ATLANTA: Before the start of the NBA postseason, Sporting News ranked all 16 coaches of playoff teams. Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue ranked 14th on the list ahead of only two other rookie coaches in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Billy Donovan and the Houston Rockets’ J.B. Bickerstaff.
After his first six playoff games, Lue is soaring up the charts.
Lue, who was well aware of the rankings prior to the series against the Detroit Pistons, has pushed all of the right buttons during his first postseason as a head coach. Now he is one victory away from a second sweep and a berth in the conference finals.
“Being able to push the right buttons is actually working out,” he said. “It feels good right now.”
His out-of-bounds plays against the Pistons routinely led to big baskets in big moments. His decision to go big against the Pistons after having so much success playing small served as the knockout punch.
At multiple turns throughout the series, Lue had Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy second-guessing his own decisions and blaming himself for questionable moves. Not much has changed in the conference semifinals.
Lue caught the Hawks off guard by playing Channing Frye next to Kevin Love to start the fourth quarter of Game 3 Friday night. The Hawks never saw it coming because the two rarely played together during the regular season. While bigs normally run toward the basket in transition, Love and Frye ran to the wings. It disrupted the Hawks’ defense and created driving lanes for Kyrie Irving and LeBron James.
Irving and Frye accounted for the first 14 points of the fourth quarter and the Love/Frye pairing dealt the Hawks yet another crushing blow in a series when they’ve had few answers for the Cavs’ moves.
“We didn’t prepare for that,” Hawks center Al Horford said of the Love/Frye pairing. “They took advantage.”
Lue changed up the Cavs’ defensive strategies in the fourth quarter Friday, in part to compensate for the deficiencies Love and Frye present defensively when playing together. The Cavs routed the Hawks 36-17 in the fourth quarter to win by double figures for the third time in as many games in the series after trailing by 11 in the third quarter.
That’s the way it has gone most of this postseason for Lue, who drew up a crucial out-of-bounds play with lead assistant Larry Drew moments before a game against the Pistons. They used it later that night and it resulted in Kyrie Irving sticking a big 3-pointer from the corner in what was a crucial moment of the series.
“I just think it comes from our coaches being prepared,” Lue said. “I think you have to try to stay a step ahead and when you watch the film from the game before, you always got to think about what they’re going to try to do and what they’re going to do and what our adjustments are going to be. Just trying to be prepared, I guess.”
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.