not have Aaron Gordon on Tuesday night, by nearly 20 points is especially bad.
The thing that makes this one such a stunning development is that it looked like Cleveland was going to throttle Orlando early on. That’s because the Cavaliers led by as many as 21 points over, again, the team that is a half game above having the worst record in the league. At the 5:48 mark of the second quarter, LeBron James hit a jump shot to make it a 59-38 Cleveland lead.
Despite the fact that Tyronn Lue left the team in the second quarter due to an illness, it seemed like the Cavs would be able to waltz to a win. Then, the third quarter happened, one in which Cleveland got outscored 41-22 and Jonathon Simmons had one more point than the entire Cavaliers organization.
Jonathon Simmons dropped 22PTS in the 3rd quarter against the Cavs 👀 pic.twitter.com/b82A9oaLK1
— Bleacher Report NBA (@BR_NBA) February 7, 2018
The fourth quarter wasn’t much better. Cleveland scored nine points. The team that has LeBron James on it scored nine points in a quarter in a basketball game against one of the worst teams in the league. Said opposing team scored 24 points, which played a role in the Magic waltzing to an 18-point victory.
🎉🎉🎉 MAGIC WIN 🎉🎉🎉@ThaRealJsimms erupted for a career-high 34 points as Orlando rallied back from a 21-point deficit to beat the Cavs, 116-98! https://t.co/QuRw5qtVqt
— Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) February 7, 2018
With the trade deadline less than two days away, it is obvious that Cleveland has to do something if it wants to try and compete for a ring. Things are so bad right now that, if it wasn’t for the fact that James wants to gun for titles every year, it would be hard to fault the Cavaliers if they wanted to blow it all up and set their eyes on the future.
Since they can’t do that, though, the team has to do something. If it somehow wasn’t obvious before Tuesday night, losing in this fashion to the Magic drove the point home.
