Cavaliers coach David Blatt was none too happy with the questions being asked of his team by the media after the team’s blowout loss to Golden State on Monday.
Golden State beat Cleveland 132-98 on Monday, and questions have been asked of the team since that defeat despite sitting at 30-11 overall. On Thursday, before the team’s victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, Blatt let the media know that he wasn’t thrilled with how the media had reacted to that defeat.
Blatt, unprompted, let reporters know exactly how he felt, via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin:
“I hear a lot of far-reaching conclusions and, personally, I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it because I’m not the one that’s saying or doing those things,” Blatt said. “I think this team has done pretty well dealing with the adversity that we’ve had. I think this team is in pretty good position, although people choose to overlook that, which I don’t think is fair.”
“I know we are not yet at our best and we can almost be encouraged by that because if we’re in the position that we’re in and we have where to go, in terms of getting better, there’s a positive in that, a real positive,” he said.
“You know what, we didn’t get here right now by being a bad team or by having all these problems that suddenly surface when you have a bad game like what we have. We work pretty hard to be, as of today, midseason, in first place in our conference and with some very good wins under our belt and with players finally getting back and being healthy.
“Again, that guarantees nothing, but it shouldn’t be overlooked either. I don’t think it’s fair. Well, I’m not going to say that, excuse me. I don’t like that theory. Fairness is not something I’m going to talk about, excuse me. I don’t think that it’s truly indicative of what we’ve done so far this year.
“You know, we had to work very hard to get to where we are, very hard. We have a ways to go, but I told everyone here that in the very beginning of the year, it was going to take us time. We weren’t a homogeneous unit from day one, with all our guys out and not having a real preseason. We’re OK — got to get better and we will — but it shouldn’t be overlooked what we have done so far. It’s easy to do that, but I don’t think it’s right.”
The Cavs deserve credit for being 30-11. That said, there are enormous amounts of pressure following them around. LeBron James knows it, and there has been a curious amount of drama and soul-searching for a team that, record-wise, is where they need to be, particularly considering one of their most valuable players, Kyrie Irving, only recently returned from injury.
