TODAY’S GAME
game that this was the first time in a while he was excited about watching the Cavs play. They’d been routed on national TV by Okla- homa City, Houston and Toronto, swept by the Warriors, destroyed by Minnesota, shut down by the Spurs. All since Christmas.
Kyle Korver, on his way out of the locker room Sunday, said “this is going to be fun again.”
J.R. Smith said “we looked phenomenal.”
“I know the guys that are here, they’re very excited about this opportunity, and Cavaliers at Thunder, 8 p.m., TNT it’s my job to keep them excited about being here,” James said. “They’re joining something that obviously the last couple months hasn’t been what we expected, but over the course of the last four years since I came back has been really good basketball. So it’s my job as the leader of this team to make sure that I acclimate the new four guys to be around a culture that’s built on winning and practicing champion- ship habits, so. That’s it.”
Lue called Luke about Clarkson
Clarkson was 7-of-11 shooting and 3 of 4 on 3s. He entered play second in the NBA in bench scoring.
“LeBron even said before the game, ‘There ain’t no such thing as a mistake, bro,’ ” Clarkson said. “Just told me to go out there and hoop. ‘Go play free and do what y’all do.’ ”
Lue said he spoke to Clarkson’s former coaches in L.A. — Lue’s friends Luke Walton and assistant Bryan Shaw — to find out about Clarkson as a defender.
“They said he can stay in front of the basketball, gets into the pick and roll, so, just seeing those two guys on the ball really helped us out,” Lue said.
George Hill’s defense
The other player Lue was referring to was Hill, who started on Kyrie Irving. The Cavs didn’t want to double Irving because of the lack of familiarity with each other. Irving scored 18 points but was 1 of 7 on 3s.
The Celtics were 36 of 89 from the field. The Cavs, it seemed for the first time in awhile, bothered to contest shots. Hill was getting credit for a lot of that by meeting the challenge at the top of Boston’s offense.
“I’m different than all the other guys who have been here,” Hill said. “I’m not the same. I don’t try to be them. I respect all of them. All I know is I’m going to come here play the right way, I’m going to play defense and I’m going to try to win basketball games and that’s all that matters.”