When it was announced on Friday that the Cleveland Cavaliers had fired coach David Blatt and promoted assistant coach Tyronn Lue, there was a unique reaction coming from the majority of fans. While many were just as shocked as NBA media was about the move itself, there was also a noticeable influx of hope. Numerous tweets from fans Friday afternoon predicted Cleveland was about to go on a tear now that Lue was in charge. People assumed last night’s bout against the Chicago Bulls would be an outright slaughter, one of many that were about to take place since such a polarizing figure in Blatt had been removed from the equation.
You could sense this in the opening minutes of last night’s game, as Quicken Loans Arena seemed to have a noticeable buzz while the Cavs appeared to be playing with a renewed energy. The crowd was electric upon seeing Cleveland take a 14-8 lead early in the first quarter.
It would be a long time before the Cavs scored again after that, as they allowed a 13-0 run by Chicago to end the frame. From that point, things only got uglier for Cleveland. The team put forth one of its worst shooting nights of the season en route to falling 96-83 to the Bulls. The Cavs shot 37 percent from the field, 16.7 percent from three and an appalling 40.9 percent on free throws.
Those who expected Lue’s promotion to be the final boost for a team many consider a championship favorite received a rude awakening. Based on postgame comments and more fallout from this past week, it certainly seems like the problems this team has are deeply rooted and getting rid of Blatt isn’t going to be the only fix.
After the dud of a loss to the Bulls, Lue made a revealing comment in claiming his players simply aren’t in shape right now. Yes, we’re midway through the season, and a team which is supposed to be contending for a title is having problems with basic conditioning.
As a result of this, Lue was forced to make several adjustments to his rotations on the fly, something he claimed he wasn’t quite ready for. Though it was his first ever game as a head coach, it’s still tough to hear him claim, just one night into his tenure, that making quick rotation adjustments was difficult.
On top of this, a postgame column from Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal painted a picture of a Cleveland locker room which has been full of tension for the past few weeks, one in which players are pointing fingers at each other constantly. As Cavs GM David Griffin mentioned in his Friday press conference, the negative attitude in the locker room was a big reason why he decided to fire Blatt when he did.
Quite frankly, while you can certainly see why getting rid of Blatt could be viewed as a solution to these problems, it’s also starting to look more and more like it’ll take more than just a firing to get the Cavs back on track.
Locker room infighting, being out of shape midway through a season, an overall lack of motivation and desire – these are not simple things to correct. In firing Blatt, Cleveland may have helped the situation a little bit, but now it’s tasking an inexperienced Lue with cleaning up the rest of the mess. Based on his first game as head coach, it sounds like he’s already having some difficulty learning on the fly.
Obviously there’s plenty of time left to correct the problems the Cavs are working through. Just because Lue admitted he struggled in his first game as a coach doesn’t mean he’s going to do so for the rest of the year. He was thrust into this situation one day before the game, so you can’t blame him for taking a bit to get used to the adjustment.
That said, changing rotations is just the tip of the iceberg for Lue and the Cavs. Blatt may have been the source of a lot of problems for Cleveland, but this doesn’t mean getting rid of him erases everything. The Cavs have plenty of work to do both on the court and off in order to become the team we expected them to be, and they’re asking an inexperienced coach to help them with this.
Time will tell if they’ll actually be able to recover. All we know now is getting rid of Blatt isn’t going to fix this team overnight.
