CLEVELAND: It hasn’t always been easy and oftentimes it has quite literally been painful for those involved, but the Cavaliers enter the All-Star break again on top of the Eastern Conference and the overwhelming favorites to return to the NBA Finals for what would be LeBron James’ seventh consecutive trip.
They have fought through injuries to two starters to enter the break 7-1 in February, already matching their win total from a turbulent 7-8 January that included James ripping his own organization and questioning their desire to win. All of that seems behind them now.
“We’ve played some good ball,” James said following the Cavs’ win Wednesday over the Indiana Pacers. “Obviously, we know January wasn’t such a good month for us, but overall, for the season, we’re in a good place.”
At 39-16, they’re 2½ games ahead of the Boston Celtics for the best record in the East and one game off their pace from last season, when they were 40-15 through 55 games en route to a 57-win season and ultimately the first championship in franchise history.
They have evolved into the most proficient 3-point shooting team in the league. The only team that shoots a better percentage, the San Antonio Spurs, makes four fewer 3s per game than the Cavs. The only team that makes more per game, the Houston Rockets, average six more attempts per game and make a considerably smaller percentage.
Kyle Korver’s addition only helps those numbers, and J.R. Smith’s eventual return from thumb surgery will add yet another shooter to the mix. Korver is shooting 52 percent from the 3-point line since coming to the Cavs, a percentage boosted significantly by his ridiculous 14-of-17 stretch in two games against the Pacers within a week.
Korver on Wednesday became the seventh player in league history with at least 2,000 3-pointers for a career. After a slow start when he arrived in Cleveland, Korver is red-hot now.
“In a lot of my career, I’ve had to really seek out shots, really trying to work for them and really be running, and kind of stop-and-go and catch-and-shoot,” Korver said. “But I’m getting a lot of really good looks. There’s an adjustment between seeking out shots and waiting for shots to come to you. I think it’s just a mental shift.”
The Cavs have still struggled for long stretches defensively and they consistently fail to put teams away after building big leads, which in turn makes James’ minutes climb higher than necessary. They have plummeted to 20th in defensive rating and they’re 16th in defensive field-goal percentage.
None of those defensive numbers are good enough to win a championship, historically speaking, but the Cavs still have 27 games to prepare for the playoffs. The post-All-Star break, incidentally, is James’ favorite part of the regular season.
“Gotta gear up for the playoffs and I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of the playoffs for 12 straight seasons,” James said. “I just understand it’s kind of like the last stretch, kind of like the last lap of the 400, so we just want to keep it going.”
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.