Cavaliers coach John Lucas gave his team an off day on Sunday. They responded by taking another one last night.

Just before the biggest road trip of the season - six games over nine days out west - the Cavs were awful in a 98-72 home loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.

"It's been a long time since we laid an egg like that," Lucas said. "We were bad very much from the beginning of the game to the end. That's a very good team that we would have had a hard time beating even if we played well."

Dale Davis led Portland (15-18) with 20 points and 15 rebounds. Zydrunas Ilgauskas led the Cavs with 11 points. Ricky Davis and Lamond Murray added 10 points each.

Cavs guard Andre Miller continues to struggle. His seven points tied a season-low and his four assists were a season-low. Miller is 17-of-54 (31.4 percent) from the field in his last five games, a period in which he is suffering from a sore right hip.

"We're all a little banged up but we're not going let that be the reason we've lost a few games," Miller said. "It's just something we have to fight through and deal with."

"This West Coast trip is the biggest part of the season. We've got to find a way to get a win and fight through adversity," Miller said. "That's what teams often have to deal with."

Portland did all the dealing against the Cavs (13-21), who have lost three straight and six of their last eight. Last night's defeat featured a horrible 34.9 percent shooting performance and a 47-27 deficit on the backboards. The Cavs trailed by 33 points late in the fourth quarter and ended the game being outscored, 46-26, in the paint.

"I didn't like the way the game ended," Lucas said. "We're getting our [expletive] kicked and we're trying to get alley-oop dunks. That doesn't make sense to me."

After trailing, 2-0, Portland rallied to a 17-6 lead and never looked back. The Trail Blazers closed out the quarter leading, 27-13. There wasn't much of a difference during the second quarter that saw the Trail Blazers enter intermission with a 51-34 edge.

The Cavs continued to miss the mark during the third quarter, earning boos in the period's final minute. Portland led, 76-50, heading into the fourth.

Something certainly needs to change if the Cavs are to regain the form that produced six wins in eight games during late November and early December.

"We're young and athletic and it's simple, we need to push the ball up the floor," Murray said. "We can't walk the ball up and try to get into sets against big teams like Portland because we're going to have trouble. We didn't rebound like we needed to get on the break.

"Early in the season we pushed the ball a lot more. Right now we're walking it up and getting into sets too much and the offense is getting stagnant. Defensively, we're not getting on the boards like we need to."

There's also something else different from the team that played earlier this season. Lucas doesn't like what he's seen.

"We have a little of the old [veteran player] and the new going on with my team right now and I don't like it," Lucas said. "Some of the new is doing more than what the old is doing and I got to get that rectified and get back to 'we.' That's what happens when you're a bad basketball team and when you're used to losing. We've got to get back on the same page."