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Day 6: 2015 Training Camp Notebook

With the annual Wine and Gold Scrimmage on tap for Monday night, the Cavaliers continued ramping up the action in Training Camp.

On Sunday, the intensity was amped up again – guaranteeing that the guys will be dying to face off against an actual opponent pretty soon. They’ll get their wish on Wednesday, when the actual preseason tips off against Atlanta at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati.

In terms of Monday night’s W&G Scrimmage – which tips off at 7 p.m. at The Q – Coach Blatt stated Sunday that he hopes to accomplish two things. “One, give a chance for our great fans to see the team, see the new guys and, of course, reacquaint with 11 players from last year,” said Blatt. “And at the same time, get some honest work in. It’s not a normal practice, obviously, and not even a normal scrimmage, but I hope we can accomplish both things.”

Of course, the Cavaliers will still be without two-thirds of their Big Three. Kevin Love continues to practice with the squad, but hasn’t participated in any live five-on-five drills in Camp. Instead, as practice was ramping down, Love did some controlled work on one of the side courts with assistant Phil Handy.

Kyrie Irving also attended Sunday’s workout, but is still not cleared to participate in on-court drills with the team. But, as Coach stated post-practice, Irving is putting in some serious rehab work.

”(Kyrie)’s working very hard every day,” Blatt maintained. “Every morning when I get in here, he’s in the gym working and spending a good part of the morning doing all the different things he needs to do to get himself back in shape – strengthening his leg, progressing from a basketball standpoint.”

In terms of team health, Iman Shumpert – who had successful wrist surgery on Wednesday – attended practice: arm still in a cast, but no longer in a sling. And Joe Harris, who tweaked his foot early in Friday’s workout, rode the stationary bike while the squad scrimmaged.

Mo Williams, Matthew Dellavedova

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The Cavaliers are somewhat of a banged-up unit right now, but they’ve got plenty of time to work it out.

“Our main thing right now is health,” LeBron James added after Sunday’s session. “It seems like it’s been so long since we’ve had a full group. And even when Ky came back last year, he was still bothered by the foot and bothered by, I think, his knee as well. I would love to see us just get full at some point.

”Hopefully it’s not February or March, hopefully it’s more late-December or January, obviously, to see what type of a team we can become. We won’t reach our full potential until March, and that’s OK. That’s when you should start peaking. But we would like to see what we’re capable of doing earlier than that.”

  • Read nothing into this other than it’s interesting to see how the team breaks down for five-on-five scrimmaging. Either roster can change during the drill, but on Sunday (with three practice refs on the floor) the “red team” consisted of LeBron, Anderson Varejao, Sasha Kaun and Quinn Cook. The “white team” featured Austin Daye, James Jones, Timofey Mozgov, Richard Jefferson and Delly.
  • Before practice began, while guys were still stretching, assistant Ty Lue broke down his defensive gameplan for the day with fellow assistants. Later, Lue worked with Cleveland’s bigs on entry pass defense while coaches Handy and Jim Boylon worked with guards and swingmen on baseline trapping.
  • Second-year assistant James Posey – who played his high school hoops at Twinsburg and won two NBA titles with the Celtics and Heat – can still shoot it.
  • Point guard and Camp invitee Quinn Cook – who won a National Championship with Duke, where he ranked seventh on the school’s all-time assist list – has a good chance to be on an NBA roster this season. Naturally, he’d be below Kyrie, Mo Williams and Delly on the depth chart. But he’s obviously got solid playmaking ability and has held his own during the scrimmages.