At what point does the Cavs’ complacency become a real problem? Wine and Gold Talk podcast

CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands and Chris Fedor break down the Cavs’ narrow 130-126 win over the Washington Wizards and why it felt like a continuation of their complacency.

Takeaways:

An “Ugly Win” Fails to Meet Expectations

Despite being 14.5-point favorites, the Cavaliers needed a massive fourth-quarter comeback to defeat the struggling Washington Wizards. The speakers labeled the victory “ugly” and “one of the worst games the Cavs have played,” arguing the win provided no reason for celebration. The performance came after a five-day break and a “transformative” film session that was intended to be a springboard for improvement. However, the team failed to implement any of the defensive principles or effort-based changes they had discussed. The consensus was that the narrow victory against a depleted, bottom-tier opponent was a significant step backward that highlighted, rather than solved, the team’s persistent issues with consistency and focus.

“Superhero” Performance from Donovan Mitchell Masks Deeper Issues

The victory was attributed almost solely to a “superhero” effort from Donovan Mitchell, who had to score 24 of his 48 points in the fourth quarter to salvage the game. This over-reliance was deemed “unacceptable” and a major red flag, as key players were not expected to even see the floor in the final period against such a weak opponent. The speakers drew parallels to Mitchell’s final season in Utah, where a similar lack of support from his teammates ultimately led to his desire to leave. The need for a historic performance from Mitchell just to beat the Wizards raises serious questions about the team’s overall capability and whether the current roster can provide the consistent help needed to be a true contender.

Defensive Identity in Crisis

The Cavaliers’ performance was a complete betrayal of their proclaimed defensive identity. The team allowed 126 points, including a 40-point third quarter, to a Wizards team missing several key players. This defensive collapse was especially concerning as it came directly after a week where the coaching staff emphasized a renewed focus on that end of the floor. The podcast highlighted numerous breakdowns, slow rotations and a general lack of effort, prompting one speaker to suggest it felt like the team was “tuning out their coach.” The inability to maintain defensive intensity against a lesser opponent is seen as a fundamental flaw that will prevent the Cavs from competing at a high level.

Coaching Rotations and Player Management Criticized

Kenny Atkinson’s in-game decisions came under heavy scrutiny, particularly his management of the guard rotation. Craig Porter Jr. provided a significant spark off the bench, yet he played only 11 minutes and was kept on an “extremely short leash.” It was revealed that associate head coach Johnnie Bryant had to urge Atkinson to put Porter Jr. back in the game during the fourth quarter, a move that proved critical to the comeback. This reluctance to play an impactful player, combined with giving extended minutes to a struggling Darius Garland (who went 0-for-11 from three), raised questions about Atkinson’s ability to make tough, merit-based adjustments and send a message to his underperforming starters.

Supporting Cast Falters, Highlighting Roster Imbalance

While Donovan Mitchell soared, the rest of the team struggled to contribute meaningfully. Darius Garland’s poor shooting night and defensive lapses were a major point of discussion, along with the bench unit contributing only two points before the fourth quarter began. The podcast also noted the team’s poor record when over-relying on 3-point shots, a habit they fell into again in this game. The significant drop-off in production from the supporting cast forced Mitchell into an unsustainable role and undermined the “process-oriented” approach the team claims to value. The game served as a stark reminder that without consistent contributions from players other than Mitchell, the team’s ceiling is severely limited.

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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 great city of Washington, D.C. chris Fedor, cleveland.com CAS B reporter and we’re coming to you guys after the CAVS Nearest win, 130, 126 over the Washington Wizards. And Chris, this was a game where we talked about the line score coming into the contest being -14.5 for the Cavs. When it was originally set, the Cavs won the contest by four against arguably the worst team in the NBA. I think this performance by the Cleveland Cavaliers was the complete opposite of what they wanted from what they had talked about from their five day break. When we talk about how this team did not play defense to the caliber that it is known for, the defensive identity and the defensive principles that they have talked about. And then obviously this Cavs team just simply struggling to continue to have the success that it wants to all. Also, they came out with the win. But this was not a gritty one. This was an ugly win. And to me, this is still one of the worst games the Cavs have played.

Chris Fedor: It was. I mean, there’s no way around it. Donovan Mitchell, after the game, was trying to figure out how to process his emotions. Because on one hand, they did win the game. They came back, they scored 45 points in the fourth quarter. They outscored the Wizards by 19 in the fourth quarter. So he didn’t want to completely go negative on a night like tonight because he liked the way that the team responded. He liked the intensity that they played with in the fourth quarter. But even Donovan can’t have this happen. Donovan said it in the locker room. Can’t have this happen. This is the Wizards. These are the Cavs. These are the Wizards. It was supposed to be a lopsided matchup. It was supposed to be a game where Donovan Mitchell didn’t have to play in the fourth quarter. It was supposed to be a game where Evan Mobley and Darius Garland didn’t even see the floor in the fourth quarter. Not only did Donovan have to play in the fourth quarter, he had to go Superman in the fourth quarter. It took a heroic effort from him, scoring 24 points in the fourth quarter, the second most by any Cavalier in a fourth quarter since 1997, 1998. He played 10 minutes in the fourth quarter against the Wizards. The Wizards are horrible. They’ve won three games all year. They were missing some of their better players tonight. Lau Koulibaly didn’t play. Sar didn’t play no Chris Middleton either. They had certain guys that were playing that checked into the game where I turned to the people next to me, I said, who the hell is that? Like, who is Will Riley? Who is Jahmir Watkins? I don’t know. I cover the NBA. So for the Cavs to have all this conversation over the last couple of days, Ethan, about, you know, this was the kind of film session that we needed. It’s going to be a springboard for us. Holding guys accountable was the thing that we needed. And all of this different stuff that they were talking about on the heels of that, to have this kind of performance against the Washington Wizards when they were favored by 14 and a half points going into the night, there is no reason to celebrate this thing. There is no reason to point to anything and say, hey, we did this. Well, the only thing that happened is Donovan Mitchell went superhero and delivered one of the best regular season performances of his career. Delivered one of the best regular season performances that Kenny Atkinson said he has ever seen. You just, you can’t have all of the conversation that they had over the last couple of days and then do this against the Wizards. You can’t say, hey, we identified this on film and we identified this on film and this is going to be better moving forward and then do none of those things against the Washington Wizards. Donovan talked in the, in the post game afterward and he said, like, it’s all the same stuff that we’ve been talking about. Because I asked him, I said, what went wrong? What didn’t you like from tonight’s game? As everything that has been problematic for the Cavs, it’s, it’s not a good situation. Despite the fact that they won by four and despite the fact that they did start technically this six game stretch with a win, I don’t think there’s any reason for the Cavs to feel like their problems are solved. I don’t think there’s any reason for the Cavs to feel like they fixed anything at some point. The how and the why has to matter. And, and needing this from Donovan Mitchell to beat the Wizards is not a positive in any way for the Cavs.

Ethan Sands: Chris, this is supposed to be a process oriented team, right? This is a team that’s supposed to care about what happens between the lines, between the minutes rather than the outcome in the box score. Right? We talked a lot about coming into tonight’s game 14, 11, the amount of teams, the historical context of teams that have been able to swipe the switch and change their narrative when it came to the latter half of the season, the next 75% of the season. But the Cavs have not talked about wanting to be an outcome based team, especially in this regular season. And again for Donovan Mitchell to have to score 35 of the Cavs 68 points in the second half on 12 of 21 shooting 5 of 9 from deep. He was the only player outside of Lonzo Ball to make a three point shot in the second half. We look at the players around him, right, and we start to think about how this compares to his last season in Utah where he felt like he had players around him who could have been successful, who could have helped him get over the hump and simply were not capable and it led to him making a different decision when it came to his career. And I’m not saying that Donovan Mitchell is to this point yet, but this is a conversation that the Cavs are now having internally about what is possible with this team. When you’re talking about a Washington Wizards team that was not healthy and then you talk about how this Cavs team consistently cannot muster enough might enough continuous efforts on the offensive and defensive end. You saw Donovan Mitchell talking to Darius Garland talking during plays where Darius would get blown by and then not reorganized to get the man that was wide open as the help defense would move over. There were different plays where you continued to see the lapses of what the Cavs have wanted. Kenny Atkinson preached before the game and even during the week that this Cavs team wanted to get back to his defensive identity. You don’t see that from a Cavs team that allowed 40 points in the third quarter, 36 points in the second quarter from the Washington Wizards. I’m not trying to continue to have these conversations about what is possible, what is positive about this team when we understand that this could also be considered one of the worst games the Cavs have played this entire season. And Chris, we had the debate last time we talked on the podcast about whether or not the warriors game was one of the worst games that the Cavs have played this season. And we might have differed on that opinion, but I sent a subtext out to our subscribers about which game was worse for the Cavs between this one and the loss to the warriors. And it was basically split and the only reason multiple different people were saying that the warriors game was worse was because it ended up in a loss. And again, I go back to this point about being process oriented. Evan Mobley in the second half took five shots he was 1 of 5 from the field. Then you could also have this other conversation about Darius Garland, who was 0 of 11 from three point range, but he was 5 of 6 from the field in the second half. There’s nuance to all of these conversations, but I don’t think we can continue to give this Cavs team enough grace when they continue to try and show us who they are and, and who they’re going to be. Because we had this conversation after the Cavs went against the Washington Wizards last time that they were in D.C. and how they were supposed to put on a show. They did that. Then you had a five day break, went back to D.C. and did not do anything that the Cavs have talked about. Donovan Mitchell, who and I think it’s funny that the Cavs continue to say Superman or superhero when he actually has a superhero nickname. Spider Mitchell. Spider Man. This Cavs team cannot rely on Donovan Mitchell to have these types of contests throughout the entirety of a 82 game season and then again in the playoffs. Because we go back to the Indiana Pacer series where he was taking 30 shots a game and we were looking around trying to find out who was going to help him. And we’re having the same conversation. 26 games in the 2025, 2026 campaign. And I think it’s unacceptable.

Chris Fedor: I mean, this was their 8th worst performance on the defensive end of the floor all season long, statistically speaking. And the Wizards were moving the ball, they were getting into the paint, they were getting open shots. There were a lot of breakdowns defensively, there were slow rotations, all of the different things. Tuesday’s film session was primarily about defense. And to have that kind of defensive performance on the heels of that, it makes you feel like this is a team that is tuning out their coach. That’s what it feels like. Whether it is or it isn’t, that’s how it feels. That’s what it looks like. So they just have to be better defensively. They have to be consistently better defensively against the Wizards. They guarded for maybe like 10 minutes in the game, maybe 10 minutes of the fourth quarter. And you have to give Lonzo a lot of credit for his defensive effort, especially against CJ McCollum in the fourth quarter. You know, the Cavs tried Jaylon Tyson on on CJ didn’t work. They tried Dean Wade on cj didn’t work. They tried Darius Garland on cj that was never going to work. They finally put Lonzo on him and it looked like Lonzo’s size and Length and his ability to stay in front and all that different stuff certainly helped. So credit to Lonzo, who has had a rough go at the beginning of the season, hasn’t been making shots, hasn’t been a plus in any sort of way for this team. This is what the Cavs needed from somebody like Lonzo tonight, and he delivered Greg Porter Jr. His defensive activity and all that kind of stuff. But the truth is like that effort From Lonzo against CJ McCollum, that effort from Craig Porter Jr. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the way that the Cavs defended for a majority of the fourth quarter, that’s what it has to be moving forward. That’s what it has to be on a nightly basis. That’s who the Cavs are supposed to be. That’s what’s supposed to be their identity. That’s what they want to be, their identity. And it just hasn’t been good enough. And the Cavs aren’t going to be the team that they say that they are. They’re not going to be a team that can compete for a championship, let alone win the Eastern Conference, let alone get out of the second round of the playoffs. That’s not going to happen until they give more consistent effort on the defensive end of the floor, until they give more attention to detail on the defensive end of the floor, until they play with more focus on the defensive end of the floor. They just have to be better at that end. And until that happens, we’re probably going to have to have these kinds of conversations. They’re probably going to play close games against teams that they have no business playing close games against. They’re probably going to need Donovan Mitchell to rescue them from losses that would be embarrassing and would feel feel like rock bottom. It shouldn’t be that way, but it still is and it’s up to them to try and change it and maybe possibly make things a little bit easier on themselves than what they have been for a majority of this season.

Ethan Sands: And Chris, I mentioned the three point numbers when it comes to just Donovan Mitchell being the savior when it comes to that percentage, obviously donovan Mitchell was 8 of 15 from the three point line tonight. The rest of the Cavs team had just seven makes. They were 15 of 53 from the line in total. But the Cleveland Cavaliers this season and have been for the last couple of years since the tenure of Kenny Atkinson began have been over reliant on the three point shot. They played in 11 different contests where they have shot 46 or more three three point shots in a game. They have won four of those contests. They’re four and seven in the contest where the Cavs shoot 46 or more three point shots. Tonight was their fourth win, the other three coming against the Atlanta Hawks, the Miami Heat, the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Wizards earlier this season. This is something that the Cavs have been trying to address. The amount of shots that they’re putting up, the shot profile that they’re getting is different from what the Cavs have seen that create success for them. And obviously Darius Garland, as I mentioned earlier in the show, you saw the difference in his game when he was actually attacking the basket, attacking his defender rather than settling for three point looks. He was 0 of 11 from the three point line tonight and I think it’s important to note that you mentioned the Lonzo Ball situation and he was a plus 26 tonight and he had some impactful minutes in the fourth quarter. His defense was the most important thing. But again, I reiterate the point that I’ve been making on this podcast. There would be less speculation about Lonzo Ball’s impact on the floor if he wasn’t hoisting up shots that felt unnecessary. Up until his clutch fourth quarter shot brought the Cavs back within one or cut the lead down or whatever it might have been. He hadn’t made a shot all night. He ended the contest one of six from the field, one of five from deep. And Craig Porter Jr. Played just 11 minutes tonight. You saw Kenny Yakinson put in Craig Porter Jr. In the fourth quarter when the Cavs needed a spark, when the Cavs needed something. He had played five minutes before he entered the game in the fourth quarter and immediately there was a significant impact. The Cavs bench had two points, Chris, two points entering the fourth quarter and they came from Thomas Bryant. None of them came from the bench unit of Naquan Tomlin. Lonzo Ball, Dean Wade, again, as I mentioned, Craig Porter Jr. Just played five minutes before the fourth quarter and then Craig Porter Jr. Came in and was rebounding, was assisting, was facilitating offense and scoring on his own, and I continue to come back to this conversation, maybe not Lonzo Ball in this case because he’s having impact in different ways. But when you talk about a player like Darius Garland who’s minus five and having a tough go event, and we’ve talked about this before, taking away minutes when someone is not playing to that caliber crank. Porter Jr. Does some of the things that Darius Garling does and that’s the point of what I’ve been making throughout the last couple of weeks. Lonzo Ball needs to play with a player like Craig Porter Jr. Or Darius Garland because of how they can get to the paint and create in the half court. Lonzo Ball isn’t doing that in the half court. When we talk about Lonzo Ball skills, we understand it’s a passing acumen, it’s a defensive approach, the effort, the chase, not necessarily the point of attack defense. And then also just what he can do in transition. Craig Porter Jr. Does a little bit of all of that, and he continues to have a short leash. And I thought it was appalling, appalling, Chris, that Kenny Atkinson admitted after the game that he wasn’t even going to put Craig Porter Jr. Back in the game. Johnny Bryant, the associate head coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers, had to urge Kenny Atkinson to try something different to put Craig Porter Jr. Back in the game, and that allowed the Cavs to get back into this contest. They were down by 17 at one point against the Washington Wizards. And one, that’s unacceptable as well. But two, the fact that the Kenny Atkinson would not make a change to the rotations to the game that he was going to or give a chance to others. Naquan Tomlin fouled out in 10 minutes of play tonight, so you have to look for other release valves. And I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes between Kenny Atkinson and Craig Porter Jr. But it feels like Craig Porter Jr. S leash is extremely short, especially on the defensive end of the floor when he is tasked with doing some of the similar things of Jalen Tyson, who’s 6 foot 6 while Craig Porter Jr. Is 6 foot 1 and still fighting for every possession and doing everything he can to help this team get to the next level. It feels like there’s something that we’re not understanding of the rotations, the roster construction when it comes to Craig Porter Jr. And his role in Teddy Atkinson’s mind.

Chris Fedor: Well, Kenny said that he needed Darius because his ability to get into the paint and cause havoc for the opposing defense in the fourth quarter was something that the Cavs were gaining. And that’s totally fine. I understand where he’s coming from on that. But if you watched the game the entirety of the game, Ethan giving 35 minutes to Darius Garland and Craig Porter Jr. Only 11, like, it didn’t match what had happened in that game. It didn’t match the kind of impact that each guy was providing when they were out there. And I do think that moving forward, Kenny needs to continue to explore. Look, he has gone away from Larry Nance Jr. That’s easy. That’s easy. Larry Nance Jr. Is not one of your top guys. He’s gone away from Dean Wade again. That’s easy. Dean Wade’s not one of your top guys. He went away from DeAndre Hunter in the fourth quarter and that was good. He needed to, because DeAndre just was not giving the Cavs what they needed from him. And that was a positive step forward for the Cavs. But again, not one of their main guys. He goes away from Jared Allen. It’s easy to do that, right? Going away from Darius is delicate and it’s difficult. Going away from Evan Mobley is delicate and it’s difficult. But at some point, Kenny’s going to have to really consider that. And again, it doesn’t have to be for a week. It doesn’t have to be for two straight games. It doesn’t have to be for three straight games. It could just be for one because you understand that there’s somebody else that is coming off the bench that’s giving you more, that’s impacting the game at a higher level. And I felt like Craig was doing that compared to Darius at least. So I understand the reasoning that Kenny gave and he’s going to defend his guy. And Darius did a good enough job of turning things around, at least in the fourth quarter, and breaking down defenders and getting into the paint and making things happen for himself and for his teammates. He made all three shots in the fourth quarter. He dished out four assists in the fourth quarter. So he was doing positive things. But when you look at the entirety of the game, the minute load of Darius compared to Craig, it just didn’t match what you were seeing. It didn’t match what was happening out there on the floor. So it was unfortunate because I do think at some point Kenny’s going to have to make that difficult decision. He’s going to have to make a decision that may not go over great when it comes to locker room dynamics, when it comes to the feelings of certain players. Because I think if you’re trying to send a message, that might be the way to do it. That’s the thing that guys care about the most. They care about minutes. They care about who’s out there in the fourth quarter in pressure packed moments. All that kind of stuff matters to these guys. All that kind of stuff is a way to maybe open their eyes a little bit more. And maybe Kenny looked at it and said, december’s not the time to do it. A Friday night against the Washington Wizards isn’t the time to do it, but I thought it would have been justified based on everything that happened through the first three quarters of this game. Even the first time that Kenny went to Craig, he got four offensive rebounds in the span of like two minutes and he was making things happen and you could just feel a different energy around the team. You could just feel his impact in a variety of ways. That’s his job. That’s what he does. That’s the role that he has and he played to it. Each time he got his number called, he played to it. But if he’s going to do the things that you’re asking him to do, if he’s going to make that kind of impact at some point, you just have to reward him. I mean, tonight would have been an opportunity to do that.

Ethan Sands: I completely agree. Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Tyson after the game, post game on FanDuel Sports. Their job is to find the positives of the night and still Jaylon Tyson was able to be real about this contest. Jaylon Tyson said. We did not play well defensively, we didn’t play well in general tonight and I think as reporters it’s our job to not only stem away from some of the things that we are hearing if they’re solely coach speak, but this is a game where the Cavs should have won, as we said in our last podcast, by like 30 this six game window that we talked about them being able to possibly be 20 and 11 after. Yep, they got five more of these games. You got the Charlotte Hornets twice. I can bet you lamelo Ball is trying to cook Lonzo in those contests, right?

Chris Fedor: If he plays.

Ethan Sands: Yeah, if he plays. You got the Chicago Bulls who are going to try and make a statement because of how they’ve been playing. Isaac Okoro is going to do his best to make life miserable for Donovan Mitchell. And if Donovan Mitchell isn’t playing to this all star superhero, all NBA MVP caliber, we’ve seen that the Cavs might struggle. Then you have the New Orleans Pelicans who are interesting because you have a player, a rookie that could dominate in the passing, rebounding and points production kind of game in Derrick Queen. Obviously Zion Williams is not going to be out there so he is trying to figure out what is going to happen with the players around them. And then Victor Wembanyama might be back for the San Antonio Spurs. This is a stretch that went from oh, they’re going to potentially win six in a row to hold on now. They struggled against the Washington Wizards. We need to recalibrate our thinking and you mentioned it Chris earlier and I think it was bold of you to say and necessary of you to say the Cavs seem like they’re not listening. And again, I mentioned the portion of not getting back on defense. There was plays where you could see the outlets of the Washington Wizards and everybody on the Cavs is just looking around and the only player running back on defense was Donovan Mitchell or Darius Garland getting blown by because his toe was still messed up or because he wasn’t not a defender that is going to be able to do that even when healthy and then him reacting negatively. The maturation process that we talked about for Darius Garland not being there, not rotating over to defend a player in the corner, obviously there’s other nuances to this, but these two plays stuck out to me. When we talk about how this cast team is talking about the effort, the intensity, Darius Garland telling us on Thursday afternoon we have to play harder, we have to do more. Darius didn’t do that tonight. You could say he played harder in the second half offensively, defensively, there’s still another piece missing. And there’s the argument of Darius Garland was never going to be able to do this defensively or Darius Garland is still learning how to play with the injury of his toe. That’s too many excuses already for me. And if you’re looking at this game and you’re saying Max Sch wasn’t there, Sam Merrill wasn’t there, Larry Nance Jr. Wasn’t there, Jared Allen was there, I tell you, it’s the Washington Wizards. I tell you it’s the Washington Wizards without Chris Middleton and Bilal Koulibaly, their true point guard, CJ McCollum was carving dudes up. You know who I think also would have potentially been difficult for CJ McCollum to go after Craig Porter Jr. But Kenny Atkinson refused to go to a player that he continues to give a short leash to. And I think it’s unfair to some of these players. Obviously Naquan Tolin, his size, his length, his intensity is great. But if you see that these players are going to be Hacky Chan, as Jalen Tyson was called. If Jaylon Tyson’s Hackie Chan, what’s Naquan Tomlin if he fouls out in 10 minutes? There’s different things when we talk about this kind of contest and going into Sunday’s matchup against the Charlotte Hornets at home that still need to be addressed. There should never be a case where the Cavs are playing in an 82 game season against a team that has 33 wins and Donovan Mitchell needs to score damn near 50 points to make this team close to winning the ball game. And I sent a text out of all the negatives that I thought to the subtexters, our subscribers. But this was a game that in my eyes, and as I said in our previous podcast, this could be considered worse than the Golden State warriors game to me because of how they approached it. The five days they had to address all of the issues. And then you did not apply that to anything that was going on. Obviously, you can point to they won the points in the paint battle. They were good on the offensive glass. Yes, these things are minutiae when it comes to the overall view of the contest. And as Chris mentioned, if you watch the entirety of the contest as we do, you see that there are little things that the Cavs are still struggling with that are going to be substantially difficult to repair in a playoff series against teams that are not on the same caliber as the Washington Wizards.

Chris Fedor: Yeah, tonight wasn’t about the Cavs. That’s the thing, right? At some point, these wins have to be about what the Cavs are doing well, not about what the other team isn’t doing well, not about the caliber of opponent that they’re playing against. Tonight’s effort was probably good enough to beat one or two teams in the NBA, so hooray for that. Celebrate that one. Leave D.C. all chesty if you want to. Nobody is. Nobody should. Because they understand. They understand who they’re supposed to be, they understand the standards that they have for themselves and they’re just not meeting them on a consistent basis. And it becomes problematic for a team when they continue to be plagued by the same issues. And if we’re 26 games in and we’re coming off a five game break and we’re coming off what was supposed to be a transformative week for this organization and for this team, and they’re plagued by the same issues. That’s a problem. That’s nothing to celebrate. There’s no reason to beam with pride after this one. It just wasn’t a good performance. And it’s been like this for a majority of the season. You know, there was a reporter in town tonight and he was talking to me about the Cavs and he’s like, what’s going on with this team? I haven’t been watching as close as obviously you do. And that was before the game. We had had that conversation before the game, and then after the game it was like, wow, what the hell was that? I mean, there are multiple times throughout the course of the game I was like, holy crap, oh my God, what was that? DeAndre Hunter banking in a three pointer that hit maybe the top of the backboard. DeAndre Hunter airballing a three pointer from the corner. Some of these passes that they were attempting, I was just like, oh my.

Ethan Sands: Lonzo Ball missing a wide open layup.

Chris Fedor: Yes, it’s just not what anybody expected. Whether it was members of the front office, members of the coaching staff, players inside that locker room. It’s just not what anybody expected. Given everything that they had said this past week and given the fact that they were given a figurative layup by the NBA by not making the NBA Cup. Hey, here’s the Washington Wizards after a five day layoff, after being able to do this self evaluation, after being able to rest a little bit and get these guys healthier, both from a mental standpoint and from a physical standpoint. So it’s just not what anybody expected and it’s just not consistently up to the Cavs standard. And I think it’s okay to call that out even if it happens to come in a win. Because like I said, the how and the why for this team has to matter. These are the Cavs. Those are the Wizards. It shouldn’t look like it did tonight.

Ethan Sands: Donovan Mitchell scored 35 points and took 21 shots in the second half alone. There was one player that scored more than five points points outside of Donovan. You barely win games like that and the only reason you win games like that, you’re playing the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards in that span in the second half had three players score in double digits, one other player score nine points. The over reliance on Donovan Mitchell is going to make him reconsider if this is the place where he can win a championship. That is why Donovan Mitchell chose to come to Cleveland to be a part of the Cavaliers, because he thought that the players around him were capable of helping him win a championship, get past the Eastern or Western Conference semifinals. And this Wizards game, although albeit a win, is not helping the Cavs case at all. The Cavs have nine more games before the new year, five of them winnable. The other four are against opponents that will test the Cavs mentally, physically and emotionally. And I think this is the point of the season, especially after the five day break where they talked. All this talk is going to define this season. But with all that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the Wat 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 visit 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 text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you, as 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.