Who were the standout performers for the Cleveland Cavaliers in Tuesday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls?
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue switched up the starting lineup in lieu of shooting guard Dwyane Wade’s request to come after the bench after struggling to find his rhythm in the first three games as a starter. As a result, J.R. Smith returned to his customary position as the team’s starting shooting guard.
However, instead of starting Jose Calderon at point guard, Lue started LeBron James at point guard while having Tristan Thompson start at center. The reason for the trying out the starting lineup of James – Smith – (Jae) Crowder – (Kevin) Love – Thompson was because Lue wanted to prevent Love from having to bang down low with center Robin Lopez too much. It’s a lineup Lue also plans to use on Wednesday against the Brooklyn Nets, a team that likes to go small but starts the game off with a traditional center in former Cavalier Timofey Mozgov.
In the Cavs’ preseason game against the Chicago Bulls, Lopez only had 10 points and 5 rebounds but the points and boards came too easy for him. Love went 1-12 in that contest and 1-3 from three-point range, scoring a grand total of 3 points in 21 minutes.
Tuesday’s regular season exhibition against the Bulls went much better for Love, who scored 20 points (7-16 from the field, 3-7 from three-point range), had 12 rebounds and 2 assists in 29 minutes.
However, the game started out much like Cleveland’s game against the Orlando Magic on Saturday. The Magic jumped out to an early lead and bombarded the Cavs with 17 threes. Against the Magic though, the poor first quarter defense seemed to be due to Calderon’s terrible perimeter defense rather than a lack of effort or a respect for their opponent.
After all, although the Magic were missing Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton, two starters, James has had many playoff battles with Magic head coah Frank Vogel. Vogel used to coach an Indiana Pacers team with a gritty defense and players that excelled when starters went down. In fact, that’s how Paul George’s notoriety took off – after an injury to Danny Granger made him the Pacers’ alpha dog in a postseason series against James’ Miami Heat.
On Tuesday, though the Cavs again gave up 17 threes to their opponent, Love excelled. The defense started off poorly due to the Cleveland Cavaliers closing out short on their rotations and allowing the Bulls to shoot the ball with no pressure. Lue was steaming in the team’s postgame presser, talking about how Cavaliers weren’t even putting enough defensive pressure on the other team to make the Bulls put the ball on the floor.
Until the third quarter that is (the Bulls scored 68 points in the first half, 44 points in the second half).
In a game where the defense struggled for half of the time, the x-factor for the Cavs was their bench. The bench unit (Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye, Kyle Korver, Jeff Green and Dwyane Wade) were responsible for cutting what was a 10-point lead in the first quarter to a 3-point lead before the half. While James’ stellar play allowed the Cavs to win the game, he was certainly aided by Korver finding his stroke in the second half and Green continuing to be an aggressive player making an impact on both ends of the floor.
Without any further ado, here are the Cleveland Cavaliers three standout performers from their 119-112 victory over the Chicago Bulls: