Support For LeBron Better, Cavs Even It Up.

After the loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, we tried to calm people by saying the Cleveland Cavaliers just needed to win their two home games, so there was no reason to panic.

The Cavs still need to win one game on the Celtics home court, just like they did going into the series after a 111-102 victory at Quicken Loans Arena.

So, tonight was not LeBron James’ last game in a Cavalier uniform because he will be here Friday night for Game 6.

And of course, James was incredible again last night, scoring 44 points on 28 shots, and he added in five rebounds and three assists. Can The King play better? The seven turnovers he had say yes he can.

The “supporting cast” also played very well too. Tristan Thompson had 13 points and 12 boards, and continued to give Al Horford trouble defensively.

George Hill has been a completely different player at home, scoring 13 points in each game, making 50% of his 20 shot attempts in the two games. And he does a good job on the defensive end as well.

What more can you see about Kyle Korver. The 37-year-old scored 14 points, had four rebounds and incredibly, three blocked shots. Korver isn’t a great one-on-one defender, and never really was, and Brad Stevens tries to take advantage of that when Korver is matched up on Jalen Brown, but he is seemingly always in the right spot, and can always be counted on to dive on the loose ball.

We are sure the Kevin Love critics will be out in full force today, because he didn’t shoot well, but he still had 9 points and 11 rebounds, despite foul trouble. And his tip in basket in the fourth quarter came at a critical time.

As for the people who think Tyronn Lue shouldn’t be second guessed if the wine and gold win, we need to ask what is his obsession with Jeff Green. Green is a solid defender, that’s true, but the combination of he and Thompson on the court at the same time needs to be junked.

The Cavs play horribly with that duo on the court together.

If Cleveland is to get the road win they need tomorrow night, they have to take care of the ball better. 19 turnovers (seven by James, six more by Love) is way too many.

The Cavaliers also need to continue the defensive effort they received at home too. Boston shot 40% in the two games at The Q, and if they can get those kind of results in Beantown, that will bode well for the team.

Yes, Boston was in the same position in their first round series against Milwaukee, and the Bucks have Giannis Antetokounmpo, a superstar, but the Greek Freak isn’t the best player in the sport, and the Bucks don’t have the experience which permeates the Cleveland roster.

What that means if perhaps the Celtics will be feeling some pressure understanding that a loss on Wednesday night means going back to Cleveland, where they haven’t played well, for a must win contest.

Right now, momentum is with the Cavs. They need to smell blood after two straight wins and jump on Boston early.

One other advantage for Cleveland. They have LeBron James. And that’s a big edge.

What Needs To Change In Game 2 For Cavs?

Fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers should know better by now. You cannot and should not overreact to a single game in the NBA playoffs.

If we would have told you before Sunday’s game one that Cleveland would shoot 36% from the floor, and go 4 of 26 from three point range, while the Celtics make 51% of their shots, we both would have predicted a 25 point loss in Beantown.

Then you add in Boston shooting 64.1% on contested shots, while the wine and gold made just 30% of wide open shots, and you can see why the Cavs weren’t really in game one.

Basketball is a funny game, we say this all the time. A team can execute a play perfectly and the player who ends up with the ball misses the shot. Conversely, you can be totally discombobulated offensively, and then a great player makes a contested shot.

That’s just the nature of the game.

What coaches and players do is try to even out the odds. Normally, the percentages even out, and team make open shots and miss ones that are defended.

When it doesn’t work out that way, it is awfully frustrating to watch or play.

Could it happen again in game two? Of course. And if it does, all the Celtics have done is hold serve on their home court, and the Cavaliers can even it up and make it a best of three series by winning games three and four at Quicken Loans Arena.

We would doubt that Marcus Morris or Al Horford can play better tonight than they did in the first game, and we would also be surprised if LeBron James was as inefficient as he was on Sunday.

And quite frankly, we’d be more shocked if the wine and gold made just four three point shots.

This doesn’t mean that’s all it comes down to in tonight’s contest. The Cavs have to show more fight, and they have to do a better job on Horford, who the Celtics use to facilitate the offense.

It appears Tristan Thompson will start in place of either JR Smith or Kyle Korver, to add some size to the lineup, and Thompson has done a good job of defending Horford in the past.

We would like to see more of Jordan Clarkson attacking the basket, not settling for mid-range jump shots. And while Rodney Hood got credit for being okay in Game 1, we weren’t impressed. Yes, he scored 11 points, but needed 12 shots to do so.

We also think it sends the wrong message, even in the playoffs, to put him out there after he refused to play in the series clincher vs. Toronto.

Cleveland needs to rebound better too, as they were outrebounded 48-40 on Sunday. Jeff Green had one board, and Hood had none. Both must do better.

There has to be better ball movement too. The Cavs only had 18 assists, half of them by James. Now, some of that is you can’t award an assist unless someone makes a shot, but the next highest assist total was by Kevin Love with three.

Game one was just a bad game for the Cavs. If tonight’s game is similar, then there is reason for concern. Even if that happens, it only means the wine and gold must win the next two at home.

Cavs Still Need Some Players To Step Up

Basketball is a funny game. We have always said that you can execute a play or a plan perfectly, but a player still has to make a shot.

Conversely, you can do everything wrong and somebody like JR Smith hits a seemingly impossible shot, and the team likes good.

In the Cleveland Cavaliers’ first round series against the Indiana Pacers, which went the full seven games, the wine and gold shot 43% from the floor, and 32.2% from three point range.

In the first two games of the conference semi-finals against Toronto, the Cavs have shot 48% from the floor, and 36.2% from behind the arc. Is it just that simple?

Maybe.

Certainly, Indiana was much more physical with Cleveland, and until game seven, coach Tyronn Lue seemed hesitant to match that physicality by playing Tristan Thompson, who is one of only three truly big bodies on the roster.

Thompson started the ultimate game in the series, scoring 15 points and 10 rebounds, and the Cavs have looked like a different team.

He has averaged 8 points and 7 rebounds in 21 minutes in the series vs. the Raptors.

Of course, it also helps to have the best player in the world, one Mr. LeBron James.

All he has done in nine post-season games this season is average 34.4 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 9 assists, and dominated the three games (Game #2, Game #4, and Game #7) where his teams’ back was to the wall.

Oh yeah, he’s also playing 42 minutes per game at age 33.

In the first round series, save for Kyle Korver, James had little help against the Pacers. Kevin Love was the only other player to average double figures (11.4), but that was more than six points less than his regular season average. Love also shot just 33% from the floor compared to 45.8% during the 2017-18 campaign.

Even though it is just two games, Cleveland has five players scoring ten or more points against the Raptors. Besides James (34.5), the Cavs also have big offensive contributions from Love (19.0), Smith (17.5), Jeff Green (15.0), and Korver (12.0).

And we didn’t mention another player having a big impact in George Hill. Hill missed three games against Indiana in round one, and didn’t play in Game 7 until the second half because of back spasms.

Hill provides solid defense and another ball handler to initiate the offense for Lue.

Certainly, Smith shooting 58% from the field and going 7 of 9 from three, and Green making three quarters of his shots from the floor and knocking down 5 of 7 from beyond the arc probably isn’t sustainable.

But if Love continues to play (read: make shots) like yesterday, that duo’s likely cool down won’t hurt as badly.

Still, at some point, Lue will need Jordan Clarkson or Rodney Hood to make some shots.

Clarkson has made just 17 of 52 shots (32.7%) and has hit just 4 of 20 threes. And if take out his Game 4 performance vs. the Pacers, his only really good game in the post season, those numbers drop to 12 of 43 (28%) and 2 of 17 from three. One of those threes was in garbage time last night.

Clarkson is capable of turning a game around with his scoring, and something tells me he will be needed to do just that in the next two games at Quicken Loans Arena.

Hood shot just 26% from three last year in the playoffs compared to 37% in the regular season, and has made just 2 of 14 this season. He needs to step up offensively too.

If the Cavs just hold serve at home, they will advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the fourth straight season. However, we doubt in will be easy. Toronto is a quality team.

However, the Raptors are faced with having to win four of the next five games, with three of those being in Cleveland.

We don’t think the Cavs will rest on their accomplishments in the first two games.

Cavs’ Flaws Coming Back To Haunt.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have recently played nothing like a team poised to make a deep post-season run since the All Star break.

They have went 4-6 in their last ten games after winning impressively in the two contests after the trade deadline leading up to the interruption in the season.

Kevin Love has been out for awhile with his broken hand, and now other injuries are starting to crop up. Rodney Hood has a sore back, Cedi Osman has a hip flexor, Kyle Korver has a foot issue, and Tristan Thompson sprained an ankle.

Not many teams could play well without half of their rotation players, but it feels like coach Tyronn Lue’s lack of structure is telling in the team’s struggles, and together with the front office’s ignorance of having big people on the roster, you can make a case the planning is at least culpable in the losing.

Cleveland opened the season with just three real big men–Love, Thompson, and rookie Ante Zizic, and he has been basically ignored by Lue.

The mere idea of entering a season with just three post defenders seems ludicrous doesn’t it? Especially in a sport, that although it has evolved in the past ten years, where size matters.

That’s the first thing that has come up to bite the Cavs right now.

The second thing would be the lack of development of young players like Osman and Zizic. Osman has proven to be a solid defender on the perimeter, but he has been marginalized by the coaching staff, a group that most definitely would rather play veterans.

Now the team needs Zizic, but because he didn’t get time early in the season, he doesn’t get the time of day, even in a game like last Friday night, when the Clippers big men destroyed the Cavaliers inside.

Another problem is a lack of emphasis on the defensive end. Lue’s squad ranks 28th in the league in defensive efficiency, and when the coach talks about his team, all he talks about is pace of play.

No mention about a defensive mindset or defense at all for that matter.

We would like to hear from the coach what exactly are the Cavs trying to accomplish on the defensive end. They don’t defend the three point shot well, they are terrible in pick and roll situations, and it doesn’t seem like they have some help defense principles.

So what is the plan on that end of the floor?

Lue’s reluctance to change things up is also mind boggling. JR Smith is second on the Cavs in minutes per game, despite having just 13 double figure scoring games in the last 40 contests.

Eight of those games came in an 11 game span from January 26th through February 22nd. This means that in the other 29 games, Smith has scored 10+ points in only five games.

He’s the Cavs’ starting shooting guard, by the way.

And because there isn’t a firm offensive game plan, no one knows where the shots will come on a nightly basis, except for LeBron James. It’s up to James to find where the other players want the ball, which he works hard to find out, but often (like Sunday night vs. the Lakers) it leads to the team going several possessions without getting good looks.

With the playoffs on the horizon, all of these things don’t bode well for a deep playoff run.

Here’s hoping the snooze alarm goes off for the coaching staffs and changes can be made, because it’s clear here that not all of the problems will be erased by Kevin Love’s return to the lineup.

The Tristan Dilemma

The Cleveland Cavaliers had already drafted Kyrie Irving in the first round in the 2011 NBA Draft when they took Tristan Thompson with the fourth overall selection.

At the time, the select of Thompson was a bit of a surprise, since he averaged just 13.1 points and 7.8 rebounds a game at the University of Texas.

We were hoping for Enes Kanter to fall to the Cavs, but he was taken by the Jazz at #3, and Jonas Valanciunas was still on the board, but remember, he was not going to play in the NBA that season, and the Cavs didn’t feel like they could wait a year after a 19-63 record in the first year after LeBron James departed for Miami.

As a rookie, he averaged 8.2 points and 6.5 rebounds, and increased those totals to 11.7 and 9.4 in his second season.

He stayed at those numbers in year #3, and it began to look like Thompson was a disappointment as the second best player on a team led by Irving.

Then, LeBron James and Kevin Love arrived, and that pushed Thompson down the food chain, where he became a role player on a title contender, a role he can and did excel in.

As a big man, Thompson had an ability to be able to guard smaller players when switching in pick-and-roll situations, a very valuable skill, and one that was a key in the Cavs’ 2016 NBA title.

He was also a relentless offensive rebounder, averaging 3.3 per game for his career and upping that total to 4.1 in the playoffs.

He was durable too, playing every game from his second year in the Association through his fifth year.

However, the last two seasons have seen a drop in Thompson’s game. First, he’s never developed an acceptable jump shot from around 10-15 feet out like former teammate Anderson Varejao did.

He has always been and still is a liability on offense, as his main skill is crashing the boards. Other than that, he doesn’t have to be guarded.

His defense has slipped as well. He had a defensive rating of 108 in the three years he played before James came back, and improved that to 106, then 104 in the championship season.

Last year, it fell back to his rookie level and is now a career worst 112.

Perhaps Thompson’s playing through the bumps and bruises all those years is coming back to bite him, because he’s missed 22 games this season.

Unfortunately for Tristan, the Cavs are 19-3 in those games, which brings into question Thompson’s role with the team not only this season, but going forward.

Since Larry Nance Jr. arrived at the trade deadline, there is a discernable difference in how the wine and gold play with Nance in the game as opposed to Thompson. Nance is more active and definitely a quicker leaper than TT, who needs to gather himself before jumping.

Thompson can still be an important piece for the Cavs, but he needs to be fully healthy, and it looks as though it should be as a guy coming off the bench.

We know coach Tyronn Lue has loyalty to the guys who won a title, both Thompson and JR Smith, so will Lue be willing to make the change for the good of the team?

The other issue with Thompson is his contract, which pays him $16.4 million per year this season, and increases by roughly a million more in each of the next two campaigns.

That’s far too much for what the team is receiving in return, leading to speculation the front office would like to move him this summer.

The point is Thompson may have been the 4th or 5th best player on the team, a key piece, two years ago, but he isn’t that anymore.

Can he fix that this summer? Of course. Do we think it is likely? Our guess would be no.

It comes down to back for the buck. It is likely that Thompson performance and role this post-season determines his fate.

Two Wins Doesn’t Mean Cavs Are Good To Go

For the first time since mid December, the Cleveland Cavaliers have won two games in a row. The consecutive victories came after coach Tyronn Lue moved Tristan Thompson into the starting lineup and moved Jae Crowder to the bench.

However, any thoughts that GM Koby Altman doesn’t need to make any moves heading into the February 8th trading deadline should be put to bed. This roster still needs some revamping.

First, the two wins both came at Quicken Loans Arena, where the wine and gold haven’t had trouble winning this season. They are 18-6 at home in 2017-18, one of the top ten records in the league this season. The best records are San Antonio (21-4) and Toronto (18-4).

The Cavaliers aren’t too far off that pace.

Cleveland is 11-13 away from northeast Ohio. Only seven teams have winning records on the road this season, but the Cavs are supposed to be an elite team. The best records are by Golden State, Boston, Houston, Toronto, and Miami.

Outside of the Heat, those are teams who came into the year searching a championship.

The good teams in the NBA also win big. The squads with the best records in games decided by 10 or more points are Toronto, Boston, Golden State, Houston, and Washington. Cleveland is 8-11, in the lower half of the league.

This is not a team that looks like an elite team, at least right now. So, management shouldn’t look at two victories, one over a Pistons team that has lost eight in a row, as a solution.

This basketball team still needs height.

The Cavs’ only true big men are Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love, Channing Frye, and little used Ante Zizic. None provide a deterrent to opponents who want to drive to the basket.

It is something the front office has ignored since the middle of last season, when Chris Andersen and Andrew Bogut went down with injuries. It has to be addressed going forward.

We are sure that Lue would also be happy if some of the roster logjams are taken care of. With Isaiah Thomas back, he has to divide up time for Thomas, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose at the point. For sure, Wade isn’t going anywhere, so moving one of the other two would clarify things.

Jeff Green has been a godsend to date, averaging in double figures in points (10.8) and is one of the few Cavs playing solid defense, but Lue can’t find minutes for Iman Shumpert, who hasn’t earned them, and Cedi Osman, who has.

And remember, in Sunday’s win over Detroit, neither Thomas, Rose, or Thompson played in the fourth quarter when the wine and gold put the game away.

Lue has problems fitting people into rotations, and the roster may be too deep because the coach can’t keep everyone happy. Players like to know how they are going to be used, and it is difficult for Lue to make that happen.

So, with just a week ago before the trading deadline, Altman can’t be complacent, he has to realize this roster needs help to get to the NBA Finals for a fourth straight year.

General Managers don’t usually get fooled by two games. Here’s hoping Altman isn’t either.

Lue Reaching The Loyalty Vs. Stubbornness Line

One of the toughest things for someone in charge of a sports team is recognizing when it is time to replace a veteran player.

Likewise, it is difficult to see when a plan of attack you have used for years needs to be changed.

The greatest coaches/manager understand that. They see what kind of talent they have on the roster, and use it to the best advantage.

Bill Belichick famously released Bernie Kosar when he was coaching the Browns because he saw that the quarterback was not the same player as he was when he took the team to three AFC title games in four seasons.

The great coaches think totally with their head and take emotion out of the equation.

That’s what Tyronn Lue seems to be facing right now.

Since he was elevated to the head coaching position in 2015-16, the Cavaliers defensive rating has slowly decreased. The wine and gold are currently 29th (out of 30) in defense in the NBA.

Lue was in charge of the defense during the first run to The Finals for the Cavs (2014-15), but when he got promoted, he brought Mike Longabardi in to run the defense.

Longabardi has good credentials. He was on the Boston Celtics’ staff with Lue under Doc Rivers from 2007-13, and the Celts were one of the league’s best defensive teams.

He went to Phoenix from there, and initially the Suns improved dramatically too, but they got worse from there, although to be fair, the Suns got younger in that three year span.

With the Cavs, the defense has never been as good as it was when Lue was running the show, and it has been reported that Lue provides more input once the playoffs start.

Whatever they are doing on that end of the floor, it isn’t working very well. Yes, the Cavs are an older team, but over the years, younger players seem to have more of an issue on the defensive end than veterans.

Cleveland struggles in transition for sure, and we have said for the past two years that no team depends more on their offense for their defense than the Cavs.

However, the defensive issues have now gone on for two years. Look at Jae Crowder, who was considered a solid defender with Boston in Brad Stevens’ system, which by the way, has also made Kyrie Irving better than he’s been in his career.

Crowder looks lost in Cleveland. Did he forget to play defense as soon as he put on a Cavalier jersey? We doubt it. It’s just that the scheme the wine and gold is using is not effective.

Lue faces the same situation with players like JR Smith and Tristan Thompson. Both were important cogs in the championship team of 2015-16, but they don’t look like the same players now.

Smith has dropped offensively and defensively from the past two seasons, and the changing game appears to be hurting Thompson, who isn’t as effective guarding smaller players on the pick and roll, and hasn’t been able to handle bigger players near the basket.

Right now, Lue seems reluctant to make changes in his playing rotation. Cedi Osman seems to do well in limited minutes, but there are nights he doesn’t even play.

Smith and Crowder are two of the reasons the starting lineup is struggling.

Right now, Lue is being stubborn. This isn’t a one week slump, the Cavs fortunes seemed to have changed when Thompson came back, and that’s been almost a month.

Luckily, there are still three months for the coach to turn things around.

Cavs Need A Thomas Boost

Isaiah Thomas makes his much awaited debut with the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Cavs have lost four of their last five and appears to be in a bit of a holiday malaise following a tough loss to Golden State on Christmas Day.

The bench has struggled a bit since Tristan Thompson’s return and his replacement of Channing Frye with the second unit. Dwyane Wade and his crew have lost the floor spacing that the latter provided with his three point shooting.

Thompson needs to be near the basket and if he’s away from the rim, he doesn’t need to be guarded. That takes away driving lanes for Wade and allows teams to shadow Kyle Korver, making it more difficult for him to get open.

Thomas will start off coming off the bench and will play limited minutes, but the starting lineup is also in need of a shot in the arm.

Jose Calderon did a great job in the starting lineup after Derrick Rose was injured, but he is starting to show that he is, well, Jose Calderon. He’s a guy who should be playing limited minutes, and instead he playing more than he did a year ago.

They also need to get more offense out of their starting lineup. Currently, the only players Tyronn Lue can count on nightly are LeBron James and Kevin Love.

Unfortunately, that’s only two-fifths of the starting five.

JR Smith’s shooting continues to decline from his first two seasons with the Cavaliers, dropping from 39% and 40% in those seasons to the 35% and 36% in the past two campaigns.

Moreso, he has been more inconsistent, at times going several games where he is not a factor on the offensive end. By now, we know James needs to play with three point shooters to open up driving lines. In return, those shooters get wide open looks.

Those snipers have to knock down those looks more often than not. Right now, that’s not a given.

Calderon and Smith’s issues are one reason the bench group is more productive than the starters. There are more of them making nightly contributions.

Once Thomas shakes the rust off his game, he should help provide more scoring from the starting five, and he is a 36.7% career shooter from behind the arc, so opponents have to account for him.

He’s also an 88% lifetime free throw shooter, so if he gets fouled he makes them. Keep in mind, the Cavs already rank second in the NBA in free throw shooting as a team.

No doubt, it will take some time for Thomas to get used to playing with a roster that outside of Jae Crowder, he hasn’t played with before. But, his style does fit more than someone like Thompson.

To start, we can see Thomas taking Calderon’s role, but with more drives and more volume scoring. He also provides the offense with another player who can create his own shot, something that only James and Wade can do right now with regularity.

Thomas’ return to the floor should give the Cavaliers a little boost that is needed right now. It’s not like the team has been playing poorly, but a slight jolt shouldn’t hurt anything.

Cavs Starting To Turn A Corner?

There is no question the Cleveland Cavaliers have struggled starting this season. They’ve lost games to several of the NBA’s supposed also ran, losing at home to Atlanta, New York, and Indiana.

But just maybe, things are starting to turnaround just a bit as the wine and gold took three out of four on the road, losing only to Houston in the opening game. That game was close at the end too, as the Cavs had a chance to win.

Yes, the defense could be better, but Tyronn Lue’s team does seem to be able to play at that end of the floor in spurts, such as the fourth quarter in New York on Monday, and in the second half last night in Charlotte.

With three of the next four and four of the next six at Quicken Loans Arena, it would be a good time to start playing better at home and in turn start climbing up the Eastern Conference standings.

Want another sign the Cavs aren’t as bad off as many in the national media think? Cleveland has won 5 road games this season, and only Boston and Houston (both 7-1) have won more.

You don’t find many bad teams having success on the road.

On the other hand, good teams win games in blowout fashion, and right now the Cavaliers are just 1-4 in games decided by 10 points or more, their win in Milwaukee in the second game of the season being the lone triumph.

They have also been outscored on the season, another sign of a mediocre team. However, remember Cleveland has played the entire season without Isaiah Thomas, a legitimate 20 points per game scorer, and their best interior defender in Tristan Thompson for most of the schedule.

There will be a period of adjustment when those players return, obviously, but it’s tough to get a good read on this team until they do.

And we say this every year, but we wish the media and fans alike would stop comparing the Cavs to the Golden State Warriors.

First, the Warriors top four players are the same as last year. Second, most of the games they play their opponents are mesmerized by their style of play and that creates an advantage right from the opening tip.

Also, why should anybody care? The wine and gold play just two games in the regular season against Golden State, and after that, they won’t see them in the playoffs until the NBA Finals if both teams get to that point.

To compare the Cavs start to the Warriors’ start is an exercise in frustration. Really, the only thing to be watching right now is how this pretty much new group of players is gelling, and what team in the East may pose a threat to Lue’s squad.

And don’t forget the Cavaliers have made deals during the season in each of the last three seasons to shore up a weakness. Why wouldn’t you think the same thing will happen this season.

Hopefully, losing to the dregs of the NBA on a regular basis is done, and the momentum gained on this trip will continue. At the very least, people can breathe a little easier about the Cavs.

Cavs Having October Basketball Issues

The first week of the NBA season is a time for weird things to happen.

That’s why we aren’t too concerned with the performance of the Cleveland Cavaliers thus far.

Tyronn Lue’s team has struggled out of the gate, losing two of their last three, against a trio of teams expected to be also-rans this season, the Magic, Bulls, and Nets.

If we get to game 15, and the team is 8-7 and still struggling to show any consistency, then we may have some serious questions.

Remember that the Cavaliers have eight new faces on the roster, and three of those players, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, and Isaiah Thomas, have been battling injuries.

Rose might be more important to the team than originally thought. The Cavs opened with two straight wins, but he left the latter of the two victories late with a sprained ankle and hasn’t played since.

In his absence, Lue tried Jose Calderon against Orlando, and as expected, the veteran struggled, particularly on defense.

So, the coach turned to LeBron James at the point, moving Tristan Thompson into the starting lineup. That unit struggled on the defensive end as well, mainly because they struggle to defend the quickness of a traditional point guards.

Rose is supposed to return to the lineup Saturday night against New Orleans, and it will be interesting to see how his presence on the court affects the other players.

Lue has been highly critical of his defense, but last night, Jae Crowder played just 20 minutes, and Tristan Thompson was on the floor for just 22 minutes.

Those two are the wine and gold’s most accomplished defenders, so if Lue wants a defensive presence for his team, it should start by giving these two players more time.

Particularly Crowder, who can shoot the three and stretch the floor on offense.

On the other hand, we said a week ago that with all the new players on the roster, we knew it would take some time for Lue to develop a rotation that works, and that process was set back a week by the absences of Rose and Wade.

Having James miss most of the pre-season with a sprained ankle didn’t help the situation either.

And yes, we know the Cavs are the oldest team in the league, but that number is skewed by the presence of Channing Frye (34), Calderon (36), and Kyle Korver (36). Out of that trio, only Korver figures to get a lot of playing time this season.

If you take Frye and Calderon out of the mix, Cleveland is very similar in age to San Antonio, Golden State, and Houston, the next three teams in this category.

Oh, by the way, those teams are all title contenders, just like the Cavs.

Our point is we don’t want to hear how the defensive problems are due to age. The players getting the bulk of the playing time aren’t or shouldn’t be on their last legs.

We trust Lue to figure this out.

Let’s see what happens when Rose is back and Crowder gets more time on the floor. If the Cavs win the next three games, and look good doing it, these last three games will be forgotten.