The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Game 1 against Pacers offers test
After difficult regular season, Cavaliers confident in bid to repeat as world champs
“I know y’all count it as a lost season, but we won 50 games.” – Cavs coach Tyronn Lue
When a team has LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving on its roster, and when that team has been able to call itself NBA champions since June 19, much is expected in the regular season. Maybe too much. The Cavaliers practiced on April 14 in Independence for the second straight day in preparation for Game 1 of their opening series matchup with the Indiana Pacers at 3 p.m. April 15 at Quicken Loans Arena.
Coach Tyronn Lue is getting a little sick of hearing what a disappointing, dysfunctional season his team slogged through to get to this point. The fact is that, despite the rough spots, only four teams finished with a better record than the Cavs’ final mark of 51-31. One of them, the Boston Celtics, won the NBA East at 53-29.
“I know y’all count it as a lost season,” Lue told a group of reporters, “but we won 50 games. We’re (the) second seed. It’s not
like we’re eighth seed and we needed a team to win to back in the playoffs. What do you want?
“With all the injuries and all the things we’ve been through, I feel good.”
The Cavaliers are healthy and rested. They lost their final four games, in part because Love, Irving and James were rested the final two games. Love, who missed 30 days recovering from knee surgery, said he is ready to go after two hard practices.
“Tomorrow will be a good test for us,” he said. “I’ve been off since Monday, so my body feels rested and ready to roll. The biggest thing is being in playoff shape. I know the first wind getting out there in Game 1 is going to be a blowout session when you need to get the lungs back and get that second wind back and get rolling. Other than that, I feel pretty acclimated and ready to go.”
Love returned on March 16 from the knee surgery. He said he felt he was back to his pre-injury form “about 8 to 10 games ago.”
One of the odd challenges of playing an 82game schedule packed with travel and one-night stands is teams rarely get to practice — really practice — for a specific opponent.
The Cavaliers welcomed these last two days to concentrate on how to defend the Pacers. Throughout the season, in the rare times they did get to practice, they worked on defensive strategies with the playoffs in mind. In other words, they have yet to show all their cards.
“We did it the last two seasons,” Lue said. “We always work on things we could possibly use in the playoffs. The guys have adapted to it well because we’ve done it before. We’ll see how it goes.”
The Cavaliers won the season series with Indiana, 3-1. Irving, James and Love get most of the attention, but guard Kyle Korver off the bench will be an important part of Lue’s game
plan. Korver, acquired in January in a trade with the Atlanta Hawks, averaged 25.5 points a game in two games vs. the Pacers since the trade.
Pacers guard Jeff Teague averaged 18.5 points and 11 assists in four games with the Cavaliers this season.
Much of the defensive game planning the Cavaliers worked on the last two days focused on Pacers forward Paul George. George, capable of going on a hot streak at any time, averaged 23.6 points a game in the 2016-17 season.
“We have to be very aware of him,” Lue said. “We know he’s going to score his points. He’s a great player. But we have to do a good job against all the other guys — C.J. Miles, Monta Ellis, Aaron Brooks, Lance Stephenson. … We have to try to take those guys out of the game and out of the series.
“We know (George) is capable of scoring 30 each night. We just have to make it tough on him and show him different things, throw different people at him and try to take those other guys away.”
Game 2 of the best-ofseven series is at 7 p.m. April 17 at Quicken Loans Arena. The series shifts to Indianapolis on April 20 for the first of two games at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.