Lue lights up Cavs right after Bulls do
Win over rebuilding Chicago can’t mask defensive problems.
Cavaliers coach CLEVELAND —
Tyronn Lue was quite upset with his team at halftime after another lackluster defensive effort against the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday.
Precisely what he said, or did, in the locker room isn’t clear. But the 68 points and dozen 3’s the Cavs gave up to the Bulls were not acceptable to him.
“Furious,” Kevin Love said, speaking of Lue. “We all were. At least the starters. We were terrible.”
The Cavs could talk easier about all of it because they recovered to beat the Bulls 119-112. But Chicago shot 17-of33 from 3-point range and at halftime was shooting 50 percent from the field and 60 percent from 3-point land (12-of-20).
Lue had to watch the same thing Saturday, when the Orlando Magic also nailed 17 3’s in a 21-point win.
“We play teams like this that move around a lot, playing hard, younger guys, we’ve got to do a better job of respecting these guys,” Lue said. “Until we do, we’re going to get off to slow starts and be in dogfights every single night.”
When it was brought to LeBron James by reporters that Lue seemed upset after the game, and was questioned whether or not Lue lit them up at halftime, James said, “Uh, what did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything,” James said in a facetious manner. “Coach Lue was great. He was unbelievable. He was the happiest guy alive. You’re not going to get me to do that to my coach. Nope.”
When James was told Lue said the Cavs didn’t respect the Bulls, and that was an issue with Chicago’s 3-point success, James said: “That’s his point of view and if that’s what he feels like we didn’t do then we respect that.
“And we gotta come out with a little more sense of urgency and not be up on our heels and not be double digits down in the first quarter like we’ve done the last few games.”
The Magic, though off to a 3-1 start this season, are a perennial lottery team. The Bulls are in full rebuild mode. Wednesday’s opponent, the Brooklyn Nets, are also likely lottery bound. For the Cavs, who have gone to the last three Finals, they may be guilty of taking lesser teams lightly.
Through four games, though, their defensive rating has slipped to 22nd in the NBA — which is where the Cavs were ranked last season.
The slide can be blamed directly on the Orlando and Chicago games, as Cleveland kept Boston and Milwaukee under 100 points. In fact, the Cavs were sticking their chests out about the defense after those two games.
Now, fists are clenched and dust is being kicked.
Lue blamed the porous defense by his team on the perimeter to a failure to close out on shooters.
“We talked about when guys have the ball and they’re facing us, we’ve got to make guys dribble the basketball,” Lue said. “All night we continued to close out short, they looked at us and raised and made shots. No matter if guys are great shooters or not, if you give guys their shots, they can make shots in this league. They’re professionals for a reason.”