Game Night Observations: The Lack of Defense, Ty Jerome's Big Night, and The Response

The Cleveland Cavaliers fell to 36-8 on the season after Friday's loss to Philadelphia.

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost to the Philadelphia 76ers 132-129 on Friday night.

In a former life, I lived in Minneapolis and covered the Timberwolves. I arrived in town two days before Jimmy Butler was traded to Philadelphia. In the two seasons I was there, the team wasn’t very good. The highlight for me was getting to know so many of the people that covered the Wolves and even the other professional sports teams in the Twin Cities.

One of the people I got to know a little bit was Minnesota Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse. He is, in my opinion, one of the best sports columnists in the country. He’s also a better – and funnier – person than he is a writer.

Something that has always stuck with me from Reusse was that when one of the local teams was in danger of blowing a significant lead or losing to a lesser team he would say aloud, “this would be a bad loss.” Often, he’d tweet the same thing. It was something that didn’t take a genius to realize, but verbalizing it, in only the way Reusse can, was genius. It’s something that’s understood, and probably doesn’t need to be said, but it’s better when it is said.

“This would be a bad loss” was the phrase that entered my head when the Sixers led the Cavs 39-33 after the first quarter and it never left.