LEBRON JAMES|Cavs know they can play better

LEBRON JAMES

None of the Cavaliers think they are playing their best basketball despite their five-game winning streak.

But that does not mean the Cavs are about to apologize for their 20-7 start.

“I’ve been in (the league) for 17 years, and I’ve gone to the big dance in many different ways,” Shaquille O’Neal said after Friday’s win over Milwaukee. “It doesn’t matter how you get there. A lot of teams play perfect in the beginning and mess up at the end. We are learning. We have been put through a lot of tests, and it is going to test our mental toughness, and it’s going to be good for us.”

The Cavs have looked dominant at times in the last month — winning four straight by double-digits at one point — while also delivering some ugly wins of late. But either way they play, they are usually winning.

They have gone 17-4 since a 3-3 start, with road wins over Orlando and Miami and home wins over Dallas and Phoenix. The black eye in that stretch is three road losses to teams with losing records.

They’ve done much of that during a busy December that has featured 10 games in the last 18 days. By the end of the month, they will have played 17 games in a 29-day span.

“It seems like we’ve played a lot of games in a lot of nights already,” Head Coach Mike Brown said. “We’ve been in town, out of town, so our schedule already has been whacky. But you’ve got to give our guys credit for trying to stay focused and trying to fight through the right way.”

Tonight, the Cavs open their most difficult road trip with a game at Dallas, followed by Monday night visit to Phoenix. After playing Wednesday at Sacramento, the trip ends Christmas evening with a nationally televised game against the Lakers.

“It is a difficult trip coming up,” Shaq said. “It is a good test for us. You know every time that we get into focus mode, we play pretty well. LeBron (James) said it earlier. I said it earlier. It’s a business trip. We are going to a lot of nice cities, but we are going to be locked in as soon as we get on the plane (Saturday).”

PRACTICES NEEDED

The busy schedule does not leave Brown much time to do what he likes the most — practice.

“The tough part about it is ... we’ve had one contact practice (in the last 21⁄2 weeks),” Brown said.

The Cavs have not had consecutive days without games since Nov. 29-Dec. 1. They won’t have another break until Dec. 31-Jan. 1, which means they have had some light practices but nothing extensive.

“It drives me crazy,” Brown said.

There are things he wants to get after in a competitive practice setting. But he also knows now is not the time to overwork a veteran team.

BIGGEST FLAWS

Two primary areas of concern for the Cavs heading out West will be turnovers and transition defense. When they lost at Memphis and Houston on back-to-back nights before this winning streak, those two areas crippled them.

They had 41 turnovers in those games and were outscored, 44-14, on fast breaks. With those numbers on the road, it was remarkable the Cavs were even competitive.

In their last five games, the Cavs have been in the 14-to-16 turnover range in four of the wins. That’s still too many, but Brown thinks the Cavs are turning the corner.

As far as transition defense, the jury still is out. The Sixers put up a season-high 30 fast-break points on the Cavs on Wednesday, then the Bucks scored 12 in the first half Friday before Cleveland tightened things up.

“Our floor balance isn’t that good,” Brown said. “We’re not doing a great job of stopping the ball. The ball is getting too deep. The ball’s getting to the middle of the floor in transition. ... It’s stuff like that, I believe, you stay sharp by working on in practice.”

24-SECOND CLOCK

James averages a league-best 31.9 points per game on the road. He scores 6.6 more points per game away from Quicken Loans Arena — where he averages 25.3 — the highest differential in the NBA. James also led the league a season ago by averaging 31.5 points on the road.

The Cavs are 11-2 against teams that have at least a .500 record on the day of the game. Cleveland’s five losses against teams with a losing record, though, already matches the Cavs’ total for all of last season.

LeBron hitting 500

LeBron James plays in the 500th career regular season game tonight at Dallas. Here’s a look at how his 499-game stats compares to four Hall of Famers through their first 500 games: