CLEVELAND _ The Cavaliers departed Thursday for their longest road trip of the season not knowing who will be available when the trip begins Friday at the Brooklyn Nets. That did not seem to please LeBron James, who fought through illness to play Thursday while Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving again rested.
Asked if this was a good time for the six-city, cross-country trip that will total roughly 6,500 air miles, James said it will depend on who is playing. That might be an indication that he's seen about enough of the end-of-bench replacements he has played alongside for the past week.
"I don't know if it's going to be a good time or not until we know who's active and who's playing," he said. "See what happens."
Injuries and illness ultimately strike every team at some point, the Cavs are just getting theirs out of the way all at once. Coach Tyronn Lue sounded hopeful Love would be well enough following his bout with food poisoning to return Friday at the Barclays Center, although he offered no timeline for Irving and his right hamstring after the Cavs lost to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday.
Lue has been forced to cancel practices and shootarounds because of the lack of healthy bodies. James admitted it's weeks like this that can grind guys down in the course of a long and tedious season.
"It slows our process down just a little bit," he said. "We're not able to practice the way we would like to. We're already a team that don't practice much and now we only have [10] bodies, it's even harder for us to get better every day on off days. That's the part for me that kind of eats me alive. I'm all about putting in the work when no one is around and we can't do that right now."
The last three games without Irving have exposed the Cavs' lack of depth at point guard. Lue has pieced together backcourts involving Jordan McRae, DeAndre Liggins and Kay Felder the past couple of games. Each has had bright spots, but the Cavs committed eight turnovers without an assist during the fourth quarter of Wednesday's loss _ the first game the Cavs have lost with James in the lineup in more than a month.
The Cavs totaled just 13 assists Wednesday, and James had seven of them. He went into attack mode in the fourth quarter, however, and committed three of their eight turnovers.
James called the lack of a point guard "obvious from Day One."
"We don't have a reliable, veteran backup point guard," he said. "Kay's in the process of learning on the fly. He's a rookie and is going to have his mistakes. It's tough on him because we're a franchise trying to win a championship. He has to have a fast-track mind. But we don't have a backup point guard. Us having 13 assists is not who we are. I had half the team's assists and that's not good for our team because we've got guys who need the ball in their hands and put the ball in the right position and the right spots for them to be successful. It's tough for us."
