* Tonight on ESPN: Cavs vs. Wizards (7 ET)
The Cleveland Cavaliers early-season struggles to start 2017-18 have been well documented. As they seek to reclaim what has been their usual place as the top team in the Eastern Conference, one of their new additions provided perspective on the Cavs’ mini-swoon.
Dwyane Wade was a part of many a run to The Finals during his heyday with the Miami Heat. After Thursday’s practice, said he saw some qualities (some good, some not-so good) of the 2014 Heat team that reached The Finals, but fell in five games to the San Antonio Spurs. Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com has more:
As Dwyane Wade reflected Thursday on the four Finals he and LeBron James and Chris Bosh reached with the Miami Heat, he said “I don’t know how we made it” to the last one in 2014.
It was either a sobering comparison or a silver lining for a Cavaliers team trying to make its fourth consecutive Finals but looks like a lottery team right now, stuck in a four-game losing streak in which it’s been beaten by a combined 63 points. That’s the worst four-game point differential of James’ career.
“As a team, we were kind of like this, (but) it was worse because it wasn’t new guys,” Wade said after the Cavs’ practice Thursday. “It was guys who had been around each other four years in a row. Your jokes weren’t funny any more to other guys, when you walked in it wasn’t a big smile any more. Guys were just over you. It’s like being in a bad marriage. But we somehow made it to the Finals.”
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But after proving entirely uncompetitive in what was supposed to be the easiest stretch of the schedule, now the Cavs’ crisis is turning existential. Are they at all who they thought they were, who we thought they were?
With new players like Wade, Jeff Green, Derrick Rose, Jae Crowder and others in the mix, Wade himself explained how this Cavs team is different from that 2014 Heat team:
They are why things weren’t supposed to be stale for the Cavs. There are eight of them. Wade, Jae Crowder, Derrick Rose and Jeff Green play heavy minutes now, and Isaiah Thomas will start once he returns from a hip injury.
Wade is a three-time champion and a role player now. Thomas, Rose, Crowder, and Green have never been to the Finals.
“With the new guys here, you’ve got guys that have never been, guys who are hungry,” Wade said. “Obviously Isaiah is one of them, who’s out, Derrick and guys who have never been. Hopefully we can eventually pull from that and everybody wants to see the other guys succeed and get to that pinnacle they got to.”
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