CLEVELAND: As Kyrie Irving eases back into the rotation with the Cavaliers, he is easing back into his role on this team, too. When LeBron James didn’t like the way Irving was dominating the ball early last season, he took it away and didn’t always give it back.
James often initiated the offense last season and Irving quickly adapted to playing off him. But James has deferred much of the ball handling to Mo Williams and Matthew Dellavedova this season. He has taken over late in games when necessary, but he isn’t on the ball as much as he was last season. He doesn’t expect that to change now that the Cavs’ two-time All-Star point guard is back.
“We’ve got a three-headed monster — him, Mo and Delly — and those guys are going to dictate what we do,” James said. “Obviously I’m going to play on the ball as well. I’m a pretty good pick-and-roll player and I make some pretty good decisions with the ball as well. But those guys are going to get us in the offense and put us in position to succeed.”
Kevin Love’s numbers are still erratic night to night, but he fits into this offense better than he did last season. One of the hopes within the organization was Love would be so entrenched in his role by the time Irving returned that he would fall right in line. The hope was that Love wouldn’t get frozen out again as happened so often last season.
It remains to be seen how the three stars play together, but Irving fell right in line in one aspect: He called Love the focal point of the offense Sunday, just as James has done on multiple occasions this season.
“We just made the change from me and Bron being ball dominant last year to us having a lot more options on our offense and utilizing our weapons,” Irving said. “Obviously any time me and Bron can get the ball and run pick-and-roll in the middle of the floor or on the side and make a play, but for us it’s just about keeping our continuity and getting Kev more involved and making sure he’s a focal point of the offense every single time down and making sure everybody touches the ball.”
They’re middle of the pack in scoring this season, but the Cavs are a top-five team in terms of shooting. Irving should certainly provide an offensive punch to what was already working so well.
The Cavs went 17-7 without Irving and are now 34-3 since last January when the Big Three play together.
“Just the mere fact that we had Kyrie and Shump and Kev all on the court at the same time, we haven’t seen that in a long time,” coach David Blatt said. “That was a good feeling and I thought the guys played really well together. It’s going to take some time, but certainly what you saw [Sunday] were very, very good signs that we can again become a very strong team.”
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.