Cleveland Cavaliers: What does Drew’s career say about his style?

The nine-game audition

When Lue took a leave from the team in March of this past season, Larry Drew took over for nine games, winning eight of them. Rotations that seemed out-of-sorts righted themselves as Drew integrated the younger trade deadline acquisitions with the veteran core.

This is the source of much of my faith in Drew’s stewardship – it looks at least the equal of Lue’s, and perhaps the perfect hand for the helm while the Cavaliers do what they should’ve done this summer, and empty the shelves of veterans who’d make more sense on a competitive team, which the Cleveland Cavaliers clearly are not.

Drew took over from March 19 though April 3. Immediately prior to Lue’s two-week medical-related sabbatical the team had lost five out of nine games. To be fair, Kevin Love didn’t play in those games immediately before.

Nonetheless, the team had a +6.3 net during that stretch, versus the +0.3 the other 70 or so games. Almost all of that difference came from better transition defense (1.9 less opponent fastbreak points/game), defensive boarding (3.9 points less second chance points/game) and paint defense (1.8 less points per game) – three of the biggest issues for the present iteration of the team.

Drew took over during a stretch when teams often don’t play their hardest, so it’s difficult to gauge how much to read into Drew’s better performance, but it’s a lot more reassuring than what we’ve already seen from Lue.