This IS Cleveland! What Cavs Are Saying

"There’s no changes coming. Well, not really. Just ask the Cleveland Cavaliers. According to Sekou Smith on NBA.com’s Hangtime Blogs: Ask Coach Lue, he says “there’s no reason to change”. Ask Kyrie Irving, he says “we were getting where we want to go”. Ask LeBron James, he says “I’m ok with some isolation basketball”."

Does keeping their style of play mean they don’t see ways to improve? That doesn’t seem to be the case.

Look for the Cleveland Cavaliers to firstly be smarter with how they play. This means picking and choosing when to attack, but more than that it means not pounding the ball while staring down the defense and putting your team in bad situations late in the shot clock. One play that could help them get quick easy looks, and establish a rhythm for both of them, a backdoor lob:

Then look for the Cavaliers to play faster. Tyronn Lue wants them to push the pace, be decisive, and finish with authority. Since Lue took over, James has done just that.

James is constantly grabbing the rebound or pushing the pace down the court. He barrels his way towards the rim where he usually finished but sometimes passed out.

Kyrie would do that to a lesser extent than LeBron rim-to-rim, however, he would always make a quick move one-on-one to get to his spot. Playing quick and being a run-and-gun team aren’t the same. They can bottle lightning.

Playing quick means getting down the court quickly, making quick decisions, and starting your halfcourt offense earlier in the shot clock. For LeBron, it’s part of the Cavs new identity, as simple as that.

“It’s been a good thing for us the whole season since Coach Lue took over”, LeBron said, “so we need to do that”.

Take a look at Irving’s play against a good defensive team coached by the stingy Stan Van Gundy, and spearheaded by the defensive duo of Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond in what could be their last game of the postseason. Here, Irving makes quick decisions to find his spot or find another Cav in theirs.

The primary difference in Game 1 was his failure to even look up for a pass where easy shots could be made. It could be argued that LeBron does that more because firstly, he’s LeBron, but also because he plays with the bench more than Kyrie, another key switch under Lue.

However, LeBron usually is looking for the best play. Meanwhile, Kyrie was looking for his play and that’s not always going to work against the Warriors.

Allowing Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love to get down the court to rebound or post-up in Love’s case is important. The quick pace allows Love to play one-on-one, which he did in Game 1, but he needs to convert. While Love missed ten shots on Thursday night, only three misfires came from behind the line.

In addition, as Coach Lue mentioned, the quick pace helps JR the most. When JR is a trailer, as LeBron or Kyrie pushes the ball down the court, the ball is passed to him with energy when everyone is playing at a quick pace. Look at these highlights from the last game the Cavs played before the Finals.

JR’s game was important yet didn’t require a lot of usage. The ball went to him quickly on inbound plays, quick kickouts, and hockey assists, and on the first pass in half court. This was always JR’s role on offense to this point, why change the gameplan now?

Case-and-point, Game 2 against the Hawks who featured a defensive assignment similar to what he’s facing in Klay Thompson. As Kevin Love said, “Where we’ve been so effective and devastating is when our guards, and primarily Kyrie and LeBron, play down hill and find our shooters on the perimeter”. The Big Three need more open shots for JR, who’s shooting 45.9% from three this postseason.

Kevin Love missed many easy shots around the rim that he’s more than talented enough to make but referred to how they used him as “forced-feeding”.

Love should be looking at his bounce back game against the Toronto Raptors in the previous series. The Love Doctor operated out of the post first, and converted easy looks, in order to give Kyrie and LeBron more space to attack.

Then he moved outside and began mixing it up. See the ball go in, get it going. Against the Warriors, he didn’t take the ball into the teeth of the defense with force and physicality.

Even on post-ups, it seemed like he relied on his fadeaway. Instead of it being a move in his bag it was the whole bag. In sum, precision, whether posting up or on the perimeter should be the primary goal. But he has to mix it up.

His real problem is defensively as he’s often late on rotations. He should provide a stunt or softer trap so that he can get back to his man or communicate to the other player that he’s staying.

Expect the Cavs, who were +11 playing two big men versus -26 playing one or less, to veer away from “small ball” and keep using their bigs.

Channing Frye has stepped up during the entire playoffs. He played great in Game 1 in limited minutes and could be a player to look for the Cavs utilizing more. If the desire is to keep all players away from the rim, the combination of Frye and Love could be seen in order to allow Kyrie and LeBron to attack without relenting.

Thompson is priceless for his offensive rebounding because it leads to valuable extra possessions, but will need to start boxing out.

LeBron should be one of those “bigs”. As a pick and roll “roll man” and on post ups, he scores 1.41 PPP (points per possession) and 1.09 PPP respectively. They can still do this with two big men in the game because of the unique inside-out game of Love and the fact is that Frye is so prolific at shooting the three, shooting 56.5 % from deep, that he has to be guarded on the perimeter and Thompson is such a dominant offensive rebounder that defenders have to keep a body on him.

Take a look at Game 1 and see a lot of good iso ball from James against everyone not named Klay, Draymond, or Andre. In this situation, even a post-up against Green is ineffective so using him as a roll man should be considered. Iguodala and Klay aren’t as big as James so after establishing deep position the King should be able to go to work, from the standpoint of simple physics of 6’8″ 260 1.4 feet away from the rim against a player 30 pounds lighter than you.

Carter Rodriguez at Fear the Sword has some great analysis and ideas on how the Cavs could get LeBron in position to use mismatches. This includes using some of the Warriors own off-ball screens to get LeBron posted up against a guard or using horns sets to get a player to catch a lob or the pick and roll ball handler against a guard.

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With LeBron, he’s a physical anomaly and you have to know how to use him. It’s like how a boxer with long arms should use his length to beat his opponent, offensively keeping their opponent under duress from afar because they can’t reach them and defensively leaning back far from a swing and never getting hit.

The King takes advantage of a player like Barnes physically but should do it against the Warriors. LeBron’s first step and change of direction is better than Draymond’s. He’s bigger in the post than Iguodala of Thompson, and as Shaq would say, it should be chicken dinner down there.

These Cavs don’t see a need to play different, just faster. Will it work? Since Coach Lue took over, the Cavs are 42-14, good for a 75% winning percent. They’re 12-3 in the playoffs, good for an 80% winning percent. Trust in Coach Lue, “Believeland”. Witness Greatness.