Cavs pick up pace with quick-passing offense

The Cavaliers will showcase five-time All-Star Kevin Love, but the offense won’t be a one-man show. we are trying (to get) to. A lot of the sets we are putting in have two, three or four options in them. Just trusting and not trying to force the first action and if it’s not there, make a quick decision and get to the second one.”

Channing Frye, 35 and starting his 13th season, knows he and teammates like Korver (37), JR Smith (33) and Love (30) aren’t capable of essentially running wind sprints for an entire game.

“The biggest thing for us is to play with pace not with dribbling, but with passing,” Frye said. “If we can do that, we create our own pace. … We’re not going to do a lot of standing around, so we’ll be conditioned to that movement, conditioned to reads and reaction.”

Frye said fans might recognize the Cavs’ offense from what the second unit ran for the past couple of years.

“You’ve got to know your personnel. To be honest, we have maybe one or two guys who are top of the mill oneon-one guys, and the rest are just kind of figuring our way, and we’re a thousand times better with movement,” Frye said. “In years’ past, this is more stuff the second unit would do, and it’s worked pretty dang well for us.”

As for the “positionless” aspect, Frye pointed out that he’s a center that shoots threes and the team also has “a big guy that plays guard” (Rodney Hood) and “a 3 man that’s a 2 man” (Cedi Osman).

“There’s no position. We’re just playing basketball in all areas and all angles of the game,” Frye said. “I think it’s where the good teams are going. You look at Denver, Utah, Boston, Philly, Atlanta has had success doing this, Toronto — all in a system where you can accentuate the good parts of each player.”

Larry Nance Jr. knows the Cavs are going to showcase Love, a five-time All-Star. But when asked to describe the Cavs offense, Nance called it “kind of like a five-man attack.”

“There’s not a player that we can put on the floor this year that isn’t a threat,” Nance said. “That’s really what we are all excited about, just being able to attack from all five positions, whether it’s a dribble drive or picking it off the rim and attacking downhill. We’re almost positionless basketball at this point, so it’s going to be fun to free flow.”