Post All-Star Cavs Must Be Better Than Pre All-Star Cavs

The Cleveland Cavaliers enter the All-Star break first in the Eastern Conference with a 38-14 record. There is plenty of improvements to be made though.

As LeBron James and Kobe Bryant shared the court for the final time in Cleveland, Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue wasn’t thinking about the Cavs win, or how the team won it’s 38^th game heading into the All-Star break. He wasn’t thinking about how Kyrie Irving had just put up a season high 35 points, or how Kevin Love would be feeling after getting hit in the shoulder for the first time since he returned from off-season surgery on that same shoulder.

No, instead, Lue had one very clear message on his mind for his Cavaliers- it is time to get better.

In a seven and a half minute press conference following the win over the Los Angeles Lakers, Lue mentioned how the Cavs need to get better ten times. That’s right, for a team sitting in first place in their conference and with the fourth most wins in the league, the coach is focusing on improving.

“We have to get a lot better.” Lue said, via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. “Defensively, we have to get better. Offensively, we have to learn the plays. We called some sets about six or seven times, guys were lost, they didn’t know what we were running. Just got to get that down and continue to get better.”

Now, to hear coaches harping on about improving, getting better and staying true to the process is commonplace around the NBA. Heck, even Steve Kerr of the league-destroying Golden State Warriors talks of his desire for his team to cut down on turnovers. Gregg Popovich will also give answers as to why his team must be better, no matter how bland they may be.

Although, everyone knows that teams like the Warriors, Spurs and even the Oklahoma City Thunder are the benchmarks in the NBA. No matter how many times their respective coaches ask for improvement, there is very little room for it to actually occur. This is a good thing of course, as it is a sentiment to how good these teams are.

For Lue and the Cavs however, these statements about getting better are true. There is no sugarcoating them and they aren’t being said as standard PR spins. Cleveland is behind the eight-ball when they are compared to the NBA’s elite and that is something that needs to change come February 18^th, when the Cavs commence the post All-Star portion of the schedule.

As fate would have it, the first game after the weeklong break for Cleveland is against the Chicago Bulls, the same team Lue made his head-coaching debut against. That night was quite the disaster for the Cavs, as they suffered an ugly 96-83 loss and plenty of problems were noticeable.

Some of those problems have been smoothed, not exactly covered or fixed since that Bulls game. The ball movement problem has improved but still isn’t completely solved. Bryant, who knows a thing or two, or five, about winning championships highlighted this fact.

Kobe said #Cavs have the pieces to win a championship. One thing he said they lack? Ball movement.
— Jason Lloyd (@ByJasonLloyd) February 11, 2016

On the season, Cleveland is averaging 22.3 assists per game, good for just 12^th in the league. To be fair though, when looking at the numbers for the Cavs, you must consider before and after January 22^nd, the day the coaching chance occurred. There isn’t much difference in the assist numbers, despite the change. Since Lue took over, the Cavaliers are averaging 23.5 assists per game, just a slight increase from the 22.0 they averaged under David Blatt.

Lue has gone on record about how Cleveland is still working on breaking out of their old habits, ones that included falling back into isolation basketball when things got close in the fourth quarter. It is going to take time to break these habits- after all, the Cavs had been playing isolation-heavy ball for a season and a half under Blatt. Two weeks with Lue at the helm won’t change that.

What two weeks has done though has displayed how dangerous this offense can be, and will be, when the ball is moving. There have been games, like the victories over the Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns, when Cleveland had at least 30 assists in both, a truely elite number. The problem is that these games aren’t consistent enough. One night it’ll seem the Cavaliers have turned the corner in regards to the ball movement but other nights the isolation heavy basketball will be back in full swing. It is something the Cavs desperately need to clean up.

So, the ball movement has seen slow and steady improvement under Lue but there is no denying it must get even better in the seasons final 30 games.

That isn’t the only issue facing the Cavs heading into the stretch run of the season though. The defense has been in decline ever since Lue took over and the connectedness of the team, one of the main reasons Blatt got the sack, is another aspect that Cleveland must get sorted out.

Since Lue became head coach, opponents are scoring 101.5 points per game against the Cavaliers, a number that is slightly above league average. Good, but for a team still adjusting to a new offensive system, not a number that screams championship contender. For comparison, Cleveland gave up 95.7 points per game under Blatt- second in the NBA.

Another number in which the Cavs have declined on the defensive end since Lue took over is opponent field goal percentage. Cleveland values this stat more than most, as they have a league leaderboard of the category in their locker-room.

When Blatt was coaching, the Cavaliers would see themselves ninth in the league, giving up a field goal percentage of 44.1%. Since Lue moved a seat over on the Cavs bench, they have been 13^th in the league, with teams shooting 45.2% against them.

Now, let’s be fair here. With Cleveland and Lue trying to incorporate a faster pace on offense, it is only a natural reaction that the defense takes a slight regression during the adjustment period. Plus, the Cavs will rely on a different sort of defense from this point on. Instead of focusing on holding teams to low scoring totals, the Cavaliers impact on the defensive end will be felt by forcing turnovers, which allows them to get out, run and score easy baskets.

However, James has said countless of times since he returned to Cleveland that ball movement and defense are the two keys for the Cavs to win the championship. Those two aspects aren’t horrible for the Cavaliers- in fact both are pretty good. Pretty good simply isn’t good enough for this team though and there is no denying that improvements need to be made as the season comes to a close.

“I have never seen a locker room not be as connected after wins as they need to be.” GM David Griffin echoed those words through the entire Cavalier organization on the day Blatt was fired and there has been an added emphasis on how connected the Cavs are ever since.

How do you calculate or adjust how connected or together a team is though? It is literally an impossible task for someone who isn’t in the locker-room or around the team on a daily basis to say whether the Cavaliers are or aren’t connected.

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Although, it is safe to assume things don’t fix themselves in a matter of weeks. The Cavs may be more connected as a squad now but it is certainty an aspect that can always be better and it will be.

It is easy to forget sometimes that Cleveland are 38-14 and are sitting atop of the conference. This article isn’t meant to degrade any of that. The Cavs are still the class of the Eastern Conference and are the heavy favorite to represent the conference in the NBA Finals. There is heaps of room of improvement though and no matter how good they were before the All-Star break, they need to be even better after it.