Kyrie Irving and LeBron James are struggling with consistency so far this season. (GETTY IMAGES)

The new year couldn’t come soon enough for David Blatt. The first-year head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers had a rough December as his team stumbled to a .500 record in its last 10 games. An ESPN report recently surfaced saying that there is a growing concern within the team that the players are no longer responding to Blatt.

For most teams, having a winning record at the quarter mark of the NBA season is enough to earn a passing grade. But the Cavs have lofty expectations with the return of LeBron James. Anything less than a trip to the NBA Finals could be considered a monumental disappointment.

A string of losses at home to the Knicks, Nuggets, Pistons and Bucks have put the heat on Blatt, who is an easy target considering he’s a relative unknown in NBA circles.

Blatt made his mark overseas, winning a Euroleague title with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He also coached the Russian national team at the FIBA level, winning a gold medal in EuroBasket 2007 and bronze in the 2012 London Olympics.

There is no doubt Blatt knows how to coach. He’s done it at the international level. But moving from the Euroleague to the NBA is a huge step, so it is only natural Blatt is experiencing some growing pains as he figures out the NBA game. Some schemes that worked at Maccabi Tel Aviv won’t work with the Cavaliers. Blatt is smart enough to know this. He’ll figure it out.

The season is barely 30 games young, so to label Blatt a failure is a bit premature and unfair. How could you lose a locker room in 30 games? That is incomprehensible.

When the Miami Heat with LeBron, Wade and Bosh stumbled out of the gate in the 2010-11 season, some basketball experts were calling for the firing of head coach Erik Spoelstra. As it turned out, Spoelstra wasn’t such a bad coach after all. He took the Heat to four straight Finals and won the championship twice.

LeBron tried to put out the flames by giving Blatt a vote of confidence, something Cavs management did as well.

“Well, listen, man, I don’t pay no bills around here. Listen, man, I play. I’m happy with who we have at our helm,” James said. “He’s our coach, but to make it a feud between me and Blatt or the team and Blatt is just to sell. It’s just to sell and get people to read it and put something on the bottom of the ticker. That’s all it is.”

Cavs All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving also backed his coach and said the team is in “a really good place.” Now, the Cavs being in a “really good place” may be a bit of a stretch, but you get the point. LeBron and Kyrie, the Cavs’ two best players, are not completely shutting off Blatt. Not yet, at least. But they have one finger on the panic button.

“The thing about it is we can’t fault a first-year coach with getting to learn who everyone is,” Irving said. “It’s a process and just like assembling this team together, every single day we’re all developing great relationships and learning how to communication with one another.”

James recently decided to take a few weeks off to rest his ailing left knee and bad back. The timing of the injuries was a bit curious, but we’ll have to trust that James is really hurting and not pouting. James’ body broke down in last year’s NBA Finals, and he doesn’t want to repeat what happened in San Antonio when he had to be carried off the court. Blatt was regularly playing James 40- plus minutes in the first two months of the season, which may have contributed to James’ body aches.

Maybe LeBron was telling Blatt indirectly he’s tired and worn out when he wore the “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt.

Blatt’s biggest challenge to this point is to get LeBron and Kyrie to buy into what he’s selling. Scoring hasn’t been the problem for the Cavs so far this season. It’s on the defensive end that has kept them from securing more wins.

LeBron came from a Miami defensive philosophy that starts with blitzing pick-and-rolls and playing help-side defense. LeBron knows the ticket to a title lies with getting stops. The problem here is the core group in Cleveland is not exactly what you would call defensive stoppers.

Kyrie struggles against high pick-and-rolls; Kevin Love is not a good rim protector; and Mike Miller hasn’t guarded anyone since his college days at the University of Florida.

The defensive tone has to start with LeBron. Blatt can draw up all the plays he wants, but if LeBron is not buying into it what he’s preaching it won’t trickle down to the rest of the group.

Return of LeBron James has Cleveland buzzing again. (GETTY IMAGES)

We’ve all heard about how good LeBron James and Co. have looked in practice, but they are going up against Cleveland’s second and third units so they’re supposed to dominate.

Enter Maccabi Tel Aviv as a sparing partner. The preseason game wasn’t close — Cavs won 107-80 — but it offered a window of what to expect this season in Cleveland.

Cavaliers first-year head coach David Blatt knows Maccabi real well, having led the pro club to the 2014 Euroleague title. It was the crowning achievement of Blatt’s coaching career so far. He took a Maccabi squad that wasn’t considered among the elite clubs in Europe and turned it into a winner in a short amount of time.

That’s what attracted the Cavs to Blatt, and LeBron, owner Dan Gilbert and general manager David Griffin are all hoping Blatt can pull off the same trick in Cleveland.

Blatt’s first and most important job is to get in sync with LeBron. Oftentimes coaches try to impose their way without the input of the franchise’s best player. Blatt’s first move should be to make LeBron be as comfortable as possible. James is a playmaking power forward who prefers to work from outside-and-in, meaning he wants the ball above the 3-point line or just above the free throw line. That’s where he did most of damage when he was with the Miami Heat.

Part of the reason why LeBron wanted the Cavs to trade for Kevin Love was because Love is not a low-post player. He prefers to stand behind the 3-point line, which opens up the paint for LeBron. Basically, Love will take over the role of Chris Bosh.

If LeBron is Blatt’s ace card then Kyrie Irving is the wild card. LeBron said at the start of training camp that Irving is the point guard of the team and the ball will be in his hands most of the time. That was a standard response from a veteran guy who is smart enough to know he can’t rock the boat at this point in the season. He did the same in his first season in Miami, and deferred too much to Dwyane Wade. But make no mistake about it, the Cavaliers are LeBron James’ team. Not Kyrie Irving’s team. This is not a Batman and Batman situation like it was in Miami. LeBron is Batman and Irving is Robin.

It will take an entire season, including the playoffs, for LeBron and Kyrie to get on the same page.

Defensively, the Cavaliers have some work to do. James will find out this unit doesn’t cover the same amount of ground as his Heat teams did. Irving and Love are not known for their defense, and it could take an entire season for Blatt to get everyone playing on a string.

Kevin Durant's game-high 33 points led U.S. to 89-79 victory over Russia in the quarterfinals at the FIBA World Championship. (FIBA)

On Sept. 9, 1972, Russia shocked the United States in the controversial gold-medal game at the Olympics Games in Munich, Germany. It was a bitter loss for the Americans, who still refuse to accept their silver medals because they all believe the game was taken away from them by the officials.

It was the United States’ first loss at the Olympics and signaled the beginning of Russia’s rise to power in basketball. For the last 38 years since that infamous game in Munich, each time the United States and Russia go head to head the game holds a special meaning.

On the anniversary of the Munich game, USA and Russia met in the quarterfinals of the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey.  Even though the Russians are no longer considered a powerhouse on the international stage and the intensity of the rivalry has been watered down since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia still presents a threat and the Americans certainly didn’t take the contest lightly during Thursday night’s matchup.

Kevin Durant made sure Team USA didn’t walk off the court disappointed as the Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star led all players with 33 points on 11-for-19 shooting to carry the U.S. to a 89-79 victory. Team USA will face either Lithuania or Argentina in the semifinals at Istanbul, Turkey.

Durant’s Thunder teammate, Russell Westbrook, provided a spark off the bench as 10 of his 12 points came in the third quarter and the U.S. outscored Russia, 26-17, in the quarter. Lamar Odom led the U.S. on the boards with 12 rebounds, and did a solid job in containing Russian 7-footer Timofey Mozgov (13 points).

After a shaky first half that saw the Americans hold a slim 44-39 lead, Westbrook went on a 7-0 individual spurt that included one 3-pointer and two thunderous breakaway dunks off steals. Chauncey Billups scored eight of his 15 points in the third, a quarter in which the U.S. led by as many as 15 and built a 70-56 advantage entering the fourth.

Despite getting caught up in a back-and-forth verbal joust with David Blatt leading up to the game, U.S. head coach Mike Krzyzewski was extremely complimentary of Russia and its head coach.

“I would like to congratulate Russia for playing such a terrific game,” Krzyzewski said. “Coach Blatt has had an amazing career coaching in Russia and the way his team played today shows the high quality of coaching he gives his players. I thought we were ready and played hard. It was a very well earned win against a terrific team with a great coach.”

Krzyzewski added: “They were playing good defense and we were not hitting the shots; the Russians seemed to be in control. The main thing I told my players in that timeout is just relax, there’s a long way to go. When you play against a team that never quits, you know they are going to play every possession and Russia did that.”

Blatt, who played at Princeton for Pete Carril and runs the “Princeton Offense,” took some heat for saying the Russians were the rightful winners of the gold medal at the ’72 Games, which infuriated Krzyzewski and USA Basketball officials.

Coach K fired back and said: “You know, he coaches the Russian team, so he probably has that viewpoint, and his eyes are clearer now because there are no tears in them. So, it’s great. Whatever he thinks, he thinks.”

After the 10-point loss to the U.S. in the quarterfinals, Blatt wished the Americans the best and applauded his coaching counterpart.

“I congratulate Coach K and his great staff and their wonderful team. One of the things that I mostly appreciate about USA Basketball under Coach K is that they recognize how to play the European game and still maintain that advantage that the American game gives them. We tried hard to stop them and there were moments that we were successful, but in all honesty, the game was in the control of the USA team.”

All postgame comments were courtesy of FIBA.com