Cavs Keeping The Faith In Spite Of Skid

Things aren’t going the Cavaliers’ way these days, seemingly no matter how hard they play.

That could evidenced by Wednesday’s 120-115 home loss to the Suns. The Cavs (9-10) scratched and clawed and gave themselves a chance — again. But they also lost — again. The skid is now at five games.

But they are staying steadfast in their belief that good things await — again.

“I think we played great,” forward Cedi Osman said. “Obviously, was a tough ending for us but for the 48 minutes we were right there. We compete. That’s what we’ve been doing from the beginning of the season. It’s a very tough game for us because we knew we had a chance to win this game. We just couldn’t pull it off.”

Osman finished with 23 points, just two less than center Jarrett Allen. Not only did Allen scored 25, but he shot 9-of-10 from the floor and grabbed 11 rebounds.

“We had a couple turnovers, we had a couple missed opportunities in the final 5 minutes,” Allen said. “If we get those down … I’m not saying we have to be perfect, no team’s gonna be perfect, but if we get a couple of those, I think we could’ve come out with the win.

“The no moral victories thing is true. We want to win. But still looking at how young we are, we need to take some positives from every single game that we can. I think tonight was a perfect takeaway. We were in the game. We were doing things right. We did have our mistakes, but still had things that we could build off of.”

During the streak, the Cavs have lost to the Nets twice, as well as the Celtics, Suns and Warriors. No slouches on that list.

But they have been right there every time. They just haven’t been able to close it out for the win.

“We’re playing against some really good teams with some really good individual players that can make (big) plays down the stretch,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “It’s our learning curve to understand the same thing, is how do we make those plays down the stretch when we’re in these games?

“Because we’re going to be in a lot of games like this, the way our guys compete, the way they play. We’re gonna be in a lot of tight fourth quarters, and we just have to find our way through it.”

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