Cavs At Jazz Behind the Box Score — Kind of Blue

After the Cavaliers’ 92-100 loss to the Utah Jazz last night, James may regret his opening words just a little bit.

On a team that is already at the top tier of the league in three-pointers made and attempted, Korver is the ideal pickup for the Cavs who will welcome him with more than open arms.

After joining the team Sunday in Phoenix, he missed two workout opportunities with the group as Cleveland canceled practice in Phoenix on Monday and Korver was held out of shootaround in Utah on Tuesday as he awaited Mike Dunleavy to report to the Atlanta Hawks so the deal would become official.

Taking another loss in the Beehive State, James scored a game-high 28 points, pulling off five assists and six rebounds.

The Cavaliers (28-9) saw a three-game road winning streak snapped in part because they could not fully recover from a bad second quarter. DeAndre Liggins has filled in for the injured J.R. Smith admirably, but it may make sense for the Cavaliers to use every possible rep getting Korver comfortable with the starting unit before the playoffs. Harden joined Westbrook, Jordan, and Maravich as the only players with back-to-back 40-point triple-doubles in a season. I’ve always felt like the better the players are around me, the better I can be.

On a Cleveland Cavaliers team stocked with scorers and shooters, James has tried to improve his playmaking skills, specifically, by learning how to throw the ideal pass. “He had big games last year at various times last year”.

While LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love are no doubt the center pieces of the team offensively, the Cavs are at their best when the team as a whole is moving the ball and creating open looks for other players along with of the “Big Three”. You can run him off pin-downs and a lot of different actions that we didn’t have the ability to run beforehand.

Korver hasn’t found his way with the Cavs just yet. I see what he does for our team all the time. I’ve got to make sure I get everybody involved so I can decide if I want to stop at the light or I can just cruise through there. “But I’ll get the ball to him”. Cleveland has won two in a row, has gone 8-2 in its last 10, and is 10-5 away from Quicken Loans Arena this season. It is notable that he is adjusting to his new team and trying to be more motion oriented.

Many around the league view this move as one that will strengthen the Cavaliers’ chances of repeating as champions.

Three-time National Basketball Association champion James, already 12-time National Basketball Association all-star, has received 1.06 million votes and leads Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (963,110) in voting for Eastern Conference frontcourt players.

“When we got down so much, we had to play so hard to come back”, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said, adding “we used so much energy in the third quarter”.

Korver no doubt can play and will be a key player for this team going forward, but he has not had enough time to fit in with the team yet.