Aw shucks, the Cavaliers were looking surprisingly feisty for a while there. This 40-point annihilation at the hands of Luka Doncic and the Mavericks (but mostly just Luka Doncic) is just another in an increasingly long string of bad losses. They used up all their mojo kicking the Knicks’ butt a few games ago, they used up literally all of it, and that means no more wins until they tap into the emergency mojo reserves kept in Cedi Osman’s locker.
The fanbase is likely moving from a “we like winning games” state to a “did one of the rookies have a good game?” state. Once a season gets to a certain point, winning games becomes actively detrimental to the future, so despite the blowout, this was a good outcome for the Cavaliers. They lost the game, strengthening their tank, and Darius Garland had his best game as a pro, strengthening their future. The only losers were whichever Cavaliers fans caught this game on TV and had to endure a thorough face-slapping mercifully interspersed with some nice Garland buckets.
This is the kind of game for Garland that, if it happened right during the final game of the season, would sustain the fanbase throughout the WHOLE offseason. That’s how good it was. Things could be as bleak as the bleakest midwinter night, but the light at the end of the tunnel would be “Darius Garland is going to be so good, remember when he scored 23?”. I don’t even want to think about how fanbase-sustaining a Garland 40-point game would be. They might have to put up some murals where the LeBron ones were, assuming that they haven’t already put up murals of Matthew Dellavedova.