INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- Kyle Korver wanted to make something clear when asked about the Cleveland Cavaliers' new offensive approach, one necessitated by the loss of LeBron James this summer and Kyrie Irving a year earlier.

"Not that I hated it before," Korver said. "I like basketball. But I definitely like to move. That's a big part of my game and it always has been. Running around and trying to create offense with energy."

Korver's clarification is wise. It's tough to nitpick a system that finished top 5 in offensive efficiency four straight years. No matter how the Cavaliers went about it and as frustrating as it was from time to time, the system yielded the desired results.

With a floundering defense, the Cavs demanded excellence on the other end. That's why during the three years with James, Irving and Kevin Love, the Cavs rightly leaned heavily on the trio and everyone else filled in around. The Big Three model was designed to put play terminators -- essentially shooters and spacers -- around play creators.

The goal was simple: get James, Love and Irving the ball in situations where they could thrive.

Sometimes the Cavaliers tried to exploit specific matchups and played to individual strengths, often relying on deadly isolation attacks, which also halted ball movement. In each of those years with the Big Three, the Cavaliers ranked top 5 in isolation frequency, topping the league in the category during the 2016-17 season.

Last year, even without Irving, who has an isolation doctorate, the Cavaliers ranked third in ISO frequency. They scored on 42.1 percent of those trips, which was good for just 14th in the league.

As Korver mentioned during the playoffs, the Cavaliers were built to let -- and help -- James be great.

Lue and others inside the organization will admit the loss of Irving left them scrambling. There were new faces to incorporate and not all of them fit the unique LeBron-centric system. Injuries also wrecked the team's grand plan. But the mark of a champion is being able to adjust and find what's best for a specific roster setup. For the Cavs, the single-minded approach led to another Finals trip.

This season, with new personnel, Lue's altering the system once again.

"Just have to do it more by committee," Lue said. "Our bigs have to be an important piece, important part of understanding what we're trying to do offensively. I think Tristan (Thompson) and Larry (Nance Jr.) have been doing a good job with that at the center position. Of course, Kevin's going to be in the post a lot more, featuring him a lot more in the block. And then our guards just playing with pace, attacking the basket. Whoever rebounds the basketball is pushing it out so our guys are getting used to running the floor. We've got a lot of guys who can rebound the basketball and push it. That will be the biggest change for our team."

Lue has been preaching pace since he took over as head coach. Only it's more imperative this season, as the Cavs will need easy looks -- no longer having James to bail them out.

"We're going to have to rely on each other a lot more this year, we don't have that guy we can just throw the ball to and he makes a lot of things happen like we had last year," George Hill said, "Knowing this year is going to be totally different, everyone has to have their hand in that jar and giving us help. It's going to take a collective effort."

Love will be the centerpiece. If all goes according to plan, the Cavs will use every tool in his box. They will run offense from the elbow and the pinch-post -- areas the team neglected too often. He won't be hovering around the perimeter as much, trying to get back to his comfort zone of playing inside-out.

The expectation is more screening and slashing away from the ball. There's supposed to be plenty of motion. No longer will one player initiate a bulk of the offense.

Love, Hill, Collin Sexton, JR Smith, Sam Dekker, David Nwaba, Rodney Hood, Cedi Osman, Jordan Clarkson and Nance have all talked about being utilized as playmakers.

"Kind of like a five-man attack," Nance said. "Obviously, we are going to showcase Kev. That's our guy and that's who we are going to showcase early and often. But there's not a player that we can put on the floor this year that isn't a threat. You are going to see a whole lot of everybody."

Players and coaches admit the offense is still a work in progress. There will be mistakes and early-season growing pains. It won't be easy to break bad habits. Building trust will take time. It will take hard work, dedication and attention to detail.

Many of the sets have three or four options, which is why making quick decisions will be vital. It's no longer about holding the ball and surveying the defense. If the first option isn't available, then quickly move on to the next. If that one isn't there, then swing it and keep searching for a great shot.

"A lot of moving the ball. I think we're trying to take a little from how Boston plays, get everyone touching the ball, not so much isolations," Thompson said. "Just because of the dynamic of our team, I think we'll be better if everyone's sharing the ball, being all in attack mode."

Channing Frye, a key member of the Cavaliers' bench the last few seasons, said Cleveland's new offense will resemble that of second units of the past.

"I think it's progressive for us," Frye said. "It's stuff that we have been working on, but you've got to know your personnel. I think with this personnel, to be honest, we have maybe one or two guys who are top of the mill one-on-one guys and the rest are just kind of figuring our way and we're a thousand times better with movement. In years past this is more stuff the second unit would do and it's worked pretty dang well for us.

"It's going to be fun to watch. True basketball people are going to like the fact that we're using the corner, we're using the elbow, we're using the top of the key. It's not just a lot of one-on-one stuff, it's a lot of good actions, it's reads and it's going to be fun. We're going to have some lumps sometimes, but once you get over those lessons, we're going to be pretty dang good."

Like Thompson, Frye pointed to Boston, the Cavaliers' opponent in last year's Eastern Conference finals and the favorite to rise to the top this season.

He also mentioned Denver, Utah and Philadelphia. While no one is ready to start comparing the Cavs to those teams -- all on a different level -- that's the path the Cavs are trying to take on offense nowadays, making it more about the sum of the parts.

"I think bringing in new personnel, bringing in young energy, coaching staff has been great, so much teaching and you can tell they put a lot of time into how they can make this team into the best we can be," Korver said. "Got a lot of new thoughts and taking some of our old stuff and tweaking it. Some of it is we have a bunch of actions that we want to try to get really good at. Been a lot of learning, teaching, a lot of movement and it's really fun basketball."

According to NBA.com stats, 66.3 percent of Korver's shot attempts were considered open (the defender 2-4 feet away) or wide open (the defender 4-6 feet away) during the 2017-18 season. The year before, the number was 65.8 percent.

Will those numbers come down without James creating? Will the motion-based attack help Cleveland survive after that loss?

Those questions can't be answered yet. The new offense needs to translate to the court during the regular season. But Korver's excited about the potential.

"He loves all the movement and running around," Lue said. "He's in heaven right now."

It sounds like he's not the only one.