TORONTO: The first step in putting the wheels back on the Cavaliers’ defense occurred Sunday morning with a productive film session, followed by a physical practice that was characterized as much needed.
This team hasn’t been the same since a scheduling quirk left it with five days off prior to Thanksgiving and now they’re working to get back to where they were. They get another chance Monday against the Toronto Raptors, who enter the game just percentage points behind the Cavs for the top spot in the East.
“We’re not playing hard enough,” LeBron James said Sunday. “We’re not doing the things that need to be done to win and it’s obviously more [magnified] in a loss. You see it more often when you lose. It was probably happening while we were winning as well. We just have to clean some things up and I think today we did that.”
Both James and coach Tyronn Lue pointed to the film session as an important teaching moment after the Chicago Bulls whipped the Cavs for 78 points in the paint in Friday’s loss, giving Lue his first three-game losing streak as a head coach.
“It was good for them to see it [on film],” Lue said. “They were pretty embarrassed by it, and then today we went to work on it.”
The Cavs held the Detroit Pistons to just 26 points in the paint in their 104-81 win on Nov. 18. James called that game “the best we’ve played all year” on both sides of the ball and the Cavs went home allowing opponents 40.3 points in the paint per game, good for 10th in the league.
But that was also the last game before a rare five-day break in the schedule. The players got the weekend off and have been unable to rediscover their previous form. Opponents are averaging 51.7 points in the paint against the Cavs in their last six games, plunging them to 29th in the league in that time and dropping their overall ranking from 10th to 19th.
“We’re an older team, we don’t have the best one-on-one defenders. We’ve got to be better as far as scheme-wise helping our teammates, recovering, making the multiple effort,” Lue said. “I wouldn’t say effort. Knowing what we’re doing, knowing who needs help, helping your teammate out.
“When we were in Boston we had the same thing [with] Ray Allen. We understood he was older and defensively we had to cover for him. You had to cover for [the next man covering for Allen]. We had kind of gotten away from that so today we showed them.”
As for the lengthy break following the Pistons win, James acknowledged he doesn’t like having so many days off at any point in the season and compared it to the week off players get for the All-Star break. All that time away certainly disrupts rhythm.
What James wants to make clear now is it’s time to stop living off last season’s championship. He declared after the loss to the Bulls that the Cavs’ honeymoon was over and reiterated that Sunday.
“Last year is last year. We had an unbelievable accomplishment, but that’s in the past now,” James said. “You have to be able to motivate yourself. For me, I’ve been in this position before coming off championships. You’ve got to be able to motivate yourself going into that following season.”
Dunleavy returns
Mike Dunleavy returned to practice Sunday and has been cleared from the league’s concussion protocol. He will be available Monday against the Raptors. Dunleavy missed two games with his concussion.
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ.