Tyronn Lue Keeps Insisting On Playing The Cavaliers’ Worst Lineup In The Playoffs


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The Cleveland Cavaliers got thumped by the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Finals series on Sunday in a lopsided 108-83 final. There are plenty of things you can point to as the reason why Boston won and Cleveland lost in Game 1.

There was the Cavs’ dismal shooting from the perimeter, shooting 15.4 percent from three-point range. There was the fact that Boston closed off the paint to force Cleveland to continue hoisting jump shots, whether contested or open, which they could not consistently hit. There was the great ball movement of Boston on the offensive end that sent a bad Cavs defense scrambling and led to plenty of open looks and driving lanes to the rim.

You can’t put this win or loss on any one thing, and Cleveland has tons of adjustments to make before Game 2. First and foremost, they need LeBron James to look engaged and attack, something he didn’t do in Game 1 as he was 5-of-16 from the field and seemed more than content to settle for jump shots that weren’t falling. The Cavs need to figure something out on the defensive end and that likely means a rotation change and the insertion of Tristan Thompson into the starting lineup to disrupt Al Horford inside.

There is not one magical fix for Cleveland, but there is one lineup that should never, ever see the floor again, despite Tyronn Lue’s insistence on playing it throughout this postseason. The three-man lineup of Jordan Clarkson, Rodney Hood, and Jeff Green is an absolute disaster in every way imaginable, combining for an impressively bad -19.2 net rating (100.1 ORtg, 119.3 DRtg) in an astonishing 110 minutes together in the playoffs. They have appeared in 11 games together, which means Lue is allowing this trio to run wild on the court and actively hurt the Cavs for 10 minutes per game.

That trio is so bad that adding LeBron to them can’t even fix things, and the lineup of Clarkson, Hood, Green, LeBron, and Tristan Thompson has also been unfathomably bad these playoffs. In 21 minutes over five games that five-man group has a -68.6 net rating thanks to an 84.1 ORtg and, wait for it, a 152.7 DRtg (!!!). How that is even possible, I’m not sure, but that group’s miserable chemistry together reared its ugly head at the worst time in Game 1.

Ty Lue trotted that group out to start the fourth quarter after Cleveland clawed their way to a 14-point deficit exiting the third quarter from being down as many as 28. Within 1:08 of the fourth quarter beginning, Boston was back up by 21 as the Cavs worst lineup had its worst stretch of the playoffs, capped off by a failed alley-oop that led to Jayson Tatum trotting the length of the floor for an almost uncontested layup.

That stretch obviously extrapolated that group’s numbers on a statistical measurement based on a per-100 possession sample size, but nearly ever combination imaginable of players with that Hood-Clarkson-Green group have been terrible this postseason.

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Ripping on Tyronn Lue and his rotations is commonplace on NBA Twitter, and to a point it goes too far. This roster isn’t exactly stacked with talent and he can’t play his starting lineup, which is significantly better than any other group, all 48 minutes. However, you just can’t run this trio out there together at this point in the postseason, especially given the damage it causes the Cavs.

Hood might just be downright unplayable right now with a -19.8 net rating in 189 minutes this postseason and Clarkson, for as much as he at least appears to be putting in effort, can’t shake his natural gunner instincts and has a tendency to try and do everything himself on offense despite not having the capability of doing it (as evidenced by his -14.9 net rating). Those two are going to have to play some due to the team’s lack of depth otherwise, although maybe going back to the Game 4 rotation against Toronto that famously didn’t include Hood until garbage time might be a wise choice.

Someone has to play minutes in the backcourt other than George Hill, J.R. Smith, and Kyle Korver, but those have to be limited and you just can’t have them out there together, especially in an important moment. The Cavs had all the momentum entering the fourth quarter and needed to carry that forward and get the game into single digits to allow the aura of LeBron to maybe put some doubt into the minds of the Celtics.

Instead, they gave Boston a gift by trotting out the worst defensive lineup on a team full of them, and the Celtics pounced to take advantage and never let Cleveland back into the game again. LeBron talked about it like it was a fluky kind of a run after the game, which may just be him trying to keep his guys’ spirits up.

Anyone that’s watched these playoffs, however, wasn’t shocked to see that lineup get torched once again and the numbers back up what we’ve seen. Hopefully Lue recognizes that and comes up with some new strategies for his bench rotation, because if he trots that group back out again, Boston will probably seize control of that stretch just like they did in Game 1.

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