CLEVELAND (92.3 The Fan) - It has been a rough five weeks for the Cavaliers on the injury front.
Tristan Thompson, Daniel Gibson, Anthony Parker, Anderson Varejao and Kyrie Irving have all missed games due to injury.
Wednesday night against Indiana, Irving will return after missing three games with a concussion. The news brought a smile to the face of coach Byron Scott.
“It goes without saying,” Scott said. “It’s good to have him back there’s no doubt about that.”
The loss of Varejao last Friday sucked the life out of the Cavaliers in a 99-84 loss Saturday night to the Philadelphia 76ers. Hopefully the return of Irving will have an opposite effect and give them a shot in the arm.
“I’m really expecting business as usual,” Scott said. “I think having the last couple of days off and going through practice without Andy, I think that hangover effect is gone. Our guys realize that he’s not going to play tonight or Friday and we’re still waiting on the results to find out exactly the time frame.
“The last two days have helped us to realize as a team that ‘hey we just have to move on.'”
Irving appreciates the loss of “wild thing” but also recognizes that they can’t dwell on it or drown their sorrows.
“It’s going to take a lot of stepping up from other guys including myself,” Irving said. “We just have to continue to bring the energy. Andy brings the intangibles every single game and I don;t think any one player can do what he does on a consistent basis.
“We know what we get from him so we just have to pick up the slack.”
Scott said Monday that he felt he needed to give a few players a pep talk to get them back on track.
After having those conversations, Scott noticed an improvement almost immediately.
“I thought that they all went well,” Scott said. “I thought yesterday (Tuesday) at practice was one of our best practices in a long time. My biggest thing after that is that we have to take that on the court. The way we played yesterday in practice was fantastic. The energy, the communication that we had.
“We can’t leave it here, we have to take it to the Q and that’s the biggest thing and the biggest challenge for us.”
The Pacers have lost four straight and five of their last seven including a 105-90 loss to the Miami Heat at home Tuesday night.
Not having Varejao available will present a big problem when it comes to containing All Star center Roy Hibbert.
Center Semih Erden will start for the Cavaliers against the Pacers, who are expected to be without forward Danny Granger. He sustained an ankle injury in Tuesday night’s loss to Miami.
The Pacers squeaked by the Cavaliers 98-91 in overtime on December 30th after Irving missed the potential game-winning layup in the closing seconds of regulation.
Indiana has won the last six between the two teams.
