Cleveland Cavaliers look lost against Portland Trail Blazers, 129-110, plummet near bottom of Eastern Confere – cleveland.com

PORTLAND, Ore. — The winter storm warning that made for a treacherous bus ride to the Moda Center was the least of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ worries Friday night.

The Cavs spoke like an awakened team following their embarrassing loss two nights earlier. Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff expected a different, more enthused group. Not so much. Cleveland got crushed by Portland, 129-110. It’s a sixth straight loss, dropping the Cavs to the third-worst record in the Eastern Conference.

With the Trail Blazers coming off an emotional and exhausting win Thursday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Cavs needed a fast start. Instead, they opened the game 2-of-11 from the field. Six minutes is all it took for the game to be lost. The Cavs trailed 22-4 midway through the first quarter — and couldn’t recover.

“Obviously we’re going through a rough patch at a tough time against very good teams,” Bickerstaff said. “These teams are coming out, playoff teams that are hungry for every win and they know we’re in this rut and they’re trying to jump on us early to not give us any confidence. We’ve just got to keep competing, we’ve got to stay together and we’ve got to figure it out.”

Andre Drummond disengaged quickly following a pair of early post-up misses. He capped another miserable night plastered to the bench for the final 17 minutes. Drummond scored eight points on 3-of-9 shooting to go with five rebounds and two assists. The Blazers outscored the Cavs by 20 points in 17 minutes with Drummond on the floor, continuing a nasty trend during this losing skid.

“We need him to be the best version of himself,” Bickerstaff said of Drummond. “That’s on us as coaches, that’s on the team collectively to help him be the best version of himself. A lot of our early success was because of the way he played on both ends of the floor. We’ve got to do the job of helping him to get back to that level because we need him to play that way.”

Jarrett Allen, moved back into a reserve role following two starts, finished with 22 points and six rebounds. Collin Sexton tallied an inconsequential 25 points.

Cleveland, the league’s best defensive team at one point earlier this season, had no answers for the short-handed Blazers playing without CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic. Columbus-born Gary Trent Jr. led the way with 26 points. Carmelo Anthony poured in 23 points off the bench in 20 minutes. Enes Kanter scored 21 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. Damian Lillard added 20 points and nine assists.

The Cavs knew this road trip would be a test. They were going to learn a lot about themselves. They have. Not it a good way.

Suddenly, a fun, promising start has vanished completely. They’re completely lost with plenty of soul-searching to do before they hit rock bottom — if not already there.

Making progress

Injured backup point guard Matthew Dellavedova, who hasn’t played this season because of a severe concussion, worked out at the team’s practice facility Friday afternoon. Dellavedova tweeted about the session, saying he believes the injury was more related to his neck and “can’t wait until the boys return from the road trip.”

Bickerstaff spoke with Dellavedova Thursday.

“I’m just happy that he’s feeling better,” Bickerstaff said. “The most important thing for us is that he’s feeling better. You think about the toll that plays on you, not only physically but mentally, and for him to be in a better place, that is the only thing that matters. We’ll work the basketball piece out, whatever that looks like, but I’m just excited that he’s feeling better. From the conversations we’ve had, he definitely is much improved. We hope that continues and we’ll work the basketball piece out from there.”

Up next

The Cavs will make their third stop on this five-game road trip when they play the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday evening. Tip is set for 10 p.m.