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LeBron James: Newest Cleveland Cavaliers 'don't shy away from the moment'

Small forward LeBron James feels his newest Cleveland Cavaliers teammates "don't shy away from the moment" in big games, which is why they have integrated so well so quickly.
Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) reacts in overtime against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Quicken Loans Arena.

CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Cavaliers made near wholesale changes in the hours ahead of the NBA Trade Deadline, shipping out six players and a draft pick in exchange for four young athletes and a future consideration in the NBA Draft.

Despite the challenges of readying new teammates for the stretch run of the regular season and the expectation of playing for an NBA Championship in June, the Cavaliers have had two critical wins with the new-look lineup, a blowout of the Boston Celtics and hard-fought victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road, which extended their winning streak to four heading into the NBA All-Star Game break.

“Those guys don’t shy away from the moment,” small forward LeBron James said of his new teammates.

“We’ve had three TV games since they got here out of our four games. I know they didn’t play in Atlanta and they didn’t play against Minnesota, but they had the TV game in Boston and they had the game in OKC, so those guys are professionals. They don’t shy away from the moment.”

In less than a week, forward Larry Nance Jr. and guard Jordan Clarkson went from two of the four new guys in town to critical end-of-game players who do what they can to impact winning, which is exactly what happened in last Tuesday’s 120-112 victory over the Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

In just his second game with the Cavaliers, Clarkson knocked down six of his 10 shots from the field, and his lone three-pointer of the game came essentially on the run in the waning minutes of the game.

With the Cavaliers holding a 108-100 edge on the scoreboard with just 3:23 to play in the fourth quarter, Nance hustled after and batted out an offensive rebound toward the three-point line, where Clarkson caught the ball, and in one motion, buried the triple.

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Jordan Clarkson dunks the ball during a game against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden in Boston on February 11, 2018.

In his two games with the Cavaliers, shooting guard Rodney Hood is averaging 14.5 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals while shooting .524 from the field and .500 from three-point range. Point guard George Hill is averaging 9.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists since arriving in Cleveland.

“It can be a challenge, but we welcome it,” James said. “Me, as a leader of this team, I welcome it, even though we don’t have much time. It’s almost March, so we don’t have much time, but we look forward to the journey, and like I said, we won’t short-cut the process, but we’ll try to fast-track what we want to do as a team.”

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Larry Nance Jr. (24) rises toward the rim during the NBA Slam Dunk Contest at Staples Center in Los Angeles during NBA All-Star Weekend.

Although the Cavaliers are a much different team than they were just two weeks ago, the mission has not changed, which, according to James, is to develop daily routines that will lead to championship-level basketball.

“We want to build championship habits every day,” James said. “We want to be very good defensively, and we want to share the ball and move the ball offensively where everybody feels they’re in a good rhythm. That’s been it. We want to try and execute that. Obviously, we weren’t able to do that for the majority of the season, but it’s what we want to do for the rest of the season.”

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