LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers got straight up outplayed against the Chicago Bulls in Game 1. They found no answer for Chicago’s pick & rolls. And despite the near triple double from LeBron. It wasn’t enough. The absence of Kevin Love and JR Smith was very evident.
Game 2 is nearing and LeBron does not want to be down 2-0. It’s hard to come back from 2-0 down. Especially when the two games after that are in the United Center. So you know that LeBron plans to be much more aggressive so his team gets the W tonight.
“I’ve never went into a game saying, ‘OK I’m going to be ultra-aggressive,’” he said. “I’ve always had to feel out things, but last night it was a little bit too much feel out. I only had two shots at one point. I was just not as aggressive offensively as I was defensively. We’ll see. I think I may have to change my mindset a little bit with Kev being out.”
“You can’t go down 0-2 on your home floor,” he said.
Cleveland’s biggest adjustment needs to come on defense as Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol exploited the Cavs with a “pick-and-pop” play. Gasol set high screens for Rose, who either drove to the basket or passed the ball to the veteran forward. Gasol went 10 of 16 from the field and scored 21. [….] “It wasn’t miscommunication,” James said when asked why the Cavs couldn’t stop one of basketball’s most basic plays. “Some of it was some of our game plan, and some of it was we could’ve gave a better effort.“
Pau and DRose were literally puppet masters when they went on the P&R. Everytime they scored after a screen they all just looked at each other perplexed. It’s not a case of LeBron being aggressive. He always gets the job done. It’ll take the team to clock onto what the Bulls are doing. They need to sniff out a screen and snuff it out immediately. If that doesn’t happen. I guarantee you that it will be 2-0 to the Bulls.
