CLEVELAND: Twenty-two thoughts for 22 points from Kevin Love in Saturday’s 116-105 win over the Charlotte Hornets…
1. The boys waiting outside the Cavs locker room Saturday night were asked if they wanted to go inside and talk to LeBron James. No, they both said, they simply wanted a ball so they could head to the court.
2. When they were told they HAD to go inside and talk to him, they dropped their heads in disappointment. They weren’t interested in seeing the only man in NBA history to score 27,000 points, grab 7,000 rebounds and pass for 7,000 assists. No, they wanted to hoop. Instead, the two boys grudgingly trudged inside.
3. By the time reporters were allowed inside, LeBron James was soaking his feet in a tub of ice and finishing his signature handshake with his boys – yes, LeBron has handshakes with everyone, including his own kids. The boys, Bronny and Bryce, scattered as the cameras entered, presumably to head to the court and shoot just as they wanted all along. One day, the boys will certainly appreciate how their father is chiseling his own face into the NBA’s Rushmore, but for now they’re a couple of kids looking for a ball and a hoop. James, meanwhile, continues to ascend history.
4. His 44 points Saturday matched the most he has scored since returning to the Cavs. His skip pass to Tristan Thompson through traffic resulted in his 7,000th career assist, making him the first frontcourt player in history to get there. And all of this came exactly 24 hours after he moved into ninth place on the all-time scoring list.
5. At his current pace, James could reach seventh on the all-time scoring list and 12th in assists by the end of the regular season. What’s equally remarkable is the way he has reshaped his body and regained his 3-point stroke.
6. James played more than 42 minutes Saturday and totaled about 80 minutes in the back-to-back against the Heat and Hornets. He scored 71 points in those 80 minutes and carried the Cavs Saturday when no one else had any legs left.
7. Kyrie Irving went to Tyronn Lue prior to the game and warned him his legs felt dead. Sure enough, Irving’s streak of 12 consecutive games with at least 20 points (a career-long streak and the longest active streak in the NBA) ended after Irving scored just 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting. Instead, the Cavs again relied on James and he delivered.
8. The back problems James battled a couple of years ago seem to be a thing of the past. He received an injection prior to last season as a precautionary measure, but felt so good this year he didn’t even need one. Now he’s playing 80 minutes stretched over two nights and still feels great.
9. “The last couple years this is the best I’ve felt,” James said. “And I told you guys I’ve put a lot of work into my body, into my craft. I’ve re-arranged a little bit with my diet and it’s worked to my benefit. And for me to have back to back nights like this after coming off a long road trip, just shows that everything is working in the right direction.”
10. James shot 5-of-10 on 3-pointers, including consecutive 3s in the third quarter after the Hornets had pulled within 3. He’s shooting 36.5 percent from deep after bottoming out at 30.9 percent last season – his lowest since his rookie year.
11. “It’s always a rhythm thing for me at times,” James said. “I’m just in a really good rhythm right now. My body feels great. My stroke feels pretty dang-on good as well, I just gotta continue to put the work in.”
12. In a strange twist, James’ shooting numbers are actually better on the second night of a back-to-back than any other time this season. Of course, it’s a small sample size of only three games. But James has an effective field-goal percentage of 66.1 percent and a true shooting percentage of 66.4 percent on the second night of back-to-backs. By comparison, his worst numbers are with one day off in between (the most common setup in an NBA schedule) when he’s got an effective field-goal percentage of 53.1 and a true shooting percentage of 57.1.
13. “We had to ride Bron tonight,” Lue said. “Of course you don’t want to play him 44 minutes on a back-to-back but he was 44, 10 and 9 and he’s rolling. So, it’s just something that we had to do. … Tonight was an unusual night but he had it going. A lot of other guys didn’t have it going and we had to ride him and he said he felt great.”
14. Lue got creative with some lineups tonight, even using James at center at times. That was created by the absence of Channing Frye (who is expected back for Tuesday’s game) and the emergence of DeAndre Liggins on the wing. Curiously, Liggins was a plus-14 tonight while James was a minus-1, perhaps exposing one of the biggest flaws in the stat. Liggins was scoreless in 15 minutes, but he was active defensively on the perimeter and he blocked a shot (although he committed three turnovers).
15. Iman Shumpert is quietly constructing a very good season. Shumpert was one of the most disappointing players on the team last season after signing his big contract and the Cavs tried unloading him at one point, but Shumpert has discovered a smooth shooting stroke from 3.
16. Shumpert went 4-of-6 from 3-point range and is now shooting 47.5 percent from deep, which ranks him third in the league behind teammate Channing Frye and Utah’s Joe Ingles. (Ingles, incidentally, has at least temporarily supplanted Frye as the top 3-point shooter by percentage.)
17. Lue has mentioned on a few separate occasions that Shumpert understands what his role is this season, which is a polite way of saying Lue told him to simplify and stop trying to do too much. When he returned from wrist surgery last season, Shumpert spoke of how many more tools he had in his toolbox that he wasn’t able to show following his trade from the Knicks. Well, he tried showing them off last year and the two areas where the Cavs needed him most – 3-point shooting and perimeter defense – both fell apart. This is easily the best 3-point shooting of Shumpert’s career after he dropped to under 30 percent last season.
18. “I’ve talked to him. He does have some more tools in the box, but for this team and the way the team is constructed and the way we run our offense, we don’t need him to try to create all the time,” Lue said. “He worked on his shot all summer because he knew he’d get a lot of spot-up 3s with Kevin, Kyrie and LeBron. He’s taking a liking to it.”
19. J.R. Smith returned to the lineup with six points, but more importantly feels great. Smith conceded he probably needed the couple of days off because his knee had been bothering him even before he really aggravated it against the Raptors. Now that he’s feeling better, we’ll see if his stroke returns.
20. Richard Jefferson has been so popular on Snapchat that the company sent them their new glasses, Spectacles, that gives followers an actual account of what Jefferson is seeing. There is no clunky phone recordings and it frees up a user’s hands to carry on life as normal. So Jefferson took the glasses onto the practice court Saturday morning and allowed his followers to see what he sees when he’s shooting 3-pointers and soaring for dunks.
21. Jefferson said it’s basically like wearing sunglasses, that they just tint your vision slightly. I joked that the next time the Cavs are in a blowout he’ll have to wear them on the court, but he said no. He is, however, planning more unique ways to showcase the glasses.
22. I’m headed back to New York on Monday for LeBron’s Sportsperson of the Year award, then the Grizzlies (who absolutely pounded the Warriors at home tonight) come to town Tuesday. Talk to you Tuesday from the Q.