CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Cavaliers finished the month of January with a 7-8 record after Monday night’s road loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
And despite that sub-.500 record since the calendar flipped to 2017, the Cavaliers hold a 2.5-game lead over the Boston Celtics for the top spot in the Eastern Conference standings, as well as a seven-game advantage over the Indiana Pacers in the Central Division.
However, if the Cavaliers are to build onto that lead and build positive momentum over the second half of the season and into the playoffs, veteran power forward Channing Frye feels the team needs a change in attitude.
“Let’s just call a spade a spade, we’re the champions,” Frye said. “People are not just going to ho-hum walk into this game. These teams have been playing well. The Mavericks, they’re playing good basketball. I think now, we need to be the desperate ones.
“We need to not rest on our laurels and just continue to play above and beyond ourselves right now. I think we need to be more aggressive and play like we’re the underdogs and make sure we’re paying attention to detail, communicating. They’re a good team. We need to be aggressive.”
According to Frye, the Cavaliers need to do some introspection if they hope to reverse their recent struggles.
“Look each other in the eye and know that we have to be emotionally committed to not only every game, but every play, to dig deep and know that each possession has a value for us,” Frye said.
In Monday’s loss, the Cavaliers had better shooting and three-point percentages, scored more points, 20-19, on the fast break, and were nearly even with the Mavericks in interior scoring, but the biggest difference on the scoreboard came on second-chance opportunities.
The Mavericks turned their 10 offensive rebounds into 19 second-chance points, and they held a 15-point edge over the Cavaliers in that department.
“Those guys play hard, and we had too many mistakes,” Frye said. “They beat us on second-chance points, and we just really didn’t get into the flow of our offense until late in the game, and by then, it was too late.
“It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be a tough road for us. We’re going to have to continue to try and get better, continue to mesh and figure things out. We’re pretty stop-and-go right now, do two things good, one thing bad, two things bad, one thing good. We’re staying positive with each other. All of us need to step up.”
And to Frye, nowhere is that extra effort needed more than on the defensive end of the floor, especially when they face off against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Quicken Loans Arena Wednesday night, their only home game over the next 11 days.
“I think we needed to get back, communicate on defense,” Frye said. “I felt we needed to be more physical on defense. They were running their offense well. We can’t leave guys on islands. I think they played one-on-one a lot.
“Games like this are going to happen sometimes. For us, we just have to look at this film and say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to leave guys on islands and let them play one-on-one. We’re going to make them make extra passes and activate our defense.’”
