CHICAGO -- LeBron James was long gone. Tristan Thompson angrily bolted out of the locker room. Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith were already on the bus.

By the time the visitor's locker room opened inside the United Center following another loss -- Cleveland's fifth in the last seven games and 10th during a pitiful March -- Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Deron Williams and James Jones were the only players remaining.

That's because the team meeting, which Kyrie Irving hinted at, had already taken place.

"Every journey's different," Irving said. "When you're in it, it absolutely sucks, when you're in a rut like this. We're taking steps forward. After the game we took a step forward."

When asked to clarify what he meant by that, Irving declined to share details.

"Just in a way that a team should take a step forward when we're in a rut," he said. "I'll leave it at that."

It was around this time last year when head coach Tyronn Lue held a team meeting following an embarrassing loss in Brooklyn. That chat helped unlock Love and was labeled one of the turning points of the season.

Earlier this season, James' tirade following a baffling loss against the New Orleans Pelicans, where he called the team "top heavy," seemed to fuel a February surge. On Monday, Jones, one of the prominent voices, gave a speech, asking his teammates what they wanted out of this season.

Just a few days later, the Cavs were again trying to put out the fire before their championship hopes go up in flames.

"It's ugly right now," Irving said. "It's real, real ugly. But we'll get out of this, we'll be fine."

The issues, some of which have plagued the Cavs since the beginning of the season but were masked by individual brilliance, won't be fixed in one day. It will take more than just one practice. It will take more than passionate speeches. It will take more than preaching accountability.

It will take attention to detail, something the team lacked on Thursday, screwing up the game plan to run Nikola Mirotic off the 3-point line and watching him bury them with countless uncontested triples. It will take regaining a lost defensive identity -- if that's even possible after months of struggling at that end. It will take correcting their new problems on the offensive end, being held under 100 points for the second straight game. It will take Lue pushing the right buttons when it comes to his rotations. It will take everyone, doing it as a team.

"When you lose five of seven, of course we know we've got some things to address," Lue said. "We've got to get better offensively now. We play a good game on defense and then we can't score the basketball. It's frustrating and so are we. We just have to figure out ways to get it better and make it better. Defensively tonight was a step in the right direction, but now offensively we've got to play better moving the basketball, trusting and also playing with more pace."

Yes, this is where the Cavaliers are. As soon as they seem to plug one hole, water starts shooting out from another. It's worth wondering if there are too many to stop.

A few days after being embarrassed by the San Antonio Spurs, the Cavs' promising start turned into another disheartening loss, forcing James to forego his usual postgame routine, and leading many others to scamper out of the locker room, looking for the quickest exit out of Chicago -- and maybe even March.

The Cavs tried to turn it on the fourth quarter against the short-handed Bulls. They attempted to flip the switch. Only this time, there was no power.

"Tomorrow's another day," James said. "It's another opportunity, but we've got some work to do. We don't have a lot of time."

Turbulence is nothing new. Two years ago, they rallied from a slow start and won the East. This is a team that overcame an in-season coaching change last year. It's a team that rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals. It's a team that has navigated numerous injuries this season to stay near the top of the conference.

But this feels different; this is new. Things aren't getting better. With eight games left and the playoffs fast approaching, they're actually getting worse and everyone is starting to feel that pressure.

With the bottom getting closer -- at least, based on their lofty standards -- Irving admitted the Cavs aren't in the best place mentally.

"To be perfectly honest, we're probably all over the place," he said.