Cavs watched World Cup film to address recent blown leads

The Cleveland Cavaliers have watched as 20+ point leads have vanished in three of their last six games, dating back to last season’s Eastern Conference Finals. It’s a troubling trend that has to be addressed — even if they aren’t the only team in the league that’s been affected.

“It happens,” said Kenny Atkinson. “The timing hasn’t been great, but just in general, I would say with all of the variance in the way the NBA is played today — it’s something we had to address and keep talking about it.”

Atkinson isn’t wrong. Just two days before the Cavs blew a 29-point lead to Philadelphia, the Boston Celtics suffered a similar fate in their opening game against Detroit. For all of Cleveland’s pain from Game 1 of the Conference Finals versus New York, the Spurs are feeling even worse about their Game 4 collapse in the Finals.

Blown leads happen across sports. It’s even worse in basketball now that three-point variance and possesion-maxxing has become the norm. Cleveland has just been on the wrong end of the stick multiple games in a row.

“We showed the guys some clips of the World Cup of England when they had that lead against Argentina — they were pushing forward, being aggressive, and then they just kind of went back,” said Atkinson. “The message to the guys was we have to keep attacking.”

Building a lead is difficult. Maintaining one is supposed to be the easy part. But Atkinson believes that big leads can cause complacency — and the key to staying in front is not taking your foot off the gas.

“Your natural inclination is to hold back and slow down… but I think every team makes that mistake; they become passive when you have to keep attacking.”

Of course, above all else, you have to keep playing good basketball.

Cleveland’s recent collapses have happened on the basketball court, not in their own heads. Mental toughness is an intangible skill. Turnovers and offensive rebounds are the manifestation of this. They go hand-in-hand, and it begins with staying committed to the plan and aggression that gave you the lead to begin with.

“I think we know what hurts leads,” said Atkinson. “Turnovers, the other team’s offensive rebounding, and of course, the three-point variance — so those are the things we can control, but also switch the mentality to be more aggressive.”