Are the Cavs Still Soft?

0:00Brownstraft was great. Guardians lost. Caves lost. Browns were great over the weekend. Save it while you can. One weekend, baby. The Browns won a weekend over there. All right. Who do you blame for the Caves loss? I almost said for the Browns loss. So I'm so used to saying it on a Monday morning. Who do you blame for the Caves loss? So it's a two one six four seven four to below 92. Let's go. As this was mounting during the game and you know, Hardin had all those turnovers in the first half, which was a follow up to the first game in Toronto when he had what 10 turnovers. It was crazy. Oh, he had a terrible game there. I thought he played way better. Honestly, in the third quarter, I thought Hardin kept him in it. So I did not. I saw some other Cavaliers, influential people. They were leading with the the turnover story for Hardin. I'm like, they were up eight with the seven turnovers. So no, I don't think Hardin was the reason they lost that game at all. And I said he was the one that was unafraid. I wish other guys had the mentality.

1:00You got to finish that game that the James that he did Biff that mid-range. I don't know why he didn't go glass. That was bad. You got to finish it. But Don, he had a three that went in and out two in the final four minutes. Donovan, I got to put it on Donovan. I've heard others go after Moby. I kind of want to go after Moby. Well, we'll get to that in a second. I'll say I'm not sure exactly who I want to pick. Just yet I'm getting it. I'm curious to see where the callers are on this. Because that's how devastating a game it was that it ran the gamut of people to blame. And I threw out some Ackinson stuff too. But you just need Donovan and all the stuff. And my bickering with Nick and I cannot wait to hear Nick today too. I cannot. That's a free promo for the afternoon show. I cannot wait to hear Nick. Well, yeah, considering you tried to sidestep it a little bit earlier this morning. Here's the deal in all my calculations about how this was going to go in the playoffs. And why I was so optimistic. It was because Donovan Mitchell had been so good in these types of series. Guys, the last two games. Forget top 10 player. Forget like all NBA second team guy.

2:08Forget all star. He's been a bad basketball player. He hasn't done anything on defense either. And normally we're okay with some of that because he exerts so much energy on offense. But when you're this bad on offense and you are not getting to your spots, you're not showing that Supreme athleticism around the rim and you're taking bad threes and you're lack of days ago getting the ball across half court. And you're not playing any defense. You're a zilch and for all the money he's made. He's a guy that they're going to turn around where somebody is and pay $70 million a year in his next contract. Is that worth $70 million? So to me, it's Donovan. He was the main issue, but I'll entertain some Evan Mowgli stuff. Well, they came in to Oh into Toronto and they left Toronto to two and even Evan Mowgli doesn't know why. We're in a good position. They were in a good position. Then they got

3:09in a bad position. This is now you're making me depressed. See you stirring over there. Here, let me help you out. We just got to do my job. Get into our space and get in charge of not turning the ball over in the final minutes. Maybe this is who he is. Mowgli had two baskets to start the third quarter, went right at a hurdle. And that was that at eight points for the game. Oh, for three from three. Cannot space the floor. They're not guarding them. They're letting him have any wide open shot and he doesn't want it. We got game five coming up. We're going to move on to the next and see what she did in the first two games. Get away. All right. One more here. Let's go. Hi. I'm still not going to freak out. I'm not going to get loud. I'm not going to get vulgar. Now, maybe Thursday morning, I might get vulgar. I'm not getting loud and vulgar now.

4:12But damn it. Like, I can't want it more than you. I've been wanting to call him the unicorn. I want him to work out. I wanted that. What do you mean by workout? I want him to be a one percent. I want him to be a one percent guy. And for a moment, I thought at the beginning of the series, there was a point where maybe things would click into place. And then yesterday, I mean, Friday was Friday, but yesterday, yes, I should say Thursday was Thursday. We talked about Friday. I'm sorry. Yesterday, man, I, you're up by eight with three minute, three and a half minutes to go, man, you got to put this game away. I don't care. I don't, I don't give an F how sloppy it is. Like, you got to figure, you're the better team. You should be a better version of sloppy than that team. That's, that's why I'm starting to, I'm getting a little bit agitated. I'm going to keep myself calm. It's only a two to two series. I'm not going to say a bunch of stuff. I have to regret coming up on Thursday morning. But I think that everything I'm about to say or everything that I have said is common sense to everybody here. You hear what they're saying? You hear what they've said about you for years now. Everybody wants to call you soft while in the Indiana series,

5:15it might not be true. But they're going to say it and you have to get rid of that label. And part of the reason they call you soft is because of your front court. So somebody's going to fix it. And it ain't going to be me. I can't fix it. I can't fix it for you. I can't fix it as a sports talk guy or as a fan for you. Because I think a lot of fans, it's, it's one thing to not be a great team or it's one thing to be a team that's on the cusp. It's a totally different amount of. It's a totally different amount of disrespect. It's a totally different amount of depression for the fan base when you get called soft, when your favorite team is soft, you could be from the softest place in America. Like when you think it like when people think about the Midwest and like Midwest, rust belt downs, you think tough because that's what you had to hang your hat on. No town wants to be called soft. No fan base wants to think that their team soft. Think of the softest place you can. If this team was it, if we were in Kabul, vacation destinations, right? Nobody in Kabul wants their team to be soft. Nobody in Miami,

6:16Florida wants their team to be soft. Everybody wants hard asses and crazy people. And it's like the worst possible thing you can call a team. And that's what I'm getting right now. It's like, that's, that's got to change. That's got to change. Because I'm in a different place with them right now. And I'll explain why I'm coming up at nine o'clock. Where the reason why I'm really called the exact reason why I'm calm about this. Because I'll tell you at nine, why I could take it or leave it right now. Right as I see it right now too. I'm looking at the ringer top 100 Evan Moby going in the playoffs. Twenty second. Meanwhile, the guy that owns the ringer Bill Simmons had this to say on his podcast. I had the same question marks next to Moby. He had eight points that rebounds the three assists. And you just forget he's out there for stretches. I'm starting to wonder if this is just who he is. We kept like factoring in this bump and the ceiling for him and all the potential of what he could be. And oh wait, maybe he's really a five. Maybe he shouldn't point next to Alan. Well, what happens if he starts making threes, that's going to change him. What we don't see from him is the guys get out of my ways. I'm just

7:21going to wreak havoc here for an hour, right? We need this game. We're up to one. Nobody can get anything going. Just I'm kickin' in a fifth gear and I'm going to destroy everybody for about a half hour here. And he just doesn't do it ever. I just said is the suit. Here was the little blurb a cheat code defender harnessing the breadth of his supreme athletic gifts on offense. What player is that? I think we are we're in a good position. We made some mistakes and I got us in a bad position. That Pat Shermer. You can't run away from what you said though. People want to give you give you the years over it. They should. I'm like, no, I stuck my neck out for them. They should six o'clock hour. You didn't really want to go out. You really wanted to kind of run and hide from your comments early. I was here. I was here. I said, oh no, I said what I heard. I didn't get that way. Wait a second. Wait a second. I heard it. I was ready to become a slippery wizard this morning. Yeah. I deserve every I deserve all of it. I called the entire town. The

8:22people were telling me not to be excited about the place. By the way, I am excited about the playoffs. I watched all 14 games over the last three days. So can't tell me that I'm so defeated that I wasn't interested. Like I've been dialed into the playoffs. I love this time of year. And honestly, my heart was thumping out of my chest for the final four minutes. That's this is ugly a game as you can imagine, but I was invested. It will not be a raw, raw speech for anybody. Okay, but I will tell you in five minutes why this is no time to panic. Ken Carmen, Anthony Lyme, and are the Browns that much better than they were last week? Did the record change in your head that coming up at 922 on the fan?