James handles the ball in the paint before dumping it off to Tristan Thompson who sends it sky high for a layup in the third quarter against the Nuggets.
| 00:08
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- No one should have realistically expected the Cavaliers to win their first eight games with the guys at the deadline as LeBron James called them.
And they haven't. They've won four and lost four, following a 126-117 loss to the Denver Nuggets Saturday night.
All four losses have come at home, though it's a stretch to call The Q "home" for Rodney Hood, Larry Nance Jr., George Hill, and Jordan Clarkson -- all acquired in trades on Feb. 8.
"I don't expect us to be 8-0 right now," said Hill, who scored 17 points Saturday night. "I feel like early we was on that high horse, new to the city and new to the team so you're kind of on cloud 9 to get away from your old stomping grounds, things like that. But once teams start scouting and figuring things out, we've just got to figure it out ourselves. Where we're going as a team and what's going to be our identity? It's all new schemes for us defensively for four guys coming into a rotation to play with a playoff team like this is totally different. It's going to take time.
"There's no need for us to tip our head down. We've got to keep our head high and figure it out."
Cleveland hosts Detroit at 7 p.m. Monday before heading out on a season-long, six-game road trip.
"We're all trying to get better," James said, after another triple double of 25 points, 10 rebounds, and 15 assists. "It's not just the guys at the deadline, it's all of us, we're all trying to figure it out."
Simpler, yes, but Nuggets 'killed us'
Coach Tyronn Lue cut down the number of offensive sets and tried to use fewer defensive coverages, as he pledged to do.
The Cavs had seven players (including all five starters) score in double figures on Saturday -- a vast improvement from the 97 points and three players with 10 or more points in the loss to Philadelphia on Thursday.
But Cleveland's game "pace" was 94.92, which is slow, about six possessions per 48 minutes slower than the Cavs' average.
"I thought the guys were a little better," Lue said. "I thought we could still play a little faster, especially in the half court. Defensively we simplified it but, they just killed us."
As in, 19 3s and .547 shooting -- that kind of murder.
Cavs need to help Hood
Of the four "guys at the deadline," Hood is the one clearly struggling to adjust. He scored six points on 3-of-9 shooting Saturday. In his lone start for the Cavs Thursday, he shot 5-of-14 and the Cavs were outscored by 20 points with him on the court.
"Just have to do a better job of getting him going," Lue said. "He's a scorer and can score in bunches. We want him to be aggressive also, but just have to do a better job of getting him into some things where he can be aggressive. Just not all on him."
Nance hyperextended a knee but is 'fine'
Nance Jr. was on fire in the first half with 14 points and two crazy dunks. He finished the game with exactly 14 points and two crazy dunks.
Nance was hobbling when Tristan Thompson subbed in for him with 4:15 left in the fourth quarter. He said he collided with Denver's Gary Harris and "hyperextended" his knee.
"It's fine, I was ready to go back in," Nance said. "I just needed to come out like, 'I'm all right, good, let's go.' Coach Lue decided to stay with the guys that were in, but I was ready to go."
Rounding out the guys at the deadline was Clarkson with 11 points. Of the four, Clarkson is averaging 13.3 ppg for Cleveland; Hill is next at 11.9 ppg. Hood is slightly ahead of Nance in points (10.5 ppg to 10.0 ppg, respectively), but Hood is shooting 43 percent from the field and Nance is averaging 6.6 rebounds and 1.3 blocks.
JR 'didn't see much opportunity' in first half
JR Smith's usage rate in the first half Saturday was 0.0. He barely touched the ball, literally.
In the second half, you probably know by now, he went off for 19 points.
"I just ran a couple plays to start the half to try to get him going and he made some shots to get us going offensively," Lue said.
Smith said he didn't shoot in the first half because he "didn't see much opportunity," and agreed that Lue calling his number in plays helped.
"Definitely," Smith said. "I mean, I started getting it going a little bit so it definitely helped. I just try to do what I can with the opportunities I do get and the ones that I don't I just try to do a better job on defense."
Smith's counterpart on the Nuggets, Gary Harris, scored 32 points.
Who said what to whom?
James and Smith scored 10 points apiece in the fourth quarter -- the only Cavs to score. Had the game been closer at the end, James would've played the entire second half.
Lue said James asked to stay in at the start of the fourth quarter; James said Lue merely asked him if he was tired.
"I said no. I didn't ask to stay in," James said. "'Are you tired?' 'No, I'm not tired,' so they left me in. ... I didn't feel like I was going to hurt the team if I stayed out on the court. If I felt very tired or I felt like I didn't have it I would give myself a couple minutes, but I didn't feel that way."
RJ says no one knows on LeBron's future
After the game, former Cavalier Richard Jefferson, now of the Nuggets, snuck into his old locker room to laugh with past teammates. You can watch the funny exchange between Jefferson and James above.
Here's what Jefferson had to say about James' possible free agency this summer:
"It's an easy storyline for you guys to write, but at the end of the day, no one knew he was going to Miami, no one knew he was coming back here and he's allowed to be a free agent. He's allowed to be a free agent. Just like teams are allowed to trade players. So to put pressure on him to make him in a spot where, 'Oh the team doesn't want to...' look he's allowed to be a free agent. No different than you guys are allowed to change jobs if you guys want to or you guys are allowed to change locations if you want. Yes there's a lot of attention on him, but to ask that question and you have other teams putting up billboards. Not teams, but people doing that stuff. That stuff is part of the world we live in. But that doesn't fall on him. He's a Cav and everyone here knows 1,000 percent that he's 100 percent committed to whatever game or team he's on. He'll address it with his family when the season is over. I don't know, no one knows, people can guess, everyone wants to now throw these shots in the dark. 'Oh he's going to go here, he's going to do this. He played junior high hockey with this person so maybe he'll go play in Minnesota. Shut up. No one knows. No one knows.'"
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Former Cleveland Cavaliers swingman Richard Jefferson still participates in group texts with old teammates from time to time. And even though he's enjoying his leadership role with the Denver Nuggets, he keeps tabs on the Cavaliers from afar.
Earlier this season, as the Cavaliers were marching a slow death, Jefferson could tell something was off. Of course, he had seen chaos before in Cleveland and witnessed the Eastern Conference champs thrive in darkness. But this was different.
"I think every team needs veteran leadership," Jefferson said Saturday night, prior to his first game back at Quicken Loans Arena since being traded in October. "I think every team needs guys that help the locker room and I think every team needs guys that say, 'What do you need from me? You need me to just go guard this guy? You need me to not play tonight?' Whatever the coach needed."
Jefferson mentioned the understanding he shared with Channing Frye. The two players were at the very end of head coach Tyronn Lue's rotation, not knowing exactly how many minutes they were going to get. But Jefferson knew he would be called on when the Cavaliers played against an opponent that like to downsize while Frye would play against teams wanting to stay big.
That helped smooth any kind of friction.
"They might have added a lot of talent (in the off-season), but I don't think they added enough soldiers," Jefferson said. "Like, 'Hey, what do you need me to do?' Not, 'What is my role? When am I getting my shots? Or, What's best for me?' It was more of like, 'Hey, if this is what you need me to do, then, all right.' One of the things I think every team needs and it's not about Cleveland, it's just every team needs people to accept their role with enthusiasm.
"And if that's like, 'I need you to be a defender. Yes, I know you can run pick-and-roll. I know. But that's not what we need you to do here because if you're running pick-and-roll, then I'm taking it out of this person's hands. I know you can post up, but if I post you up, then we're (changing the offense for everybody else). This is the role that we need you to do.' And if people accept their role with enthusiasm, then I think that helps. I think that helps the engine kind of run."
Jefferson quickly pointed out that wasn't something he noticed in Cleveland this season.
"No. Noooo," he said. "Then, understand, they won 15 out of ... what'd they win? Fifteen in a row? Eighteen out of 19. And then they had a really bad stretch when they were still trying to get acclimated to new guys and stuff like that and that's unfair. That's unfair to put it on one person (Isaiah Thomas) if things didn't click and it's unfair to put on someone who hadn't played basketball in nine months. It wasn't his fault. Everyone, like players, ownership, coaches, the training staff, everyone needs to take the blame for that. Even the individuals. Because it takes time to come back from that injury. So I wouldn't put it on him."
The cause of the first-half struggles is up for debate. But role delineation was certainly part of Cleveland's downfall. The Cavs were trying to fit newcomers Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Jae Crowder, Cedi Osman and Jeff Green into the fabric of a championship team.
And with those players added -- plus Thomas also on the roster -- the Cavs had to make other tough decisions such as letting Jefferson go, costing them another important locker room piece just a few months after James Jones retired.
As the season started to slip away, general manager Koby Altman noticed the same things Jefferson did and had only one option to save it. So he overhauled the roster, sending out six players while bringing in Rodney Hood, George Hill, Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson. Those deadline deals meant Channing Frye's departure. Another valuable behind-the-scenes voice gone.
Lue admitted those sage veterans, and what they meant for the camaraderie, are have been missed.
"We had new guys come in so you always want older guys who have been around and veteran guys that can kind of show them the way in how we do things around here," Lue said. "Even with a younger group now, just having Channing and R.J. and Champ around just to show those guys the ropes and always constantly staying on them about what we want and what we preach here. But can't look back now. They're gone, we do miss them, but we've got to move forward."
As the Cavs trudge the bumpy road toward the playoffs, now just 4-4 since the debut of the quartet expected to come in and help fix some of the team-wide flaws, they will lean on LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and JR Smith for that leadership. Those are the only four guys remaining from Cleveland's title team.
Smith, of course, didn't provide the best leadership example recently, getting suspended for one game because of a ridiculous soup-throwing incident.
"It just sucks to be going through a process that we're going through right now with myself to be looked at as one of the leaders and one of the heads of this team and to be going through this situation," Smith said Saturday. "But everybody has their ups and downs. I can't say I hope they learn from my mistakes, I just hope they don't do it. But it definitely puts perspective for the younger guys."
It's tough to know whether that would have happened in previous seasons with other leaders like Jefferson and Jones helping police the locker room. As Jefferson pointed out Saturday before the game, odd things happening with the Cavs is nothing new. It was never drama free. Winning made it more tolerable.
Before Jefferson left the arena, needing to catch the bus back to the hotel, Jefferson popped into the locker room to show James the scratch he received from his former teammate during the game. Then they joked around for a little bit before discussing plans to meet up in Cleveland since a get-together won't be possible when the Cavaliers travel to Denver during an upcoming six-game road trip.
The exchange was typical stuff between ex-teammates. But as James said early Saturday morning, Jefferson isn't just an old teammate. He's a good friend. The two grew close, sharing team dinners, going to group sporting events and sipping wine. Jefferson and James are bonded for life, especially after the historic title run in 2016.
Still, in a way, that brief postgame interaction was a reminder of some of the qualities the Cavs have missed this season, the ones in which the Nuggets are benffiting.
"I think R.J.'s ability to grab young players and help them, whether it's through playing or teaching or just words of encouragement, I think is really important for a team like us that has so many players that are 23 years or younger," Denver head coach Mike Malone said. "R.J.'s mentorship and leadership has been invaluable for us."
