King James Gospel
Fansided

Cavs Players’ Minutes Huge Concern Without LeBron James

By Jared Mueller

facebooktwitterreddit

The Cleveland Cavaliers have to figure things out without LeBron James for two weeks. That started last night for the Cavs, facing off with the New Orleans Hornets. The Cavs pulled off a victory but gave us a couple concerns despite the win. Not surprising that a Cavs team that has struggled to reach it’s potential for most of the season would still have come concerns without the best player in the world.

We start with a huge concern about the amount of minutes players on the Cavs could play with James out.  Even before James was ruled out he, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love had spent most of the season in the Top 5 of minutes played. That shows both David Blatt’s learning curve adjusting to the NBA and the limit trust he has in the Cavs bench, whether that is for a good reason is another article all together.

Then comes the three game sample without James this week. Here are the minute breakdowns for some of the players during that time:

[table id=1 /]

Quite a few things should jump out on this page. First look at Irving, the team’s best player with James out. Over 40 minutes a game over a three game stretch can come back to haunt the Cavs down the road. It also can help explain last night’s 8 – 27 shooting as he just didn’t seem to have his legs.

What about Kevin Love? After missing the end of the Hawks game and sitting out the Bucks game with a bad back, he returns to play 38 minutes. Not exactly a way to preserve someone with back issues. Even Shawn Marion, coming back from ankle problems, played 24 minutes, more than he likely should recovering with his ankle.

Tristan Thompson seems like an unending ball of energy but even he will struggle playing around 40 minutes a night. It may not have a huge impact on him but a player who makes his living on hustle and effort being slowed down just a little could mean a ton.

Then you look at the difference between the first two games, games where the Cavs lost and the games weren’t always within reach. Joe Harris played over 20 minutes a game in those two games but with the return of Marion, and a game the Cavs could win, he played zero. James Jones in a similar situation going from over 20 minutes a game to 3.

One of two things, or both, can be taken from the last bit of information: Either 1) Blatt only trusts his backups when games are a bit out of hand or 2) The Cavs lose games when the backups get decent minutes. Throughout the season it has been a little bit of both.

Even ESPN noted Blatt’s use of starters in their post game write-up:

"Love returned to the lineup after missing one start with back spasms and played 38 minutes. He was 9 of 15 from the field and helped the Cavaliers (19-14) take control of the game with three straight 3-pointers in the third quarter after an injury scare.Blatt leaned heavily on his starters, using a seven-man rotation. Thompson played 43 minutes and Irving played 42."

More from King James Gospel

So as the Cavs are one game into the expected 10 games off for James how will Blatt adjust? Will he continue the Tom Thibodeau ways and run his players into the ground? Will he adjust and find a way to incorporate his bench players in ways that will be successful? Will he learn to trust?

How Blatt handles the Cavs minutes over the next couple weeks will be huge for how the team is prepared to make a run late. Running players into the ground works in the regular season for the Bulls but they tend to struggle a bit in the playoffs. The defending champion San Antonio Spurs take a different approach, using rest to keep the team ready. It helps that the Spurs trust their system. They plug and play and expect things to work. The Cavs don’t have a system, or don’t trust the system yet, so it is much more difficult.

What do you think of the Cavs minutes and how David Blatt is playing players?

Connect with KJG on Social Media (Links Fixed):