The Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t give LeBron James a great birthday present this year.
The Cleveland Cavaliers recently suffered a 104-101 loss to the Utah Jazz. This happened on the birthday of LeBron James, and he hasn’t won a game in Utah since 2011.
The Cavaliers have now lost four of their last five games and all three during this road trip. LeBron had a strong opinion about how they played in this stretch.
"“This trip? The trip was trash,” James said to ESPN. “We went 0-3. It’s a trash trip. I don’t know where it kind of went wrong, but we have to figure it out, like we did the first time.”"
The Cavaliers have either been hot or cold all season. They started the year 5-7, but they also won 18 out of 19 games after that.
James turned the ball over a lot during the road trip, and that probably contributed to the losses. However, the rest of the Cavaliers need to step up as well for them to get out of this slump.
Things should definitely improve once they get Isaiah Thomas, Derrick Rose and Iman Shumpert back from injuries. Head coach Tyronn Lue said that his team was in “good shape” heading into 2018, but we all know that this group will be judged on whether or not they can reach the NBA Finals again. That is where LeBron has set the bar after making it there for so many years in a row, and the Golden State Warriors will more than likely be waiting there in the end.
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It will be tough for any other squad in the Eastern Conference to keep the Cavaliers from reaching their goal again. Here’s hoping that James had a happy birthday, because there will be plenty of teams trying to ruin his happiness in 2018. And Golden State is at the top of that list.