LOS ANGELES: After enjoying four days at a posh Beverly Hills hotel and L.A. nightlife, an early start Sunday and the Daylight Savings Time change, it was fair to wonder what type of condition the Cavaliers would be in for a matinee against one of the West’s best.
Even Clippers coach Doc Rivers acknowledged the possibilities before the game. He didn’t believe the early start and time change would have an impact, “unless L.A. did its job [Saturday] night,” he joked before exiting the interview room while clapping “let’s go L.A.”
Hollywood wasn’t powerful enough to derail the Cavs this week. LeBron James and noted partier J.R. Smith, of all people, wouldn’t allow it. James scored 27 points in just 31 minutes and Smith made five 3-pointers in the Cavaliers’ 114-90 dismantling of the Los Angeles Clippers. The Cavs made just two of their first 10 shots before a timeout and some lineup adjustments changed everything.
The Cavs improved to 3-0 on this West Coast trip with a chance to make it a perfect trip Monday night at the Utah Jazz. More importantly, they completed a sweep of the Clippers to go with their sweep of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Add in their season split with the San Antonio Spurs and suddenly their only real blemish against the West, like so many other teams, is their 0-2 mark against the Golden State Warriors.
“We’re kind of getting in form right now,” James said. “I think coach Lue has done a great job of kind of finding out his rhythm. He knows what he wants out of us and we’re responding. We have a great rotation going right now, guys are healthy, and we’re just trying to play the game the right way.”
Smith famously struggled terribly during Sunday afternoon games while playing for the New York Knicks, with the common reasoning that his night life affected his performances.
He was on point this time, however, shooting 5-of-8 from 3-point range while James dominated at both ends.
The Cavs shot 18-of-37 from 3-point range after making 13-of-28 from deep in a January home victory over the Clippers — which turned out to be David Blatt’s final game as head coach.
The Cavs used consecutive victories over Los Angeles teams last season to trigger a turnaround that carried them all the way to the Finals. Whether or not they can duplicate that feat this season remains to be seen, but Tyronn Lue’s offensive focus since taking over finally has this team on a scoring hot streak.
The Cavs are averaging 118 points on this road trip and shooting 48 percent. They’ve made 47 3-pointers on this trip as well.
“Knowing what we’re gearing up for is in the back of our minds,” Kyrie Irving said. “We have a goal in mind, and especially now I feel this is the time we want to come together collectively as a group. We’ve had ups and downs, had games where we haven’t played well, lost back-to-back games and people just continue to write us off no matter what.
‘‘Then we have a good streak and now it’s questions like, ‘What has changed?’ Nothing. We’re just being more aggressive, we’re being more definitive in our decisions with the basketball and guys are making shots.”
Irving scored 17 points and Kevin Love had 12 points and nine rebounds after missing one game with a sprained knee. Love and James both sat the fourth quarter and Irving was pulled early, meaning no one played more than 31 minutes.
Clippers guard J.J. Redick scored 18 points — nine in the game’s first five minutes — and Chris Paul had 17 points and 10 assists.
“Guys understood what this trip was about,” James said.
“This was a business trip and we did get an opportunity to be in a great city, but at the end of the day we knew what the main thing was, and that was to continue the momentum that we’ve been on, so we came out and took care of business.”
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.