Cavaliers’ struggles continue in close win over lowly Magic
Cleveland almost blew 23-point lead against Orlando.
Tyronn Lue CLEVELAND — doesn’t like to rip his players in public.
Also, his new thing this season when he doesn’t want to answer a question is to say, instead, “I can’t remember.”
So, after the Cavaliers fumbled away a 23-point lead to the lowly Orlando Magic, coughed up 27 points on turnovers and narrowly won against the East’s worst team, Lue was asked if he was upset with his players.
“I can’t remember,” he said.
The Cavs entered the game losers of four straight, eight of 10 and nine of the last 12. They held leads of 22 points against the Pacers on Friday and nine over the Warriors on Monday, and blew them in losses.
Cleveland was outscored by 16 in the third quarter by Orlando. It was the second time in three games an opponent outscored the Cavs by 16 in the third.
So, it stands to reason that Lue might be peeved at the goings on.
“He’s been here really the whole time,” said Kevin Love. “We’ve always had lapses like this throughout seasons. I think he just keeps preaching to us to keep chasing the game and good things will happen. We’ve been watching more film and I think that’s been good for us. As far as us practicing, we’ve been doing more on the floor with teaching points. I just think having a good open communication between the players and coaches too has been able to help us too. I know there was a big lapse in that third quarter tonight.
“But felt like there were good spots for us that showed we can get better, especially with adding new guys out there.”
Rose returns: Derrick Rose played for the first time since Nov. 7. He scored nine points with three rebounds and an assist in 13 minutes with the second unit.
Rose led all Cavs with a plus-minus of plus-5, playing mostly along side Dwyane Wade, Tristan Thompson, Jeff Green and Kyle Korver.
The lineup raises eyebrows because Lue values shooting and only Korver is a shooter on that unit. But, for one night anyway, it kind of worked. This was the second game of his career (out of 478) in which Rose has come off the bench.
“I thought D-Rose was good for us tonight,” Lue said. “His pace, getting into the paint. First game back and I thought he was good for us.”
Rose was not available for comment after the game. He’s played in eight games this season because of a sprained left ankle and bone spurs, and he left the team altogether to contemplate retirement.
“Defensively he was in tune, offensively he made some great moves,” LeBron James said. “Had some great attacks in transition. It’s good to see him back on the floor.”
James also said the Cavs are stuck in “Strugglesville.” The locker room was quiet. Love was on the court after the game taking extra shots (he was 3 of 10 in the game).
At halftime, the Cavs led by 20. They’d tallied 19 assists on 25 baskets. In the second half, just three assists.
In the fourth quarter against the Warriors, Cleveland shot 6 of 23. Against the Pacers, it was 9 of 21.
After every game (even in Indiana, where he didn’t play), Isaiah Thomas said the Cavs grew “stagnant.”
“We’ve got to eliminate those lapses we have, because they’re hurting us,” said Thomas, who scored 21 points. “I wish I could fix it. But collectively as a group we’ve got to do a better job knowing that OK, two or three times down knowing we haven’t gotten a good shot, we need the ball moving, we need the ball to move side to side. Or we need to find the best shot possible.
“We can’t continue to just take one-pass shots, if that’s the case. But we’ll figure it out. We gotta figure it out, but we will.”
Korver errant: Korver has had a hard time lately. Dating to the Cavs’ loss on Christmas, Korver is averaging 6.5 points over the last 11 games, but even that number is skewed. He scored 19 in garbage time against Minnesota and 15 in a blowout loss to Boston.