If it looked as if Dion Waiters put a little extra on that thunderous dunk late in the Cavaliers’ 91-83 overtime victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday evening at The Q, it’s because he did.
Waiters was flushing a lot of frustration with the slam that clinched the win and capped an emotional few days for the franchise. He’s taking a good share of the blame for the team’s struggles that cost general manager Chris Grant his job on Thursday.
“Sad to say CG lost his job, but I think it woke up a lot of people,” Waiters said after the Cavs won their second straight game and improved to 18-33. “Me, I felt half of that was my fault, how we played, how we came out and during games and how we played. We just didn’t come out right as a unit. I think it cost the man his job. If we had been playing the way we have the last two games he’d probably still be here.
“We can’t dwell on the past, we’ve got to continue to play the way we’ve been playing and keep it up.”
Grant was replaced by acting general manager David Griffin, who spoke to the team at shootaround on Sunday. Owner Dan Gilbert addressed the team before the game. They seemed to get their message across.
“I feel like we had a great team meeting with all of us,” said Kyrie Irving, who led the Cavs with 28 points, including four clutch free throws in the final 29.5 seconds. “Coming out there in the game is fun — being out there, just competing at the highest level. At the end of the day, it’s just a game. Everybody was putting too much pressure on themselves. We just need to go out there and just play basketball. That’s what we get paid to do. It’s a blessing to be out there. Just go out there and play at the highest level, do the best you can.”
Waiters and Irving talked about learning to play with each other, which hasn’t really worked at all for most of the last two season.
“We see what we can do out there,” Waiters said. “Sometimes if I don’t have nothing, I know he’ll find me. But sometimes when we’re driving we don’t always see one another. That’s just the aggressiveness, trying to attack the basket. Now when we attack, we’re looking for one another, we’re playing off each other and we’re feeding off one another.”
Irving said they’re trying to communicate better on the court.
“We’re just being honest with each other out there, tell each other what we see out there,” Irving said. “He’s looking to me for advice, I’m looking to him for advice, different things we see out there. Earlier in the season, we probably wouldn’t have said anything to one another. it’s just continuing to get better and playing off one another. Going out there and having one of your good friends out there, we can play off one another. He’s got so much talent. [I can just go] to the corner and let him go to work. Or me and him playing off one another, coming off the top of the key, playing pick and roll, just looking for each other and also trying to make plays for our teammates.”
If they had figured this out earlier, and played the sort of defense that limited Memphis to 38 percent shooting and forced 15 turnovers, there’s no telling what their record might be right now.
That was a question coach Mike Brown wouldn’t touch.
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