With the Cleveland Cavaliers losing to the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night, reports surfaced that star players LeBron James and Kyrie Irving engaged in a "tough conversation" inside their locker room. Though the dialogue is considered by the team as "healthy," some said that James' "bad habits" comment were directed to Irving, thus the need for the talk.

CBS Sports said that the two exchanged words following the Cavs' 20-point loss on Tuesday. After that, Irving immediately left without even speaking to members of the press.

It was just James' way of letting his teammate know about his concerns of their performance on the field, several reports observed. The lead player's performance during their recent loss showed that he was holding back and that he was not giving it his all, scoring only 11 points.

"There's a lot of bad habits, a lot of bad habits been built up the past couple years. When you play that style of basketball, it takes a lot to get it up out of you," he said in the CBS Sports report.

This, however, came as a surprise to many who considered Irving's performance and focus during their games as exceptional. Even coach David Blatt praised him for his efforts.

"I thought he was a lot more aggressive on offense tonight. I thought that he made it a point to come out tonight with a kind of a fire and a sense of urgency that perhaps we didn't see last night, and I thought he did a great job. I thought he played defense for good parts of the game very well, and he played a lot of minutes. He laid it out there tonight, so I'm pretty happy with him," Blatt was quoted by CBS Sports as saying. Even James himself called his play and scoring as "great."

So their locker room talk came a bit out of the blue for many fans but perhaps James was only trying to address some of Irving's shortcomings in their past games. 

"You just can't explain [the low assist totals]. There's no way you're going to win a basketball game like that, just having six assists. ... We just can't win like that, and we got to figure out a way to help each other and not make it so tough," James told ESPN.

But for his part, Irving reportedly said that this is just part of the "growing process" that the team needs to go through. "It sucks right now. For us, we're still young, and I'm still learning what's going on."