Minnesota Timberwolves

TV/radio:

Notable:

-- Jodie Valade

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dion Waiters was the first to say it out loud, to put his own special twist on it, but the Cavaliers' rookie wasn't the first to notice it. It's been visible for a couple weeks, now, since a sit-down meeting to more clearly define roles.

"We vibin'," Waiters said of his connection with point guard Kyrie Irving of late.

Vibing?

Minus Saturday's loss to Denver, when all the Cavaliers looked a step slow and a bit out of sync, Waiters and Irving have, indeed, been vibing in a way that is not only helpful for the individual game of each player, but for the Cavaliers backcourt as a whole. It's been such a point of pride for Cleveland coach Byron Scott that he's taken to using Waiters' favorite new word -- though enunciating it so distinctly that Waiters surely cringes each time he hears it.

"We've got to continue to grow and these guys have got to continue to learn how to play with each other," Scott said. "But right now, they are vibing. So we want them to keep vibing."

The biggest factor that led to the vibing is that Irving and Waiters finally settled on something that seemed evident: Irving is the point guard. Waiters is the shooting guard. As such -- and as the Cavaliers' All-Star with superior ball-handling skills -- Irving will handle the ball the majority of the time when the two are on the court.

"Instead of 'It's his turn, it's my turn,' " Irving said. "We kind of had that at the beginning of the season, but now we're trying to figure out how to play together."

The result is that Irving has been more aggressive in initiating the offense and Waiters has become better at moving on the court without the ball. Scott said it was a project he was going to save for the off-season but opted to implore both players to attempt the more defined roles during the season when he realized there was nothing to lose.

Using his own experience as a player for the Los Angeles Lakers, Scott remembered it taking the duration of his rookie season and a full off-season before he began to feel comfortable with established Lakers point guard Magic Johnson. That's what he has been using as his guide in watching the chemistry development of Irving and Waiters, assuming that it merely needed time to emerge.

"But I started to think, 'You know what, these guys are going to have to learn to play together, anyway,' " Scott said.

Scott also sensed that Waiters was more receptive to suggestion and criticism in recent weeks than the rookie had been at the start of his time in Cleveland. It has taken more than half the season, but Scott feels as if Waiters is finally relaxing and becoming more comfortable with his teammates and role on the Cavaliers.

"He's opened up from a personal standpoint," Scott said. "He smiles more, he jokes more. I think he's having more fun. I think it just took him a while to just trust everything we were saying. . . . Trusting that they (his teammates) had his back and they wanted the best for him, as well."

Scott keeps referencing a new team-wide "trust" that has resulted in six wins in the past nine games, a feeling that Cavaliers players, in general, are focused more on team success than individual statistics.

"It's easier said than done," Waiters said of the trust. "You can easily say, 'I trust him and I have his back.' We're seeing it. When we mess up on the defensive end, another guy has my back. It's a great feeling."

There's still clearly work to be done, as evidenced by the backcourt's -- and team's -- inconsistent play against the Nuggets. But in nine games since their roles became more clearly defined, both have seen improvement; Irving is averaging 26.9 points on 52.4 percent shooting, and Waiters' shooting has improved to 41.2 percent while he averages 11.3 points.

"Once you get that feeling where you're really vibing with somebody and understand what they're doing and they understand what you're doing every time you're on the court, it's a beautiful thing," Scott said.

Gee's perfect game: Alonzo Gee isn't exactly known as a shooter. The Cavaliers' swingman is in the starting lineup for his defensive abilities, not for any outside shooting capabilities.

So when he nailed all eight field goals -- including three 3-pointers -- en route to 20 points against Denver on Saturday, it wasn't exactly expected. Gee shrugged it all off afterward, however.

"I just got my legs right," he said. "But it didn't help out much. We still got the loss."