Following Tuesday morning’s shootaround at Cleveland Clinic Courts, Cavs superstar LeBron James laid out his team goals for the final five games of the regular season. His message — focused, instructive and motivating — was straight to the point.
“Keep working on our habits and get healthy,” James told Nikki Goel of Cavs Nation. “We’re almost there.”
As most hoops fans know, the Cavs have dealt with several injuries this season. In fact, there was a time not long ago when they had six players listed on their injury report. Now, however, the team seems to be getting healthy at the right time, although George Hill recently went down with an ankle sprain.
“I think when it comes down to the postseason, we can be pretty good,” James told ESPN after Sunday’s win over the Dallas Mavericks. “I mean, I think so. But we don’t know. Listen, we lost our starting point guard last game, so we’re trying to get everybody acclimated.
“Our head coach is still out and it’s going to take him a little time to get back as well, so I don’t know what we’re capable of doing. We haven’t played a playoff game together.
“We got four guys you know from our championship team, myself, J.R. (Smith), Tristan (Thompson) and Kev (Love). We got some playoff experience, but you don’t know. It’s a new season and we’ll see what happens.”
James, now 33 years of age, is posting some of the best statistical figures of his career this season — his 15th. The King has played in all 77 of Cleveland’s games, averaging 27.4 points (third in NBA) on 54.2 percent shooting from the field (36.3 percent from beyond the arc), 9.1 assists (career-high), 8.7 rebounds, 1.5 steals and just under one block (0.9) in 37.1 minutes.
Currently, the Cavs — winners in eight of their last nine (six straight at home) — are the No. 3 seeded team in the Eastern Conference standings with a 47-30 overall record, just one half-game ahead of the fourth-seeded Washington Wizards, who they’ll face on Thursday night.
Tuesday night’s Cavs-Raptors game is slated to tip inside The Q at 7:00 p.m. EST with FOX Sports Ohio having live broadcast coverage.
