Cleveland Cavaliers: Lessons from a huge three-point Game 2 victory

Lesson No. 1: The new starting lineup worked.

Coach Lue decided to roll the dice by starting a five-man unit that had never played together until this game. He went with George Hill, JR Smith, Kyle Korver, LeBron James, and Kevin Love. While it was a small sample size, this lineup looked promising.

Surrounding LeBron with four shooters is nothing new or groundbreaking, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. The starting lineup finished the night with an offensive rating of 168.7 and a net rating of 63.3 in 16 minutes.

Inserting Korver and Smith into the starting lineup worked in Game 2. Besides opening up driving lanes for LeBron, both players biggest impacts were made on the defensive end of the floor. Korver drew multiple charges and finished with a steal. Smith did an excellent job of containing Oladipo and was able to pressure him into a game-changing turnover in the final minutes.

While Korver and Smith will get the headlines for their new roles as starters, it was actually Hill who was the glue that held this unit together. The Cavs finished the game with an offensive rating of 142.8 with Hill on the court compared to an 84.7 offensive rating with him off.

It’s no coincidence that James was able to put up one of his best offensive games this season with this lineup. The spacing this lineup creates is insane.

The Pacers are forced to leave Bojan Bogdanovic on an island with LeBron or send help which could result in a wide-open three for an excellent shooter. Either way, the Pacers lose that matchup.

This lineup certainly showed promise, but it has the potential to be even better than it was in Game 2. Indiana is forced to use Myles Turner on a guard on defense which is a mismatch the Cavs should have been looking to exploit every possible situation.

It’ll be interesting to see how both Lue and McMillan change their game plan for Game 3 in response to what we saw on Wednesday night.