LOS ANGELES – Basketball's most besieged coach retreated to a quiet corridor of the Staples Center and moved to reject the caricature of himself as the victim of some sort of coup, a floundering spirit in a murky cesspool. David Blatt is a believer, forever betting on himself and there's something about this struggle that's emboldening the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Everyone's coming for him now, including the most powerful player on the planet. So it goes for the European coach thrust into the biggest coaching burden the NBA's witnessed in a long, long time. Everyone else awaits the validation of a Blatt basketball vision so far unseen, so far unrealized on a .500 team.

"They haven't witnessed it yet, and I readily recognize it," Blatt told Yahoo Sports. "But they will. The ways of the NBA are very ingrained in guys here. Before we take them out of their comfort zone, we better find a team comfort zone winning basketball games.

"It's tough to make the kind of changes that I think we can and will in the future before we gain credibility as a team, and the belief of everybody of what we're doing."

View photos David Blatt came to the Cavaliers with no previous NBA coaching experience. (Getty Images) More

The Cavaliers had ended a six-game losing streak on Thursday night, a 109-102 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. When it was over, Blatt sounded like a coach fighting back the natural human inclination to retreat, to respond to a relentless barrage with a backpedal over a forward lurch.

[More Cavs: Blatt takes team bowling in L.A.]

This has been on his mind, and as the Cavaliers start to stabilize and LeBron James reestablishes his dominance and Iman Shumpert soon joins the lineup, perhaps people will start to see more of the coach's true disposition. As Blatt gains confidence in his understanding of the NBA, his understanding of his own personnel, his voice has to rise over the noise and be heard.

"I've deferred a little bit more than I normally have, yes," Blatt told Yahoo Sports. "I can do a better job than I've done with that. I have done less in the interest of trying to find the right way to reach guys. At the end of the day, it's probably not the [right] way."

In the end, the job, the chance for staying power, comes down to this: How does David Blatt reach LeBron James. And truth be told, how does James allow him to do so? Once James stops resisting, it becomes easier for everyone else to follow him and begin the business of chasing something significant together.

In the end, that possibility starts with this, too: the support of owner Dan Gilbert and general manager David Griffin, which has been sweeping and unimpeachable so far. "There is not even a thought of replacing him," one high-ranking Cavaliers official told Yahoo Sports.

Blatt has played it level and cool with James, it seems, letting the superstar dictate the terms of the relationship. Blatt hasn't tried to overreach, nor battle him in public or private. It is a fight no one coach could win, nor survive. Blatt's strategy seems simple: Over time, sell James – sell all these Cavaliers – on a vision for victory.

"It is a process," Blatt told Yahoo Sports. "It really has to come first from the professional side. Man to man, we're OK. We don't go out drinking together, but we're fine man to man. But professionally, LeBron wants to win. And he wants from me, from any coach, a vehicle to help him win.

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