CLEVELAND: After Tyronn Lue took over as coach of the Cavaliers midway through this season, one of the first calls he made was to Cavs assistant Larry Drew.
This is the fourth NBA stop Lue and Drew have shared after Drew previously coached him as an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers, Washington Wizards and Atlanta Hawks.
This time, however, Drew was on the phone coaching Lue in a far different way. Lue’s first head-coaching job had arrived laced in controversy. He had to successfully navigate the land mines and snares of replacing David Blatt, who exited Jan. 22 despite the best record in the Eastern Conference. It created plenty of questions for which Lue didn’t have many answers.
“It caught everybody by surprise,” Drew said of the coaching change. “You’ve got a team that is having success. And all of a sudden — boom — they make a change. That’s a lot of weight on your shoulders to come in for a first-time coach. Then you feel like, ‘I’ve got to do everything.’ You can’t do that. That will eat you up.”
Lue enters the postseason for the first time as a head coach Sunday, when the Cavaliers host the Detroit Pistons (3 p.m., ABC) in the opening round. He enters with the respect of the locker room and his peers, but plenty to prove.
The Cavs’ record was slightly worse under Lue (27-14) than it was under Blatt (30-11). Similarly, the defense disintegrated when he gave up control of it during the second half of the season, forcing him to quietly take it back a few weeks ago.
Lue conceded at various points he felt like he was trying to do 50 things at once — and without the benefit of a training camp or much practice time.
He has always been considered a defensive coach, but Lue views himself as an offensive mind. He threw out some of the stuff the Cavs were running under Blatt. He tried quickening the pace and getting Kevin Love more comfortable in the system. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
But Lue enters his first playoff series confident in his team and his ability, even against a postseason veteran such as Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy.
“As a coach, the difference is you’re under a microscope by yourself,” Lue said. “They kind of put [players] under a microscope together. I think as a coach, every substitution, every timeout, every play call, it’s going to be under a microscope. … I feel comfortable doing it and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Taking over
Drew told Lue two things the night he got the job: He has to address the team, obviously, and he has to stop questioning why the change was made.
Lue quickly reached out to Blatt to make sure there were no hard feelings. Then he addressed the team and heaped plenty of praise on the former coach for getting the Cavs to this point.
“I don’t remember verbatim what he said,” Drew said. “But I thought the way he handled it was very classy.”
Drew and Lue grew up about 160 miles apart; Lue is from Mexico, Mo., and Drew is from Kansas City. Drew has watched Lue grow as both a player and a man from a hustling rookie with a sharp basketball mind to now an NBA head coach.
“Sometimes you’ve got to see the game a step or two ahead and he’s got that,” Drew said. “We would be sitting on the bench during games and things would be happening and he could dissect that play. … We would go through the options of our play and as it’s happening, he would see things that would be there as the fourth and fifth option.”
Lue’s ability to watch things unfold reminds Drew of Doug Collins. Drew worked under Collins with the Washington Wizards when Michael Jordan was playing there.
“Doug saw things three and four steps ahead,” Drew said. “Guys like that, man, they’re rare. They’re rare.”
The key to play calling, Drew said, isn’t just knowing what plays to run, but how the defense will respond to certain play calls.
“You have to visualize what Miami is going to do or how Detroit is going to play it,” he said. “Sometimes you’re on the money and sometimes you’re not. You have to look a couple steps ahead and he’s got that knack.”
Lue has conceded he takes losses hard — harder than he did as a player because a coach carries more responsibility. He also takes seriously his ability to get in players’ faces — all of his players, including LeBron James.
Perhaps still stung by the criticism he took after Blatt’s firing, James has been guarded in his thoughts about Lue ever since the coaching change. He has always remained supportive and never publicly challenged him the way he sometimes did to Blatt. But upon arriving in Cleveland last season, Drew immediately noticed the respect James had for Lue.
“He and Bron have a special relationship,” Drew said. “One thing about Ty, and I think Bron will attest to it: He ain’t going to hold back any punches. He’s going to do it the right way. If he has to address you, he’s going to address you. And if he has to check you, he’s going to check you. Players respect that.”
Lue’s time with Doc Rivers and then last season prepared him for this. Rivers gave him plenty of leeway as an assistant and Lue’s responsibilities upon arriving in Cleveland were steep for an associate head coach. Blatt was facing a drastic learning curve, and it was Lue’s job to acclimate him to the NBA.
“Last year when he took the job, he and David talked about Ty’s responsibilities and what he wanted Ty to do,” Drew said. “He probably had to do even a little bit more than what he anticipated.”
That learning curve Blatt faced is ultimately a big part of the reason Lue has the job now. How long he keeps it remains to be seen. He is the Cavs’ third head coach in as many years and is well aware of that fact. Still, Drew insists he won’t be swallowed up by the moment or the pressure to win here.
“Ty has done his homework. He is aware of how things have been in the past here. But I don’t think he feels any pressure, I really don’t,” Drew said. “Ty is one of them guys, ‘I’m going to do my best and give it my best shot and if it doesn’t work, so be it.’ It’s not an arrogance, it’s not a cockiness. It’s just how he feels. He believes in himself and he knows the situation he’s in.
“He’s not feeling any pressure. He won’t let it consume him. He knows what he’s up against, but he’s going into this thing with his best foot forward. If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. But I think he’s ready.”
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.