Cleveland Cavaliers vs Chicago Bulls: What we learned

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost their fourth straight preseason game with a 108-94 loss to the Chicago Bulls.

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ starters played together for the first time ever and it showed. It’s clear that there are a few kinks to work out before the season tips off October 17th against Boston.

LeBron James saw his first action of the preseason. He shot the ball well and finished with 17 points on 8 of 13 shooting. However, a closer look at the box score shows that it wasn’t a great night for James. He ended the game with 8 turnovers and was a -18. Dwyane Wade and Kevin Love also had rough nights offensively. Wade put up just 4 points on 1 of 7 shooting. Love shot a miserable 1 of 12 from the field and finished the game with only 3 points.

Derrick Rose and Iman Shumpert were the only bright spots offensively for the Cavs. Rose was 5 of 9 from the field including 1 of 2 from deep. He totaled 13 points, 5 assists, and 5 boards in the loss. Shumpert shot the ball well going 4 of 5 from the field for 12 points.

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The Cavs just didn’t have it on Tuesday night. Here’s what we learned from the loss.

• Spacing for the starters is a big issue. To be fair, we knew this going into this game. This performance just confirmed it. Starting both Rose and Wade in the back-court presents serious problems for spacing. Neither player has been good 3 point shooters in their career, but that isn’t even necessarily the problem. Both players have been working to improve their outside shooting. Rose even hit a nice corner 3. The problem is that they don’t look to shoot the 3. The defense knows that they aren’t comfortable taking those shots and would much rather drive to the basket. As a result, you end up with a stagnant half-court offense where the defense shrinks into the paint. This cuts down the passing lanes for excellent cutters like Rose, Wade, and Jae Crowder. As a result, you end up with a ton of turnovers and deflected passes. There’s a reason LeBron ended up with 8 turnovers. You can attribute those turnovers to rust, but I attribute that to a lack of spacing and trying to force passes into lanes that don’t exist. As a result of the lack of spacing, the Cavs attempted only 27 3’s on Tuesday night. That’s not going to get it done in today’s NBA. Adjustments need to be made.

• There will be growing pains. This team doesn’t resemble the one that made it to three straight Finals. There are five new players that are expected to play significant minutes that were elsewhere last year. That doesn’t mean that this team isn’t capable of making it to the Finals again this year, it means that there will be an adjustment period. One of the biggest adjustments that needs to be made is finding out which players play best with each other. Ty Lue has his hands full with trying to get this team to reach their peak potential.

• Jeff Green can fly. This is the second game in a row where we saw Green throw down an impressive dunk. This time, it can from a perfect lob from Rose. Green’s play throughout the first four games of the preseason is surprising. Like many people, I didn’t think Green could be a regular contributor on this team. Maybe Green does have something left in the tank. We’ll have to wait and see on this one.  But one thing is undisputed. He can still throw it down with the best of them.

• The Rose led bench-unit has promise. One of the bright spots of the game was the effectiveness of the Rose-led bench-unit. The Cavs started the second quarter down 4 but turned that into a 7 point lead in less than 5 minutes. This unit consisted of Rose, J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver, Jeff Green, and Tristan Thompson. Unlike the starters, this unit showed the ability to push the ball and attack in transition. Thompson is an excellent pick-and-roll partner with Rose. Smith and Korver also provide the space necessary to allow Rose to showcase his speed and explosiveness. One of the Cavs’ biggest problems the last three years is the inability to hold leads when LeBron sits on the bench. It’s early, but maybe this is the unit that will actually allow James to rest more than a couple minutes a game.

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The Cavs will finish up the preseason in Orlando on Friday night. We’ll see if they have worked out any of the kinks then.