Nothing gets the frustration juices flowing quite like a loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
Hence Dwyane Wade and Channing Frye (basically) calling out the Cleveland Cavaliers’ starters on Sunday, per ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin:
“It’s no secret we’re starting games off awful,” Dwyane Wade said after scoring a season-high 25 points as a reserve. “Terrible. And [Atlanta] got it going early, and the effort or the focus just wasn’t there to start off, and you try to battle back, you waste a lot of energy trying to come back from 16-18 down, and it’s tough nightly to do this. And we all know this. It’s no secret in this locker room, but our first unit, we got to start off better.” . . .
“I want one time for the first unit to get on the second unit because we blew a lead,” Wade said with a chuckle. “I’m waiting for that day to happen.” . . .
“We got to play harder,” Frye said when asked about the slow starts. “We have to play harder, and I think we have to be more, more attentive to details, and I think we just have to have a better sense of urgency. … We suck right now.”
Now, to be clear, Frye and Wade weren’t the only ones who spoke about the Cavaliers’ slow starts. Head coach Tyronn Lue and LeBron James did the same. The entire team is aware the starting lineup needs to play better.
Easier said than done.
Injuries and general tinkering have forced the Cavaliers to use six different starting lineups in 10 games. That’s no bueno. Their most recent one—James, Derrick Rose, J.R. Smith, Jae Crowder and Kevin Love—is a minus-33 through 47 minutes of action, according to NBA.com.
The bench, to its credit, has mostly done its job. Cleveland’s second-stringers have the ninth-highest net rating in the league and outscored the Hawks’ backups by 14 points on Sunday. Yes, playing against second units is different than facing off against starters, who usually represent a squad’s best players. But the Cavaliers’ bench is slogging through its own shuffling, as Lue switches up the starting five. Give the second-stringers credit for doing work.
Maybe the starting lineup, whatever it looks like next game, will eventually catch up to them.
