After the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 135-115 home loss to the Toronto Raptors on Saturday night, Collin Sexton pointed to the team’s sluggish defensive start as the chief reason for the blowout loss.
“It was embarrassing what took place in the first half tonight,” Sexton said. “We came out being soft and they just pretty much got whatever they wanted. At the end of the day, you got to take pride on the defensive side. We gathered together as a team, we all talked about it and we was like, ‘Don’t worry about offense.’ And we was like, ‘What do y’all see?’ The first thing that came to mind was our start.”
The Cavs allowed a franchise-record 87 points during the first two quarters.
That horrendous effort put them down 33 points at halftime and effectively turned the rest of the game into garbage time.
Defense was nowhere to be found for the Cavaliers from the outset, with the Raptors connecting on their first 12 shots of the game.
By the time the first quarter had ended, the Cavaliers had allowed 47 points and trailed by 21 points.
“I thought we let them do what they wanted to do. They were beating us up one-on-one. We weren’t good helping one another,” Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “It was a bunch of different things, but it came down to the fight and we lost the fight in the first half.”
What made the Cavs’ performance even more embarrassing was that the Raptors entered the game shorthanded, with their top three scorers out of the lineup.
The loss dropped the Cavaliers to 19-33 on the year and killed the momentum from the two road victories that had preceded the defeat.
The Cavaliers will attempt to quickly wipe away the bad taste from their most recent effort when they host the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night.
