Where The Cavs' Attention To Detail Must Be Better

Cleveland Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was none too pleased with his team's careless turnovers in Oklahoma City. He made it known.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are disappointed with how their four-game road trip started out on Wednesday night in Oklahoma City. While the defense left much to be desired, there’s a reason that it was leaky in the first place.

Cleveland turned the ball over 20 times total and allowed the Thunder to score 30 points off those miscues. OKC also had 60 points in the paint and 28 free-throw attempts, a good amount of which came because a poorly executed offense led to a scrambling defense.

Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff spoke on the team’s self-inflicted wounds in great detail.

“You can't win a game against a team of this caliber where you miss out on possession after possession, where you don't even get a shot up. And unforced issues as well,” Bickerstaff said sternly after the 128-120 loss. “They're decisions that we're making that we're not completing.”

“I think just taking care of the ball, passing it to the open man,” Caris LeVert added of limiting the giveaways. “Coach says it all the time: Not trying to do too much. I think we have a lot of talented players on the team. Sometimes, we get bored making the simple play. I think it's just as simple as that. We all have to do better, myself included. I think I had three turnovers tonight. But it's just something as small as just passing to the open man honestly.”

Evan Mobley believes it’s a focus thing where the Cavs need to “come locked in from the jump,” avoiding little mistakes that compound. It might go beyond that.

‘I think they were careless plays that we made,” Bickerstaff said. “You saw it. Like, how many times did we throw the ball into the defense's hands where we had guys that were wide-open? That's the attention to detail and that's the fine line between average-to-good and good-to-great.

“You complete those plays to open guys, they get open shots, they're completely different games. You get stops and then come down and turn the ball over, those are disheartening and momentum-shifters. It's on us, and we have to do a better job of it.”

In the eight games they’ve played this season, Cleveland has taken care of the basketball relatively well for the most part with the fourth-least amount of turnovers on average in the NBA.

Giving it away has been more of a trend lately though, as the Cavs have coughed it up at least 18 times in three of the last four games.