Cleveland Cavaliers: Lessons from the Cavs first loss since the trade deadline
Lesson No. 2: The Cavs’ lack of secondary scoring option can come back to bite them.
One of the biggest fears with the recent trades was that they no longer had a secondary scoring option. The hope was always that Isaiah Thomas could play the Kyrie Irving role as a secondary scorer. The Cavs rightfully felt that he needed to be moved, but that move marked a drastic change in the team’s construction.
Nights like tonight illustrate perfectly the danger of not having that secondary scorer. LeBron was great, but he can’t do it all. Not counting James, the team went 29-of-66 (43.9%) from the field and couldn’t get anything to fall.
LeBron carried much of the load offensively in the 4th quarter for the @cavs. Does it worry Ty Lue not having a second option scorer? pic.twitter.com/Hw2rzvRjUi
— Bally Sports Cincinnati (@BallySportsCIN) February 23, 2018
The Cavs desperately need players like Hill, Clarkson, and Hood to pick up the offense with Love out. They couldn’t on Thursday night as they combined for just 23 points on 8 of 20 (40%) shooting.
Adding Love to the mix will certainly help the offense. He has shown throughout his career that he can be a solid secondary scoring option, however, games like this show the downfall of going with the “secondary scoring by committee” approach the team is currently working with.