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"Real tight basketball offensively" in Saturday's loss to the Chicago Bulls, LeBron James said, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com. "I think Monday [against Minnesota] we'll be much better, a little bit more relaxed and get back to the flow of our game."
Offensively, Cleveland did look much more comfortable against Minnesota's 20th-ranked defense than Chicago's eighth-ranked unit, shooting 50.6 percent from the floor as a team in a 114-107 win over the visiting Wolves at Quicken Loans Arena on Monday. James led six Cavs in double figures with 25 points on 11-for-15 shooting to go with nine assists, four rebounds, a block and a steal in 38 minutes in the win, which improved Cleveland's East-leading record to 31-12 and gave Lue, the former point guard and associate head coach who was elevated to the top spot after Blatt's ouster, the first win of his head coaching career.
Tyronn Lue says team handed him game ball and gave him hugs all around. Said LeBron James gave speech afterwards. Emotional moment for him.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) January 26, 2016
But while they put up points in bunches after struggling against Chicago, the Cavaliers still looked very much like a team with issues to resolve in the wake of their coaching change, especially on the defensive end.— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) January 26, 2016
James and company seemed to respond to Lue's post-loss criticism of their overall fitness and ability to play the uptempo style he'd prefer, scoring 32 points in the first quarter on 72.2 percent shooting and racing out to a 10-point lead. But they'd give that lead back, letting a young Wolves squad led by former Cavaliers 2014 No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins and 2015 top choice Karl-Anthony Towns repeatedly get where they wanted to go on the floor and generate good looks.
For long stretches, Sam Mitchell's club seemed to be playing harder and with more commitment than the Cavs, fighting to contest passes, attack the paint and play with force underneath the basket. The 14-31 Timberwolves stayed right with the defending Eastern Conference champions, shooting 51.1 percent from the field in the first half and trailing by only four heading into intermission.
It wasn't until the final three minutes of the third quarter that the Cavs started to put their foot down, closing the frame on a 10-3 run highlighted by a fast-break lob from point guard Matthew Dellavedova to center Timofey Mozgov, who made a difficult and loud finish with his left hand:
... and a beautiful bit of ball-handling by Kyrie Irving to freeze Tayshaun Prince before stepping back to drill a 3-pointer:
But despite heading into the final frame down 10 and seemingly outgunned against a more talented and experienced team, the Wolves hung around. Dieng bulled his way to the glass and the free throw line, scoring nine straight Minnesota points. Towns knocked down jumpers, extended plays, finished out of the pick-and-roll and continued to look like the frontrunner for Rookie of the Year honors en route to his 22nd double-double of the season, with 26 points on 11-for-16 shooting, 11 rebounds, four assists, a steal and a block in 30 minutes.
The Wolves twice got within three points on buckets by LaVine, who had arguably his best game of the season playing off the ball, with 21 points on 8-for-15 shooting, six assists and four rebounds off the bench. But a strong stretch from Tristan Thompson (19 points and 12 rebounds after being reinserted into the starting lineup) and Dellavedova (18 points, seven assists, four rebounds off the bench, and on Australia Day, no less!) turned a 94-91 Cavs edge into a 104-91 advantage. And after a LaVine and-one made the score 110-107 with 16 seconds left, James knocked down a pair of free throws, LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad missed desperation 3s, and that was that.
Cleveland won ... which is, y'know, better than losing. But it felt a bit more like survival than triumph than anyone in wine and gold would've preferred, and while James might have been right in saying that the effort the Cavs gave in losing to the Bulls would be enough to win a lot of games, the brand of effort they offered against the Wolves sure seems like it would've resulted in a second straight loss against a lot of other opponents.
The Cavaliers have placed a fairly sizable bet on the proposition that their associate head coach could create the "championship culture" that their head coach couldn't, make the sort of systemic changes that could transform a disjointed collection of talent into a reinvigorated contender, and elevate Cleveland from very good to undoubtedly elite on both ends of the floor. The results thus far indicate that Lue, James and everybody else in Cleveland has quite a bit of work to get there. Under normal circumstances, two iffy performances after a midseason upheaval would seem like too small a sample to judge much of anything; if the events of the last four days have taught us anything, though, it's that these aren't normal circumstances, and more significant improvement will be expected very, very soon.
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