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DraftKings Stevens, Lue Discuss Game Plans

Marc D'Amico
Team Reporter and Analyst

Friday, February 5 - Celtics at Cavaliers

Pregame - Stevens, Lue Discuss Game Plans for Tonight

CLEVELAND – Quicken Loans Arena will host a rematch tonight of last season’s first-round matchup between the Celtics and the Cavaliers. A whole lot has changed since that series.

First and foremost on the list is that Tyronn Lue has become the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was named to the position on Jan. 22 and will coach his eighth game tonight.

Cleveland also will be at full strength against Boston for the first time since the early portions of Game 4 of last season’s playoff series.

Kevin Love is back at full strength and playing strong basketball under Lue. Meanwhile, Irving, who missed these teams’ first matchup of the regular season with a knee injury, is back in the lineup for Cleveland as well.

Brad Stevens spoke ahead of tonight’s game about the difficulties that exist when those two players are both healthy and surrounding the best player in the world, LeBron James.

“Obviously, just two more guys that are elite players in the league,” the coach said. “Kyrie’s ability to make plays off the bounce and Kyrie’s ability to put pressure on your defense by having to draw two to him off pick-and-rolls a lot is very difficult.

“When Love is posting, he often draws the attention of two. And when he sets a pick and pops or is in space, you have to be there on his catch.”

Stevens concluded, “It makes it really difficult, especially when they’re around LeBron.”

While Boston does not have players of similar rank to James, Irving and Love, it does pose its own set of challenges to be handled by the Cavaliers. Lue chose not to go into detail about his schematic preparation for the Celtics, but did discuss some of the challenges the team poses.

“The only preparation is we have to play hard,” he said. “This team, they play very hard, extremely hard. They’re a tough team. They’re a physical team.”

Lue then discussed Boston’s offensive system and said, “They cut with pace, they push the ball, take 3-point shots.”

For the second time in one answer, Lue said that his message to his team is that it must match Boston’s energy at both ends. Suffice to say that Stevens’ message will be a bit different.

Boston’s coach is likely to address his team from a much more schematic standpoint, as the C’s will be tasked with containing three All-Star-caliber players.

Many things have changed since these two teams matched up during last postseason, but these two coaching messages likely did not.

- Marc D'Amico