Dec 19, 2012; Boston, MA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Tristan Thompson (13) and head coach Byron Scott react during the second half of a game against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to a special edition of “Tuesdays with Right Down Euclid.” This week, for a rare Monday show, the RDE crew of Zachary Kolesar and Chris Manning will talk the latest Wine and Gold news to keep you informed on headlining topics in the form of back-and-forth discussion. We will cover the most important topics in a four-quarter (and double overtime) breakdown spanning from the shores of Lake Erie to all around the NBA (if it is relevant breaking news).

In the twenty-fifth episode website editor Zachary Kolesar and contributing blogger Chris Manning talk about the firing of Coach Byron Scott, the biggest disappointment and brightest moment for the Cavaliers during the 2012-13 campaign, offseason plans, which parting players the Wine and Gold have to reconnect with in free agency and playoff predictions.

Below is the link where you can listen to this week’s episode as a whole:

You can also fast forward to the section of your choice by looking at the start time of each quarter:

First Quarter – Did Coach Scott get a fair shake with the Cavaliers?

Starts at the beginning of podcast

Second Quarter – Which Clevelander were you most impressed with this season?

Starts at 6:46

Third Quarter – Who was the biggest disappointment for the Cavs this year?

Starts at 10:57

Fourth Quarter – What is the biggest need for the Cavaliers this offseason?

Starts at 18:08

Overtime – With the future of players like Marreese Speights, Daniel Gibson and Shaun Livingston with the Cavs up in the air, who should fight to bring back?

Starts at 22:55

Double Overtime – Who will be representing the Eastern and Western Conferences in the playoffs?

Starts at 29:20

Make sure to join us next Tuesday for your weekly dose of “Tuesdays with Right Down Euclid.”

Mar 27, 2013; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard Wayne Ellington (21) drives to the basket against Boston Celtics power forward Jeff Green (8) in the second quarter at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

It’s fun playing the “who will show up” game with the Cleveland Cavaliers when three of your star players (I’m including Anderson Varejao because it seems he has been missing for so long that most people forget to add him to the extended list of injuries). When the Boston Celtics game to town to play the Wine and Gold, everyone had a fair chance of guessing if anyone at all would help the Cavaliers get out of their fifth slump of losing more than four games in a row this season.

After getting off to a sluggish start that included members of the Celtics tearing through the lane and getting easy buckets, Boston was out to an early 12-9 lead when Cleveland called their first timeout so Tyler Zeller and Tristan Thompson could collect themselves. Things didn’t finish as well as Coach Byron Scott discussed in the huddle, and that was due to the poor shooting from the struggling shooting guards. Wayne Ellington (1-of-6), Daniel Gibson (0-of-1) and C.J. Miles (1-of-3) – all who have played ineffective basketball since Dion Waiters went out – were all hard to watch in the first quarter and were too predictable with their shot selection.

The first quarter ended with a Marreese Speights’ buzzer-beater two pointer being waved off after referees took a long time making a call on the play. Cleveland was only down by six points after the first 12 minutes, which in my opinion was a victory for this team who struggled immensely from the field from the start. Both the Cavaliers and the Celtics made seven shot attempts in the first frame, but it was Boston’s ability to get to the line late that gave them the advantage.

Once the second quarter began, it looked like the same old story meaning that the Cavs would be in for a long night after some cold shooting. An 11-5 run spanning the first four-plus minutes of play resulted in another Byron Scott timeout. A nice defensive stand that cut Boston’s lead back to six was just what Cleveland needed to get back into the game with their best healthy player shockingly underperforming. With Kevin Garnett out and the offensive success that Tristan Thompson has had this season against Boston (averaging 16.0 points).

Thompson finished the half scoreless, but Cleveland had narrowed the gap to just a one-point Boston lead. Both teams are on different ends of the spectrum of the NBA world, but injury problems have plagued the Celtics on the Cavaliers in two very different seasons for these teams. Boston, with their age, seems to be heading toward a downward trend, while Cleveland looked like one of the most improved teams for a short minute when Kyrie Irving and Waiters were both healthy. Out of the four players from the last two draft classes, Tyler Zeller was the player to show up against a depleted Boston frontcourt and with Irving and Waiters in their suits and ties.

Zeller had one of his best performances in a half of basketball all season, balancing for nine points (4-of-5 from the field) and eight rebounds – very Tristan-Thompson like numbers at the half. With the team on a five-game losing streak, who would’ve thought the awkward center from North Carolina – who has been beat up all season long – would’ve willed his team to a hot second half start.

After going on a tear led by Ellington (!), Cleveland took the lead and extended it to 12 points after going on a 21-8. Although Scott was not happy with the team’s performance down the stretch in the third quarter, the team still came out firing in the fourth to try and end their five-game skid. In fact, both teams were fighting to end losing streaks of the same amount. The question was, who wanted it more? The Cavaliers’ playoff hopes have been lost for sometime and Boston, despite a tough stretch lately, looks to be safe with securing a spot in the postseason. Different reasons to win and different motivation to as well.

As if this game couldn’t get any more weird with the players who were helping will the Cavs to victory, Miles and Gibson hit threes to open up the fourth and a 79-70 lead. Boston looked tired and confused, but we’ve seen meltdowns worse than this from Cleveland this season – would it happen again?

With the lead up to 14 points at one point in the waning minutes of the game, Boston fought back to keep the game within reach. With under three minutes to go in the game and the Celtics on the verge of building up a big run with their inside game, the lead was down to six and it looked like the same meltdown that we have known the Cavaliers to have.

With a Cleveland turnover with less than two minutes to go, the defense needed to step up. Once again Boston went to the hole and Jeff Green finished with an and-one drive, narrowing the lead to one point. Shaun Livingston came up with a block on Green and Cleveland played solid defense on Boston’s final possession to try and close out the Celtics with less than 10 seconds left on the clock and up by just one point.

But Jeff Green, who had 21 points, five rebounds and five assists, did what he had done all night and drove down the lane to beat the Cavs at the buzzer, 92-91. The unlikely heroes — Zeller and Ellington — showed up in opposite halves, resulting in a loss.

The Cavaliers five-game losing streak over the past 10 days has been a struggle to watch. The last week, in particular, featured two 20-point blowout losses to the Pacers and Rockets, and that excruciating loss to the Heat last Wednesday. The offense has stalled badly over the stretch, as the Cavs have shot just 39.7 percent in these last three games. This has coincided with Dion Waiters going down with an injury in the Indiana game with a cartilage injury in his knee – an injury that will likely keep him sidelined for the rest of the season. Waiters’ presence was certainly missed in these three games, as he has averaged 15/2/3 over the course of the season (18/3/4 per 36 minutes) and was the driving force of the Kyrie Irving-less offense, leading the team in scoring in three of the four games after Kyrie injured his shoulder.

Since Waiters went down, the team has been forced to rely on a heavy diet of C.J. Miles, Wayne Ellington and everyone’s favorite ill-advised jump shot-taker, Boobie Gibson, at the wing. The results have not really been pretty. Miles was a stud in the Indiana game, finishing with 21 points, but was just 3-of-10 from the field and was one of the main players to melt down in the 27-point comeback by the Heat, as he was held scoreless in the second half. He followed that up with a 3-of-8, 9-point effort against Houston on Friday. Ellington was one of the main culprits of the Indiana loss, shooting just 1-of-9 from the field, but rebounded for a nice 20-point effort against Miami, before having a very average 13-point effort against Houston. This is about what we’ve expected from these two this season, but against three elite opponents this past week, with increased playing time, you would have liked to have seen a little more from them.

Gibson, meanwhile, has been atrocious. He’s shot 3-of-22 from the field over the past three games, including a 1-of-9 performance against Indiana, and an 0-of-9 train wreck against Houston where he finished scoreless and with an offensive rating of 7. Yes, that means given 100 possessions, at the rate he was going, Boobie would have scored 7 points. He also has been playing defense at an alarmingly bad rate, with a 126 defensive rating against Houston. We’ve known Gibson has been bad for a couple of seasons now. He’s slowly melted down since the 09-10 season, going from a 47 percent field goal percentage then to 34 percent now, and his TS% is only 48 percent, so it’s not like the amount of threes and free throws he’s taking are offsetting it. Losing Waiters is bad enough, but replacing his minutes with increased Boobie Gibson playing time has actually been worse.

Granted, the Cavaliers don’t have much they can do about the shooting guard play right now. They already have the answer for the future in Waiters, and we can’t really get THAT angry that Ellington, Miles and Gibson didn’t play well against three playoff teams, two featuring two of the top three shooting guards in the league in Dwyane Wade and James Harden. However, for them to each have at least one extremely bad game each this week, with only maybe Ellington’s 20-point performance against Miami as a redeeming game (And it could easily be argued that Ellington’s effort was partially a product of excellent early post play from the Cavs, as Tristan Thompson’s first-quarter explosion helped collapse the Heat defense into the lane and opened things up for Ellington and Shaun Livingston to work from outside), it’s definitely not a far stretch to imagine that this will factor into the Cavs decisions on retaining these three past this season. Gibson is a UFA, and I think it’s basically a lock that he’s gone. Miles has a team option, and Ellington is an RFA, so the decisions will have to be made there if these sometimes helpful, but other times disastrous, wings will return to the Cavs. I like Ellington and am neutral on Miles, but with a large amount of cap space this summer with a high amount of available wing rotation players available, as well as two draft picks in a decent draft for wings (a young gun like Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum could find his way to the Cavs with the Lakers pick),  I would not mind seeing the Cavaliers head into next season with Waiters and 2-3 fresh faces behind him.