Cavs lethargic in 91-88 loss to Charlotte

By BRIAN WINDHORST

CLEVELAND — It was about time for a market correction for the Cavaliers. After all, things had been going a bit too well lately.

Over the last couple of games they’ve gotten victory pay for a part-time effort as they clearly had been showing wear at the tail end of a heavy schedule over the last month.

Comeuppance came Sunday in the form of the Charlotte Bobcats, a sub-.500 team with a horrific road record, but perhaps the worst sort of team for the Cavs to face at this time. An opponent that’s obviously hungry but tough to get very excited about.

The result was a lethargic and regrettable defeat, 91-88, and a bevy of fresh leaks to deal with.

Over are the seven-game win streak and the 11-game home win streak and they went without the fight that was commonplace in building them.

“It just one of those days,” said Mo Williams, summing up the feeling of the entire energy-depleted locker room after the game. “You can’t expect to be great and sharp all of the time.”

The Bobcats (14-18, 3-14 on the road) made a week’s worth of clutch shots in the second half. The two most deadly were within the last minute. Flip Murray, a 23-percent 3-point shooter, broke an 83-83 tie with a 3 despite having a hand in his face.

Then Raymond Felton, who had 17 points, came up with big insurance on a floater in the lane that bounced on the rim twice before falling in.

Charlotte shot 49 percent, the highest percentage the Cavs have allowed in 25 games. They were at 52 percent in the second half, where the Cavs had been deep-freezing enemy offenses all season.

But if that wasn’t enough, the Cavs compounded it with poor decision-making in addition to below standard execution.

Down just one point, Shaquille O’Neal and Delonte West trapped Murray on an inbounds play with nine seconds to play. Hoping to get a steal, neither player fouled the 63 percent free throw shooter. Instead he got out of it and it was Stephen Jackson, who had made 31 consecutive free throws, who got the ball seven seconds after Murray could have been fouled.

“We are supposed to try to get the steal, and if you can’t then foul him,” coach Mike Brown said. “He got the ball out of the trap and got it to their best free-throw shooter. It happens, but that’s not where we won or lost the game.”

Jackson, who led the Bobcats with 22 points, of course made both with 2.5 seconds left.

It didn’t leave much time for the Cavs to answer. LeBron James tried but even that was a mess — he forced a 3-pointer from the corner that he shot too quickly and missed.

James had 29 points but was clearly out of gas. He played the entire second half and did next to nothing in the fourth quarter, playing the first 10 minutes without a point, rebound or assist. Which explains how the Cavs missed their first seven shots and went just 6-of-19 in the quarter.

But that was only part of the problem. Williams had a good shooting game, scoring 27 points with six assists. But he and James ended up dominating the ball and the offense was often ineffective, which has been a growing tendency over the last couple of games.

Shaquille O’Neal was 4-of-5 shooting while Anderson Varejao, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Jamario Moon combined to go 1-of-17.