J.R. goes off-glass for LeBron alley-oop dunk, delights young fan
After he took over for the fired David Blatt, new Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue said he wanted to see his team pick up the pace and start pushing the ball down the floor in pursuit of transition opportunities. This fast-break alley-oop from J.R. Smith to LeBron James during the third quarter of Wednesday’s game against the Phoenix Suns offers a pretty good explanation why — although Lue probably didn’t diagram J.R. throwing it off the backboard on the ol’ greaseboard:
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Not only do such plays produce easy offense and quick points, they also get the home crowd at Quicken Loans Arena amped up and roaring in full throat. Check out your boy Yung Cavs Fan totally losing himself in the joy of the moment:
Evidently, J.R. and LeBron enjoyed producing that kind of response in the younger wine-and-gold faithful so much that they decided they wanted to go back to the fast-break lob well mere minutes later, joined this time by running buddy Kyrie Irving:
We don’t have a cutaway to our small-fry friend here, but one would suspect he didn’t exactly greet this second play stone-faced.
Thanks in part to high-octane buckets like these, the Cavs pulled away from the woeful Suns in the second half, cruising to a 115-93 victory that ensured Cleveland will boast the best record in the Eastern Conference on Jan. 31, the cutoff date for determining coaching assignments for the 2016 All-Star Game … which means Lue, he of the 2-1 career head coaching record, will be leading the East. (Never let common sense get in the way of a rule.)
LeBron sloughed off all that “coach killer” talk with 21 points on 7-for-8 shooting, nine assists and three rebounds in 31 minutes, resting for the entire fourth quarter and even finding his way toward a little fun before it was all said and done:
I’m choosing to believe that the King was inspired to let the music move him by that electrified child. May the purest and most excitable youngsters among us lead our way.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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