Cavs focus on defense and dousing LeBron with water

WASHINGTON -- Anyone who has spent nearly two straight decades in the NBA, as Tyronn Lue has, will tell you it’s a ridiculously long regular season.
With back-to-backs and road trips and scouting reports bleeding into scouting reports, Lue has found it helpful to simplify things.
So, with the defending-champion Cleveland Cavaliers off to a 6-1 start and wrapping their heads around a momentous week off the court -- Donald Trump winning the presidential election followed in short order by the Cavs visiting the White House to be honored by President Barack Obama -- Lue gave them a shortened menu to focus on heading into Friday’s showdown with the Washington Wizards.
Time to shore up their fourth-quarter defense, which had been giving up 29.6 points per game and turning what should have been easy victories into a bunch of on-edge finishes.
The Cavs followed their coach’s orders against the Wizards, holding Washington to just 19 points in the fourth and winning 105-94 after falling down by 12 in the first half.
“Made it a point of emphasis before the game started that we’re giving them 30 points a game in the fourth quarter,” Lue said afterward. “Guys came out and did a good job. We stuck to the game plan, John Wall had 23 points in the first half. We didn’t get discouraged. We stuck with the game plan, he ended up having five in the second half.”
Lue said he got the streamlined approach to game preparation from Doc Rivers.
“I mean, where else? Everything I do is Doc Rivers-driven,” Lue said. “He’s taught me a lot and I’ve patterned a lot of things I do after Doc. Just speaking to the team about being better defensively, having a defensive mindset to start the game. Let’s not wait until the playoffs to be great defensively, let’s start creating great habits now.”

Tyronn Lue has managed to keep his players focused on details while having fun together. David Richard/USA TODAY Sports

Lue is trying to do something with the Cavs that Rivers has never done with his teams: win a repeat championship. If Lue can give his players isolated, attainable goals on a nightly basis, not only will their confidence grow when the tasks are achieved, but there will be steady improvement throughout the season.
“I’ve said all along, he knows exactly what he wants and he has a great way of us just getting it out of us because he’s very direct, very honest with us and we go over it in practice every single day,” said Kevin Love, who has shown flashes of vast defensive improvement this season under Lue’s guidance. “So every time we feel like we stick to the game plan -- especially with this group, a veteran group -- we’re going to be better off.”
There was another signature Lue directive on display in the Cavaliers' postgame locker room. When he took over for David Blatt last season, he could feel the pressure of expectations weighing on the team. Even though Cleveland's record was the best in the East, joy was being sapped from the Cavs under a championship-or-bust credo the team had taken on. One of Lue's first orders of business was to restore a sense of fun, a feeling of good fortune, to activities by embracing every individual accomplishment as a team. It brings a group together and also breaks up the monotony of what really is a “Lawrence of Arabia”-long season.
Friday, that individual accomplishment was LeBron James becoming the youngest player in NBA history to score 27,000 points, besting Kobe Bryant’s previous mark.
Not only did his teammates celebrate James, but they tricked him, leading the three-time champion to believe that Lue had reached a coaching feat they were about to recognize and then turning their attention toward James and dousing him from water bottles while they cheered for his scoring spree.
“I mean, that’s special. I don’t think that’s lost on any of us how special that is and how special a player LeBron is,” Love said. “It was definitely fun and it was definitely unexpected. I think he might have gotten all of his clothes wet and his phone wet. He said he was cool with it. But he got all his s--- wet.”
It did indeed soak James’ clothes, including a rare pair of suede Nike kicks that completed his postgame ensemble, but James simply soaked it all in.

“They got all my clothes wet and everything, but that’s my guys so it’s always great to be able to accomplish something with such a great group of guys,” James said.
There is an ease to the start of the season for the Cavs, as their record reflects. Their challenge is to embrace that comfort while not letting lethargy creep in. So far, they’re hitting all the right notes, whether it be the harmony in which James, Kyrie Irving and Love are playing with one another, to the efficacy to which Lue is coaching them. That rhythmic routine, that attention to detail, is what tricks a team into forgetting just how long the season is and keeps it in the moment without fast-forwarding to the playoffs unprepared.
“We’re still motivated,” James said. “We’re still motivated to continue to get better. We love playing the game of basketball with one another. It’s fun for us, and we just want to continue to challenge each other on a day-to-day basis. And see how far our ceiling can go, how far our elevator can go. So it’s a good start for us.”