Tyronn Lue's first game as a head coach did not go at all as planned. His Cavaliers fell at home to the Bulls, 97-83, while missing 13 foul shots and being serenaded with boos.
Tyronn Lue says his Cavaliers aren’t ‘in good enough shape’ for him
Cleveland’s new head coach wants his team to play at a faster pace, and he’s not sure his players are conditioned enough to do so.
Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
After the game, Lue was asked what he thought went wrong. His answer came as a bit of a surprise.
“I don’t think we’re in good enough shape,” the Cavaliers new head coach said, via the Associated Press. “Early, we wanted to push it, we wanted to open the floor and we came out and did that and then we just dropped off the map. We got tired. I just don’t think we’re in good enough shape right now to play in the style that we want to play.”
Lue asked his team to play faster against the Bulls, but LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love got exhausted and asked out of the game earlier than planned. Irving said that he felt like his chest was about to "cave in" at one point during the first quarter. That threw off Lue's planned rotations and zapped the Cavaliers' legs.
The Cavaliers currently rank third-last in the league in total possessions, according to NBA.com. Last season, they played at the sixth-slowest pace in the league.
That didn’t stop Cleveland from putting together one of the NBA’s top offenses. Last season, the Cavaliers had the league’s fourth-best offensive rating, scoring 107.7 points per 100 possessions. They’ve taken a slight dip this season, but still rank sixth in the NBA, scoring 105.2 points per 100 possessions.
Outgoing coach David Blatt, who took on a larger role in running the team's offense, had previously told the Akron Beacon Journal's Jason Lloyd that he had no problem with the slow pace. That style -- a strong defense combined with an efficient offense -- got the Cavaliers to the Finals last year, he pointed out.
But Lue, who was the team’s defensive coordinator prior to Blatt’s firing, now wants to change Cleveland’s offense into a more up-tempo unit.
“As far of pace-wise and the vision that I have for this team, I think we got to play faster,” he said over the weekend, via ESPN. “I think we got to utilize Kyrie and LeBron’s one-on-one ability in transition to open the floor more, running more drags and getting that weakside big out, and we just haven’t been accustomed to playing that way. It’s something new, so I got to do a better job of getting us in some better shape.”
James, despite the exhaustion on Saturday, publicly agreed with his coach.
“Yup, we got to get in better shape,” James said, via ESPN. “Coach wanted to play faster, so we need to start doing stuff on off days, doing stuff at practice, during shootarounds, getting up and down the floor, getting our heart rate going, because he wants to play faster, play with more pace than we’ve done in the past. Try to get up and down the court before the defense is set on us. So we all need to be in better shape.”
But it remains to be seen whether James is willing to back up his words and follow Lue’s request. James has never played on a team that finished higher than No. 13 in possessions per game. LeBron’s teams have finished in the bottom 10 in pace in six of his 12 previous seasons.
James has historically been uncomfortable logging heavy minutes at power forward, which would make his team faster and more athletic. James rarely played the position during his first stint in Cleveland before reluctantly making his way there in Miami to win two championships. But after playing 82 percent of his minutes at power forward in 2013 and ‘14, James cut that number down to 27 percent in his first year back with the Cavaliers, according to Basketball Reference.
If James is willing to shift up a position more often, it’d make room for another faster player that could get up and down. If not, it’s hard to be fast paced when there are always two other big men in the game.
Lue can talk all he wants about speeding up the game, but in the end, it’ll come down to LeBron’s willingness to play that style.
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