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 on today’s episode, Chris Fedor in Chicago after the Cavs’ latest win, where they brought home a 139-117 victory thanks to a fourth quarter-cavalanche.

That was during a game that was tied with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Cavs closed on a 32-10 run. They’ve now won 11 straight games for the third time this season. They’re 51-10. Chris, I had to deal with the last two days being, or the Portland Trail Blazers game mainly, when they were down by 18

Boston, Southlake, were you in Boston? They were down by 22. What is going on with this team? The Cavs were down by as many as 15 at one point in this game against the Chicago Bulls that had 10 players on their injury report when they initially came out. What’s going on?

Chris (01:20.696)

It’s not good. Donovan Mitchell called it unacceptable. Kenny Atkinson said, we have to be really, really careful. I asked Kenny after the game, I said, is it too soon? Is there enough of a sample size to say that this is a bad habit that you guys have developed? I asked Jared Allen the same thing. And they did say, they said it’s a bad habit and we’ve got to break it. They did not go into the locker room and celebrate their 11th straight win.

They went in the locker room and they talked to each other about how to get off to better starts. They held each other accountable. The starter said that they didn’t do a good enough job of bringing the energy, bringing the effort. In the words of Kenny Atkinson, Ethan, they were sleepwalking through three quarters. And you’ve seen that the last couple of games. And Donovan even said it after the game. said, Hey, look, like we’re able to overcome these things because we’re really, really talented.

and we can lock in on both ends of the floor when we absolutely need to. But these kinds of things are going to bite us if we don’t fix it. So this is something else that the calves have to deal with here down the stretch of the season. This is, I don’t want to classify it as a problem, but over the last week or so, it has been a problem and it’s point of emphasis number one.

going into tomorrow’s game against the Miami Heat is bringing the energy, bringing the effort, bringing the attention to detail from the very beginning. Because again, you can get away with it against Portland and you can get away with it against Chicago and against a Boston team that did not have two starters. Apparently you can get away with it against that group of Celtics as well. But these are the kinds of things that the Cavs want to avoid.

The whole goal here is figuring out how to build championship habits behind the scenes. And Kenny Atkinson said for the team that has the best record in the NBA, like this should not be part of their identity. And so they’re looking to try and remedy it as best they can.

Ethan Sands (03:36.879)

And Chris, I want to preface this by saying that the Cavs, even though the game was tied with under seven minutes left, came out in one by 20 plus points, right? That is a great testament to the offense that they have and the defense that they can tap into and the overall depth of the roster, we knew a majority of the starters didn’t play for the fourth quarter, all these different things. But the reality of the situation is

Chris (03:47.672)

Mm-hmm.

Ethan Sands (04:05.837