As the Cavaliers pull away for a win in the exhibition opener, Jamario Moon looks comfortable in a new locker and a new offense.
UPDATED: 11:15 p.m.
Daniel Gibson led the Cavaliers with 18 points Tuesday night in the preseason opener against Charlotte at The Q.• Bobcats' Brown proud of Byron Scott: Insider
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cavaliers insisted there was nothing strange about playing without LeBron James in Tuesday night's 87-72 preseason victory over the Charlotte Bobcats in a half-filled Quicken Loans Arena.
"It wasn't strange at all," Jamario Moon said of the team's first appearance here since James left for Miami. "It's home. It's never strange to go home. We were anxious to get in here and show people basketball is still alive in Cleveland. It felt good."
Moon has taken the bold step of moving into James' stall in the corner of the locker room closest to the training room. It is unadorned, but he looks comfortable in it -- almost as comfortable as he looked on the floor in coach Byron Scott's new system.
In an impressive 30 minutes, Moon, who has never played in this offense before, finished with seven points, 10 rebounds, three blocked shots and four steals.
"Jamario played well," Scott said. "I think he has a way of affecting the game on both ends of the floor, especially on the defensive end because of his athleticism. Tonight, rebounding and going after shots, he was very, very active. If we can continue to have him play that way, I think we'll be in pretty good shape."
Before the game, Scott said he was looking for improvement and he definitely saw that -- especially from the first half to the second. After trailing at halftime, 47-43, Scott, who tinkered mightily with his lineup, went with a small lineup of Moon, Antawn Jamison, J.J. Hickson, Anthony Parker and Daniel Gibson against the equally small Bobcats.
It won't work against, say, Boston, but Scott liked what he saw.
"It depends on matchups," he admitted. "There are some teams in this league that aren't very big, so I know there's going to be times we can use that lineup and there's times we can use it just on the offensive end when we feel we have some matchups we feel we can take advantage of.
"It is an option and obviously I'll take a good look at it."
What he won't look too hard at is the box score, which showed his team shooting just 36.4 percent. Of course, they did hold the Bobcats to 31.7 percent, including 25.7 percent in the second half when the Cavs' pace wore down the Bobcats.
That's the number that interests him the most.
Asked if his team could maintain that sore of defensive effort, Scott said, "We have to.That's who we are. That's the type of team we've got to be on the defensive end every single night. Hopefully the next couple weeks we're going to tighten up some things and we'll get better. But, again, the effort was there tonight. That's the same type of effort we're going to need every single night.
"I'm not so worried about the offensive part. I just want to make sure we continue to progress in that phase of our game; and on the defensive end we try to keep up the way we played tonight in the second half."
Daniel Gibson continued to build on his strong performance in training camp with 18 points, including making all 10 of his free throws. J.J. Hickson, who came off the bench, added 17 points and nine rebounds.
All in all, Scott said, it wasn't a bad preseason debut.
"It felt great," he said. "I love this group of guys already. A lot of these guys have been here the past two or three weeks, so I've gotten to know them just watching them in pickup games.
"It's a tight-knit group of guys. They've got great chemistry, which I love. We've got very good talent. I think that's a winning combination."