After a 10-year NBA career that included tours with seven squads and a pair of World Championships, Tyronn Lue’s basketball life led him to that moment where he’d eventually get his first career win as a head coach.
It wasn’t exactly on the NBA’s biggest stage – a Monday night in late January against the Minnesota Timberwolves. But Lue knows that his victory was the first of many to come. And he’s definitely hoping that his final win this season actually does occur on the NBA’s biggest stage.
As the Land Down Under celebrated Matthew Dellavedova’s gutsy Australia Day performance from 9,200 miles away – with Maryborough’s favorite son finishing with 18 points, seven assists, four boards and a steal – the Cavaliers were celebrating their new head coach’s first career win.
After the win, Lue talked about the Cavaliers’ leader, LeBron James, doing exactly that in the postgame locker room.
“(LeBron) just said any time something happens – a milestone – with our coaching staff, something where coach wins his first game, something happens with one our players, our players reach a milestone, we always want to celebrate that,” smiled Lue. “So he gave that speech, he gave me the game ball, everybody came in, gave me a hug and said congratulations.”
Having someone elses’ number.
Cavs tightening up their D.
Cavs point guard trio.
Cavs overall depth.
Dick Synder
Matthew Dellavedova
Winning ballgames is nothing new for the 38-year-old Lue, but winning last night’s contest was a good one to get under his belt after the Bulls spoiled his debut on Saturday night. After that nationally-televised loss, Lue maintained that his squad would need to get in better shape to play the style that he hoped to implement the rest of the way.
The Cavaliers went with shorter shifts, but were committed to pushing the pace against Sam Mitchell’s young squad. It was anything but an easy victory over a team they’d beaten by an average of three touchdowns in their previous three victories – including a 26-point shellacking in Minneapolis early this month.
Lue admitted that guys were asking for breathers over the course of the contest – and twice the Wine and Gold ran out to double-digit second-half leads before Minnesota clawed back to cut it to three.
“We got off to a good start in the fourth quarter,” echoed Kevin Love, who struggled from the floor but still finished with 11 points in the win. “We got the lead up to double digits, but they’re a good team that kept going on runs and kept fighting back. They have young guys that are high octane and play hard, so to be able to close that thing out (was positive). We’re still finding our way right now with the way we want to play and continue to get better.”
Win Monday’s victory, the Cavaliers continued their home mastery of inter-Conference foes – a good trend with two of their next three opponents hailing from the West.
On Wednesday, the Wine and Gold take on a Suns squad that’s been taking on water since December 20 – dropping 15 of 17 contests heading into Tuesday’s matchup in Philly. In the first meeting of the season, the Cavs canned 17 three-pointers – one shy of the franchise road record – snapping a two-game skid in Phoenix.
On Saturday night, it’s an entirely different animal when they welcome the Spurs to town following a Friday night matchup with the Pistons in Motown.
The Spurs dropped Cleveland at the AT&T Center two weeks ago, erasing the Cavs’ early 15-point lead and holding off a late run to preserve the 99-95 win.
San Antonio won’t be in a good mood – (not that they normally are) – when they roll in, having been crushed by 30 points in an eagerly-anticipated against Golden State on Monday night. For the Cavaliers, it’s a good barometer of how their high-tempo offense will fare against one of the Association’s true heavyweights.
Tyronn Lue notched his first win on Monday night. But he’ll notch his first big win if he and the Cavaliers are able to exact some revenge against the Spurs in a nationally-televised bout on Saturday night.
