Lue still adjusting to roster shakeup
Cleveland Cavaliers CLEVELAND — coach Tyronn Lue recently compared the first practice following the All-Star break to an in-season training camp, as he attempts to get four new players up to speed while dealing with a grueling portion of the schedule.
Perhaps school would be a more apropos comparison, especially given how much Lue is teaching nowadays.
Thursday night — the Cavs’ first game since a resounding win against title-contending Oklahoma City — was another lesson, as they lost for the first time since the trade deadline roster shakeup.
Typically, the losses have been dotted with defensive breakdowns, late rotations and bad closeouts. Not this time.
Against the Wizards, offense was the biggest culprit. Cleveland was held to 103 points and failed to hit double-digit 3-pointers in a game for just the 12th time. The Cavs had just 20 assists on 42 made shots.
“I think in the second half (the ball) stopped moving a little bit, but, again you can’t really trust your offense because we don’t really know it that well yet,” Lue said following the 110-103 defeat. “That’s what kind of hurt us.
“It’s a learning experience and we got to keep getting better, keep working on it.”
That patient approach seems to have trickled down to the players. There wasn’t a gloomy feeling in the locker room. This wasn’t one of those discouraging losses.
Sure, the players wanted to win. But the drastic change and newness that everyone is trying to navigate has allowed for some perspective.
The two-game streak before the break didn’t vault the Cavaliers back on Golden State’s level nor did it put them eye to eye with the Houston Rockets. And one seven-point loss against the surging Wizards doesn’t mean everything is broken again.
Lue — and a handful of players — cited countless clean looks that didn’t drop or even some bad bounces that went against them.
In some ways, time is the Cavs’ ally and enemy. It’s only February, giving the them about two months, 25 games until the postseason starts. Then again, this stretch features 17 games in 32 days, which will lead to plenty of in-game experimentation.
Lue is still figuring out exactly what he has with newcomers George Hill, Rodney Hood, Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson. Even though Lue spent a bulk of his All-Star break thinking up the best possible lineup combinations and assessing the ideal time to install more pieces of the offense without overwhelming anyone, three games certainly isn’t enough to have all the answers.