Kevin Love is injured. Isaiah Thomas looks like a completely different player than the MVP candidate he was last season. They’re one of the worst defensive teams in the entire NBA.The Cleveland Cavaliers are struggling mightily. Although their 30-21 record doesn’t exactly resemble a team that’s in a free fall, Cleveland has lost 12 of their last 18 games and looked like a G-League opponent against the Houston Rockets in a 120-88 blowout loss on Saturday.It seems as though the Cavs are now a long shot to earn the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference before the playoffs begin. But, is it safe to assume that they’ll even make the playoffs?As of Monday night, they’re still in third place in the East, but they’re just 4.5 games ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit Pistons, who hold the eighth and ninth seeds in the conference respectively.At least until Love returns (and possibly after), it remains a very realistic possibility that the LeBron James-led squad struggles.But, head coach Tyronn Lue isn’t worried (or at least he isn’t publicly expressing that emotion)."I mean we're still going to make the playoffs," Lue said after practice Monday per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. "There's no doubt about that. We're still confident in that for sure.""It's too early for that, but, I don't think we'll be knocked out of (making) the playoffs," Lue added.

Cleveland will take on the struggling Orlando Magic on Tuesday before squaring off against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second game of a back-to-back on Wednesday. Lue wants to make defense a priority in those contests.

"Just concentrate more on defense," the coach explained. "I think when we get a chance to walk through and do stuff defensively, we've got to continue to keep doing like we've been doing all year. Just got to keep getting better at that."

Overall, he wants his team to remain optimistic and to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them.

"We prepare, we'll be professional and we go out and play," Lue noted. "At the end of the day as bad as it's looked of late, we're still in a good position where we can play some good basketball going into the (All-Star) break and we want to try to control that.”

The Cavs could look very different as of Thursday afternoon following the trade deadline, but if the current roster will be moving forward, they’ll need to figure things out or else they run the risk or not only being a low seed in the East, but missing the playoffs entirely.

Before the season, that would have been a farfetched idea.