Kings at Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers bounced back from a tough loss on Friday with a win on Saturday, but the team is not in the mood to declare itself anything other than a work in progress. The Cavaliers will try to string together consecutive victories when they host the Sacramento Kings on Monday.
Cleveland is struggling to adapt to new coach Tyronn Lue’s system and still tends to slow the pace when things don’t work out in the offensive end. “We’re just playing random basketball,” Lue told reporters after Saturday’s 99-84 home win over the New Orleans Pelicans. “We hold the ball, the ball sticks, because we’re in random because we don’t know what we want to run because we don’t have anything to flow into. That’s going to come with more practice.” The Kings could be on the verge of getting a new coach as well if recent reports about head coach George Karl’s tenuous job security prove to be true. Karl is overseeing a Sacramento squad that lost seven of its last eight games and allowed 128 points in each of its last two setbacks.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, CSN California (Sacramento), FSN Ohio (Cleveland)
ABOUT THE KINGS (21-30): Sacramento is allowing an NBA-worst 108.9 points and saw that average jump to 117.9 over the last eight contests. "I don't have any control over what other people are thinking or saying,” Karl told reporters before Sunday’s 128-119 loss at Boston. “That's their storm. My preference would be it wouldn't be there. But there's always energy today. Then, once something gets out, it magnifies and grows and becomes a storm." The Kings allowed the Celtics to shoot 56 percent from the field and 13-of-24 from 3-point range on Sunday.
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (36-14): Cleveland has only had two full practices since Lue took over for David Blatt last month, and the team believes more consistency will come with time. “It’s certain things that coach Lue wants to run that we haven’t ran in the past and certain things that (new assistant coach Mike Longabardi) wants us to do on the defensive end that we haven’t done in the past,” LeBron James told reporters. “So we’re going to have to be a little patient with that.” The Cavaliers have a chance to head into the All-Star break with some momentum with the lowly Los Angeles Lakers set to visit on Wednesday in the final game before the hiatus.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Kings F Rudy Gay (ankle) sat out Sunday’s game and is day-to-day.
2. Cavaliers F Kevin Love (thigh) sat out Saturday and is questionable.
3. The home team took each of the two meetings last season, with Cleveland earning a 101-90 win on its home court.