Joe Vardon, cleveland.com

IT making progress toward return

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Isaiah Thomas’ timetable for return seems to be accelerating from the original target of January 1.

Thomas, the two-time All-Star and All-NBA point guard, hasn’t played this season because of right hip injuries suffered last year. Weeks after the Cavs traded Kyrie Irving to Boston for Thomas and more, Cleveland set a conservative target of the new year for his return.

Though there has been no official update on that target from the Cavs, Thomas’ on-court work has increased at practice and before games. He received a full training-table stretching and treatment before Friday’s game in Washington, and then hit the court for stationary, one-dribble, and two-dribble shooting, as well as some half-speed drives to the hoop.

Sunday, he was running on the court.

“I don’t know,” coach Tyronn Lue said Sunday when asked if he still thought Thomas would be out until January. “You know, the staff is doing a great job of just, you know, just trying to get him ready, trying to get him right, so, we don’t want to rush him back if he’s not 100 percent.

“They’ve been doing a good job of taking it slow, making sure they’re rehabilitating him the right way, and we just go from there.”

Over the weekend, ESPN reported that Derrick Rose was on a “minutes restriction” of up to 31 minutes each night. Rose missed four games already with a sprained left ankle and injuries have plagued him for most of his career.

Rose entered play Sunday averaging 16 points and 28.6 minutes. When Thomas returns, Rose’s minutes will go down, any way.

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Shumpert 'hopefully' plays Tuesday

Cavs guard Iman Shumpert is expected to practice Monday and Lue said he would “hopefully” be available to play Tuesday against the Milwaukee Bucks. Sunday’s game will be the fourth in a row Shumpert’s missed because of right knee soreness.

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New low Friday for Wade

Dwyane Wade played just 14 minutes and scored two points in Friday’s win over Washington. It was a historic outing for Wade in a bad way -- excluding an injury or end-of-year situation, Wade had never played fewer minutes and scored fewer points in a game in 15 hall-of-fame seasons.

“It was just matchups,” Lue said. “To put him on John Wall, put him on Bradley Beal, it’s a tough matchup for him. So, when those guys came out I tried to get him in to make it easier on him, especially defensively.

“The way those guys move and the pace they play at, I just thought it was fair if D Wade just tried to play against the guys who came off the bench.”

Wade, 35, started the first three games at shooting guard for the Cavs before asking to come off the bench. Entering play Sunday, he was averaging a career low 7.0 ppg.