Cleveland Cavaliers: Tyronn Lue Earns His First NBA Victory

New Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue earned his first victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday.

Saturday night against the Chicago Bulls is a game that fans and the Cleveland Cavaliers wanted to quickly forget.

The face of Bulls power forward/center Pau Gasol will certainly be haunting the Cavaliers for a while. They shot 37.2 percent for the game while the Bulls shot 43.7 percent. But the biggest difference was the three-point shooting. The Bulls shot 41.2 percent from three-point range compared to the Cavaliers atrocious 16.7 percent.

It was definitely a big letdown for them and not the way new head coach Tyronn Lue saw things going in his first game.

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Well, Monday was a different story.

It wasn’t one of the best wins you might see from a team, but it was still a win nonetheless. During the past few days, Lue has talked about how he wants to have more of an up-tempo pace in order to utilize all of the talent they have.

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However, during Saturday’s postgame press conference with the NEOMG, he mentioned that the Cavaliers are “not in good enough shape” to run his system correctly. This statement has been proved throughout the season.

Teams such as the Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers and Washington Wizards ran the Cavaliers off the floor with their fast-paced offenses. They were up and down the floor very quickly to score and the Cavaliers were left lagging behind. LeBron James has already stated that it would take him less than two weeks to get into the shape that it takes to run Lue’s system.

Lue also talked about how he wanted to use Kevin Love within the elbow instead of standing around the outside looking for the three-point shot.

In other words, it is likely going to take a few games for them to implement his new system–and that is exactly how the team looked on Monday against the Minnesota Timberwolves. While most fans expected to see all of the changes in one game, it will be a slow transition.

The Cavaliers looked great on the fast break at times, but then they were slow and looked tired getting back on the defensive end–and it was a big reason why the Timberwolves kept the score close for most of the game.

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The biggest story was Australia’s own Matthew Dellavedova. On Australia Day, he kept the Cavaliers in the game on both ends of the floor.  He helped thwart some of Andrew Wiggins efforts, made clutch three-pointers, and had the play of the game with a lob to Timofey Mozgov. He finished with 18 points, seven assists and one steal.

While this would be considered an “ugly” win for the Cavaliers, they played much better. They shot 50.6 percent for the game, and shot much better from three-point range at 35.5 percent.

During the game, I noticed something that might either need to be addressed or just an adjusted. It seemed like when Dellavedova and Mo Williams came into the game–the pace seemed to be much faster and the offense was able to spread out a lot easier. When Kyrie Irving was on the floor, the offense was a bit stagnant.

This could be Irving still adjusting to his teammates and the new system of Lue as everybody is–or the team just functions better with them out there. There’s no need to create any conspiracies, but it is something that was very intriguing during the game.

The Cavaliers play the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday. This will be a game to gauge how the team is progressing in transitioning to the Lue’s offense. The Suns are another one of those “running”teams that the Cavaliers have struggled with this season.

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It took a clutch three-pointer by Irving in only his second game back for them to win in their first meeting in Phoenix. Even though they are one of the worst teams in the NBA this season, a victory over them will show that the Cavaliers are starting to understand the offense and it would also be Lue’s second victory.