When the Cleveland Cavaliers take the court for their Tuesday night matchup against the Houston Rockets, LeBron James will not be seeing any action as head coach Tyronn Lue continually seeks to give his key players some rest prior to the start of next month’s playoffs.
In news reported by Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com, Lue indicated that James will also miss at least one more game after Tuesday’s contest, though he offered no hint as to which contest will be selected. The team has back-to-back games beginning on Thursday, with a home game against Brooklyn followed by a road matchup in Atlanta the next evening.
“Not too many chances and opportunities to rest one game and have four days off, so I thought it was a good opportunity to rest him,” Lue said.
Another potential absence for the game against Houston is guard Iman Shumpert, who sat out Monday’s practice with a sore knee.
“I know he had a sore left knee so you run the risk of having practice today and do something worse, so we sat him out,” Lue explained.
James is coming off his second triple-double in the past week and is currently just four points away from moving into the 12th spot among all-time scorers, ahead of Dominique Wilkins at 26,668. The next spot after that, Oscar Robertson, is 41 points away and will most likely be passed later in the week.
The Cavaliers are currently 1-2 when James doesn’t play this season, having won last on March 16 against the Dallas Mavericks. Saturday night’s win over the New York Knicks took place with Kyrie Irving resting, while the team has won each of its four games without Kevin Love.
James was asked about what the team needs to do when key players are sitting:
“The ultimate is to get us all playing at a high level for our offense and defense,” James said. “It’s no explanation as to sometimes why we play better without one of us, but hopefully we want to get it to a point where all three of us are playing well at the same time, for the betterment of the team.”
