It would have been hard to stop the Toronto Raptors Saturday night, but Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue thinks he could have made a difference by calling more plays for LeBron James.
“I think I should have called more plays to make [James] dominant,” Lue said Sunday, via Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. “I think we continued to run plays that had been effective and working throughout the course of this series, knowing that Kyrie and Kevin could get going at any time. I should have put the ball in LeBron’s hands a little bit more to let him create and let him draw double teams. So that was more on me.”
In hindsight, he’s not wrong. Any time you can get one of the best players in the world involved a bit more, it’s got to be considered a win.
That said, it’s not like Lue’s strategy had been backfiring of late. The Cavs won 10 straight playoff games before the Raptors finally knocked them off their game a bit.
James did score 24 points on 17 shots, which is just below his average this postseason. He averaged almost 20 shots per game during the regular season but has been more than content to let the game come to him so his teammates could get into a groove.
“But there is a point in time where some of the guys are not going, maybe let me see if I can get it going,” James said. “But last night just didn’t happen that way. We’ll have a better game plan going into Game 4.”
If the Raptors start to gain the upper hand once again at Air Canada Centre on Monday night, you can count on James to become more of a focal point of Cleveland’s offense. It’s a pivotal game coming up. If Toronto once again plays at its best and the Cavs don’t match them shot for shot, then the series will be 2-2 heading back to Cleveland.