"The truth can't set a pick, but it can set you free.

Byron Scott's honesty is not only refreshing, it's apparently contagious.

This edition of the Cavs is half NBA basketball team, half sodium pentothal experiment.

(By the way, remind me not to ask Scott if these jeans make me look fat.)

The coach does not suffer cop-out artists, posers or anything resembling entitlement. His is a good voice for a team this young to hear on a nightly basis.

Kyrie Irving scores 32 points against the Nets while taking some plays off and says, "I felt like I was taking some plays off."

Clearly, LeBron James has not gotten through to this kid yet.

Instant postgame self-reflection during the previous era happened only when James paused to admire himself in the mirror. James never failed, certainly never choked, always made the right play that just sometimes didn't turn out well.

Those Game 5 lapses against Boston? Who? What?

In his retelling, he was a whirling dervish who lacked only the supporting cast that helped Kobe Bryant slay the Celtics.

During the recent four-game slide featuring three noncompetitive efforts, the Cavs' offense looked like one of the 2,345 GOP debates -- five guys with opposing agendas tolerating their time together.

Said Antawn Jamison: "Offensively, I have no clue what we're doing. It's one-on-one basketball."

Jamison called those Cavaliers performances "worse than last year," which was an overstatement (slightly). But erring on the side of deprecation is healthier for the Cavs than letting the whiff of excuse-making and denial inside the locker room. "