Cleveland Cavaliers: Injuries make the starting five just what we expected

The Cleveland Cavaliers open the regular season tonight, and the uninspiring starting five is just what we expected with the injuries the team has.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have the Toronto Raptors tonight to open the 2018-19 season, and this matchup presents a number of challenges. Cleveland swept Toronto in last year’s conference semifinals, but that was a totally different story.

The Raptors no longer have DeMar DeRozan and reserve big Jakob Poeltl (along with a 2019 first round pick), and now they have Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. The Raps and San Antonio Spurs went with that flip-flop in July, and it was a stunner. Nonetheless, the Cavaliers will need to bring their best going up north. Head coach Tyronn Lue went with no shockers for his starting lineup, which was revealed yesterday, per Basketball Insiders’ Spencer Davies.

George Hill is the Cavaliers’ veteran combo guard that Lue trusts to initiate the halfcourt offense and make spot-up three-point shots, and going against a tough customer in Toronto’s point man Kyle Lowry, that’ll be a tough test. I’m still not high on Hill playing over rookie Collin Sexton for long, but it’ll take Lue some time to get used to Sexton running the starting act.

Shooting guard Rodney Hood, who has gotten rave reviews from the coaching staff and teammates this offseason, should be starting every night for the whole year if he’s healthy.

Hood’s out to prove his postseason woes last year were just an anomaly, and he’s a much better than scorer than the 10.8 points per game he had with Cleveland post-All-Star break.

Going against a solid perimeter defender in Green will also challenge Hood right off the bat in the Cleveland two guards’ higher-usage role. The marquee matchup of the night could be Cedi Osman going against Leonard.

Hopefully Osman can go into the bag of tricks he picked up from working out with LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Leonard this summer (as was illustrated by Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor).

Osman led the Cavaliers in assists with 4.0 in 15.1 minutes per game this preseason, and he’ll be getting a heck of a ton more production than 3.9 points, 2.0 rebounds and 0.7 assists (what he posted in 2017-18, per Basketball Reference) this season.

In this one, though, don’t expect the LeBron celebration God to be overly cheerful. The Klaw will likely have his way.

Love was Lue’s only clear starter going into training camp, and we know by now what we brings to the table. Matched up likely with Serge Ibaka, Pascal Siakam, and likely Leonard at times in small-ball situations, Love should find some success in the low post. The Raps will not leave him matched up with Jonas Valanciunas again with Love’s ability to space the floor.

Lastly, the Cleveland Cavaliers went with the place-holder starting 5 in Tristan Thompson. That’s fine, as Thompson had a solid preseason, with 9.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 19.8 minutes per game, per NBA.com.

This was an easy move for Lue, as it’s still uncertain whether or not Larry Nance Jr. (who reportedly just signed a four-year, $44.8 million contract extension) will be able to play. On Thursday’s practice before Cleveland’s last preseason game against the Detroit Pistons, Nance sprained his right ankle, per Fedor.

For now, it appears he’s made “a ton of progress,” in regards to his sprained ankle, per Davies.

If Nance is not ready, Ante Zizic will reportedly get minutes with the backups (again, per Davies).

Regardless, Nance playing with the second unit is not something that will be a rarity this year.

Lue previously said that he’d be starting either Thompson or Nance depending on the opponent’s 5 being a bigger, stronger presence (Thompson’s matchup) or more of a new-age 5 (Nance’s matchup). The Cavaliers have been starting the Love/Thompson 4/5 tandem often in the last four years, so tonight is nothing new.

Going forward, though, I’m not particularly high on the Love/Thompson pairing to begin games, as the Cavaliers no longer have LeBron’s passing vision in pick-and-roll situations to get the two bigs going early on in games. Cleveland needs Nance to be able to play against all opponents’ starting centers in the near future, because he’s far more valuable offensively and is more athletic than TT.

Reserve guard J.R. Smith, who was not in the starting hunt anyhow, but has been a longtime starter in his time in Cleveland, is listed as doubtful tonight due to right elbow soreness, per the Cavs’ Official Twitter.

Cavaliers basketball is back, and everybody should be excited, but this starting lineup isn’t going to keep you jumping out of your seat, and it shouldn’t be used for very long into the season.