21. Brown told Clark on the flight Friday night to Washington he was going to use him at power forward. They went over a few things on the flight, talked more about it Saturday morning, but that was about it.
22. “I was a little lost. I don’t know the plays yet. I was kind of running out there with my head cut off trying to figure out where I wanted to go,” Clark said. “It’s kind of been difficult on me because going out there with no practice, just going to a different position, I can’t focus on just playing.”
23. This doesn’t sound temporary. Brown had said earlier this season Clark would strictly play small forward, but it appears Anthony Bennett’s struggles to start the season have changed that. Bennett didn’t get off the bench Saturday night and Clark took his minutes, sliding between the 3 and the 4.
24. I have no idea how long Bennett’s benching will last, nor did I really ask because of so much else going on. We’ll find that out Monday after practice.
25. When Bynum was on the floor, particularly at the start of the game, Irving seemed content to run the offense through him and he touched the ball on nearly every possession. When Bynum wasn’t in the game, Irving took it upon himself to try and do everything. He took only two shots in the first quarter and missed them both, then got hot in the second quarter and carried it the rest of the night.
26. As for Irving’s season-long shooting slump, Jarrett Jack said before the game the only way he can get out of it is to keep shooting.
27. “We'll live with you going 2 for 40. I, personally, can't live with you going 2 for 8,” Jack said. “You might not start the game off shooting the way you want to, but the only way you can get out of it is continuing to shoot."
28. Tim Grgurich has become sort of a coach emeritus with the Cavs and has stuck around so long now, Brown is starting to pay him. Anyway, “Grg” was talking to Brown Saturday morning and told him it’s really like the Cavs are still in training camp.
29. “Jack played in (four) preseason games, Andrew didn’t play at all, we’ve moved Earl to the 4 and you’re trying to figure all this out on the fly with no practice,” Grgurich told him. “We’re still in training camp. Relax.”'
30. That sounds great in theory. And he makes a great point. Unfortunately, the meter started running on the season a few weeks ago.
31. “We’re just making this up on the fly,” C.J. Miles said. “It’s not like we can walk through it and if we mess something up say, ‘OK run it again.’ We’re doing this in games.”
32. As for the overtime win, I asked one player if this was a huge win. “Huge doesn’t do it justice. It’s bigger than huge,” he said. “It’s like, we had to have this. Had to.”
33. The Cavs had four baskets after the first quarter. They scored 23 points and trailed by 15 about midway through the second. They were 3-7 and 3-8 was looking like a distinct possibility. Then the Wizards had some unforced errors, Irving started making shots and the Cavs slipped out with a victory they had to have.
34.
As I wrote in Sunday’s column for the Beacon Journal, the key to this season will be how the Cavaliers defend and if Irving can break out of this season-long shooting funk. Much of the Cavs’ offense is predicated off their defense, and while their overall defensive numbers are much improved over last season, they’ve still had too many games lately where they’re allowing teams to shoot close to 50 percent or better. That isn’t going to get it done.
35. Oh yeah, Brown was also thrilled with Matthew Dellavedova’s gritty performance. I’ll have more on that tomorrow. For now, all you need to know is Delly's plus/minus ratio on Saturday was plus-16, the same as Irving.
36. Now the Cavs won’t play again until Wednesday against these same Wizards. They can feel good for a couple days and Waiters can get well if he truly is sick. As for who will start at shooting guard Wednesday night if he’s healthy? Only Mike Brown knows.
37. One final note on all this, as sort of a look behind the curtain as to how this works: I took Friday’s home game off to attend my son’s season-ending football banquet, but got a tip that the players held a meeting Wednesday and something big may have happened in the locker room and it may have involved Waiters, and this whole illness thing may be contrived.
38. I began poking around on the phone Friday night, but no one was saying much. Since Saturday was the second game of a back-to-back, there was no morning shootaround, so I planned to poke around some more when the locker room opened Saturday night prior to the game.
39. By Saturday afternoon, a couple hours before the Cavs locker room opened, former Cavs beat writer Brian Windhorst posted a story to ESPN.com laying out the players-only meeting.
40. Is there more to this story that I’m missing? In a sense it feels that way, but as I’ve written repeatedly when it comes to trade and draft rumors, I can only go by what the people I trust tell me.
41. I trust everyone I spoke to today and tonight regarding all of this. We’ll just have to see how the rest of it plays out in the coming days.
