Live Thread: Bulls at Cavs
2016-01-23
Game 1 of the LueBron era starts tonight. Â Also, Game 1 of the Saturday night NBA on ABC era.
Well, the Bulls have dropped six of eight and Joakim “Pebbles” Noah is out for the season. Â Mike Dunleavy is still recovering from surgery and Kirk Hinrich is out. Â Derrick Rose is a shell of his former self. Â The Bulls are hurting, basically.
Jimmy Butler has asserted himself as one of the best young players in the NBA and Pau Gasol remains surprisingly effective at age 35.  The Bulls have some pieces in Tony Snell, Taj Gibson, and Nikola Mirotic but they seem to be stuck in “6th-man” or “x-factor” type production/consistency.
Ty Lue has already stated that he will play a 10-man rotation. Â Good. Â I’d rather he just do it than signal that he’s going to do it but, whatever. Â I’m getting prepared for some awkward press conferences – Lue turned off a lot of Cavs fans today when he said he wasn’t going to be make the Cavs different from Blatt, just “better”. Â Sounds like he didn’t mean any slight by it, but…that’s a rough transcript to spin. Â He also said that he’s going to get the ball to Kevin Love at the elbow. Â If it’s not painfully obvious that this is happening in the near future, and the Cavs struggle, prepare for all the heat of this collective hot seat to cook Kevin Love alive.
I’m actually optimistic about tonight’s game. Â Let’s talk about it here. Â As a fun aside, let’s have a Lue pun contest. Â If you see a good one, just reply to the comment and award points or Schrute bucks. Â Here’s the conversion:
This team is garbage tonight. Pack it up and go home.
I’m about done with this game. I think I may need a hiatus from this team. They’re pretty unlikeable right now.
Agree with that. They are becoming a soap opera and a laughing stock. Way to come out and play for your new head coach, Cavs. Thanks.
Not being sarcastic but they really do perform their best after letting people down (like the CtB guys talked about on the podcast), I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn it around. It seems like they always have to lay an egg before they get their act together.
LBJ and Kyrie throwing up bricks like a mason.
Why didn’t they fire Blatt before the Nets game?
According to Windhorst they didn’t want to make it seem like a panic move after the blowout to GSW, although that is when they wanted to fire him. What they were hoping was that the Cavs would lose to the Clippers and that would be the right time to fire him, but he messed up their plans by winning that game. Of course, they fired him anyway.
It’s looking like a panic move.
Whether it was or not, it is never a great sign when you have to plan around “how can we make this not look like a panic move” . . .
Just laughing at this, Mirotic killing us tonight
where was that all night
First time the Cavs have been booed at home sine LeBron’s return. I would boo if I was there.
Me too. These guys are pathetic.
“We just haven’t made shots.” Good insight Lue.
He said they will be fine, didn’t that get Blatt fired?
What do you want him to say? It was a factual response. Would you rather he lie?
That their offense is a mad scrabble without purpose.
I am being sarcastic. Media reported Blatt was fired in part because he was too blase about getting blown out by the Dubs. Sorry, thought you followed the news.
Interesting that KLOVE is the only one of big 3 producing on offense.
He, J.R., and Delly are the three guys that I never thought were a problem with effort. They did what they were asked and played hard.
TT, Andy, and Shump are all solid in the effort department.
Maybe we should trade him.
THE BENCH WITH ZERO PTS—-OUCH !!—–WHERE IS R.J ( WHO SHOT R.J.? )
Delly made a 3.
Shump hit a basket.
Tristan just hit a free throw.
Well, if Lue was supposed to bring the chemistry and effort that the players were denying Blatt, this isn’t exactly too impressive. Says more about the players than Lue though.
Frankly, I don’t care about the game…it’s all about improving the Klutch brand…
LOL 58 points after 3. Pull the big 3. Empty the bench. What a sorry performance.
Someone get the panic button in here, I need to press it until it breaks
Phew! Thanks EG
Maybe we should trade LeBron like that PD writer wrote about last week. Probably should have kept Blatt though.
I wouldn’t be upset. Seriouisly. I wouldn’t be upset if we traded him for a good piece. Let him finish his career somewhere else. Sick of the drama.
People will see Blatt had the line-ups pinned down better than we knew .
Good comment TV63.
Happy for some individual players like Delly and JR, but I’m kind of enjoying watching the Cavs lose honestly.
In a perverse way, yes. I think we all agree that the players deserve the boos. They drove out a dude who could have really been a great coach for us. I was wondering if the crowd would turn on the players after the firing – wasn’t expecting it to happen this quickly.
Man … This is so Cleveland. We’ve turned losing into an art form. It’s actually impressive. You know how they say life always finds a way? Cleveland will always find a way to lose.
It seems like the only one who was having trouble handling success was Griffin.
Wouldn’t it be so Cleveland for them to fire Lue in a couple weeks, call Blatt and offer him a five year deal to come back and coach? Then they would be paying 5 coaches including one of them twice.
They read your post, Delly for da 3. Wouldnt surprise me if Bulls score now
Much needed Delly trey…
Did they listen to me and find Delly?!
Good decision Shump… don’t shoot… pass it to Delly.
finally a delly trey
Fans booing the team, wonder how they are going to take that.
JVG with the Grade A snark when Breen mentions Cavs fans booing: “The Cavs fans have to get more connected to the team.”
JVG: (Cavs fans booing) Cavs fans need to get more connected!
Cavs fan booing the Cavs, dont blame them. Everyone is using this “connectiveness” punchline
Nah man… they’re saying “Luuuuuuuuuuueee!”
Lue doesn’t believe in time outs?
WHAT’S MIKE ( POTATO HEAD ) BROWN DOING THESE DAYS —-MIGHT AS WILL ADD TO THE DRAMA ——UNDERSTAND THAT THIS WAS PROBABLY GOING TO HAPPEN TONIGHT FOR THE CAVS ( HOPING IT WASN’T ) TOO MUCH HAPPENING—TOO SOON TO PLAY AFTER ALL THE MEDIA / CIRCUS YESTERDAY—LET’S REVISIT THIS TEAM A WEEK ( 2 ) LATER AND EITHER GIVE EVIL THE COMMAND TO PUSH THE PANIC BUTTON OR SAY GRIFF KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING
Well…
We look like Houston did last week.
JVG with the connected joke. Love it!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! JVG JUST SAID “CAVS FANS NEED TO GET MORE CONNECTED TO THE TEAM” HAHAHAHAHAHA
Good job Griffin!!
The Bulls can hit ANYTHING they want right now. Cavs look historically bad
did mark jackson say great call. that was a terrible call
This is feeling like the Knicks game in the home opener for LeBron’s first game back.
With Gasol & Mirotic in there, You have to have Mosgov in.
Maybe midrange twos aren’t the best option huh?
Under most circumstances, the new coach deserves time to adjust, but when you fire a fairly successful coach in the middle of the season it’s a different story.
Shump pull up 2 for a brick… I like it! /s
Sorry CLF. Sorry I was right, but this team is too soft. They couldn’t get up for GS, and they can’t get up when they have any pressure. Its not a disconnect with the coach. Its that the coach was the only one who wasn’t soft.
Hey.. at least you’re not out 12B!!! HAHAHA!!! Good call though.
Can Mirotic coach Love on how to counter a 3-point closeout?
It’s about to get ugly. Expect more midrange bricks as the Cavs concede this one. Hate when they do this in Cleveland.
Game over. We don’t score over 85.
Correction, we don’t score over 75
I guess Griff didn’t realize that fixing the disconnect between the players would create a disconnect with the fans.
Glad they hired the defensive coordinator to improve the offense /s <—- I used it correctly???
Yes, that’s correct…
There’s a lot of game left before the all-star game, may be Lue wouldn’t get to coach the all-star game after all?
Looks like JR is getting ejected again….
There is definitely something very different about the Cavs’ offense…there is no longer that Delly trey threat. Why is he not looked for?! Dude shoots 40+% folks!
Blatt must be sitting at home, drinking a cup of tea by the window like Kermit the frog, thinking … “wow, the Cavs look bad, but that’s none of my business”
Guy can finally slow his rapid aging… probably glad he got away from this mess…
The Bulls’ free throw defense is #1 in the league. Makes me feel better.
how is KLOVE missing his free throws
WOW… sarcastic cheer for the 2nd made FT tonight.
To be fair, we can’t judge Tyronn Lue until we see how this team handles success. — Dan Labbe
That is brilliant. …………………
How disappointing. Cavs look terrible. Or in the words of Chuck Barkley “Turrible, Turrible, Turrible”
Seems to me that JR is their second best player on a night-to-night basis at this point in the season. He’s certainly the only guy with a working jump shot.
The bench has no points still. This game is woeful.
Straight zeroes. I’m just sad.
Anyone could coach this team right? Anyone could take them as far as Blatt did, right?
JR is my favorite Cav. He doesn’t give a crap about anything. That characteristic helps right now. Rest of the team is totally butt tight. They know that their scapegoat is no longer around.
I know this will pass and I’ll feel better, but right now I Hate this team.
I don’t think the Cavs have spirit issues they are just depressed that they got slammed by the Dubs and don’t believe they can beat them. Now they have no confidence and will have a new coach scrambling to learn how to coach. Thanks LeBron!
I think Love ran in two circles there without ever actually guarding anyone.
That’s confirmed but still, lets not trade him for Morris.
THAT ” LITTLE PATCH ” OF WHITE ON TY’S HEAD ( HAIR ) WILL BEGIN TO SPREAD RAPIDLY ——MORE ALES PLEASE ” GOING TO “TY ‘ ONE ON
White cornrows would look pretty dope tho…
If anyone can show us what that might look like it’s you…
Only found white dreads… will keep looking…
So you’re saying that we will see an increased white hue on Lue?
Smith is the only one who isn’t affected by chaos. He was in New York.
But i thought griffin said this team thrived on chaos. Sorry to everyone, couldn’t resist.
JR off the curl for a floater in the lane
This game is just like da Warriors game, we had 44 at the half, this game we had 39. Only reason why we not being blown out at home is because Bulls are shooting 40%. Can you imagine we scored more against Golden State on Monday ? Crazy
Some pretty lousy sets by the Cavs tonight. Lue deserves some time, but I have a feeling that Spurs game will be brutal. But win or lose, the locker room will be joyous.
I’m not seeing this team playing “better” at all.
This is pathetic. I was afraid of this. They are shell shocked about the firing. Hopefully they finally realize that effort matters and learn to do what the coach says whether you like him or not. Hopefully Lue is a good coach.
For those who live in reality, the Cavs rotation can not be deeper than 8, may be 9
I was hoping it would go to 11…
I have no idea how we’d survive without JJ’s steal and Mo’s rebound in 10 minutes of play between them. Well that and the spirit that they contribute.
I used to get upset when our girls high school basketball team couldn’t hit their free throws.
mirotic makes all three i bet
Cavs players must feel relaxed tonight with new coach.