I'm mainly a college basketball fan, but shit like this is why I'm baffled when people say "they don't play defense in the NBA".

Yes, obviously it was set up to get LeBron the ball, but watch the play a few times. Rarely do NBA teams run a play that had a single objective in situations like this. Every player has a purpose, either as the main goal, a secondary goal, or to help spring the main or secondary goal.

They do this in college too, and high school, but as you drop down levels you lower the complication of the play because the team just can't handle it.

Chicago defended against this play excellently. A wonderful individual effort by Butler, and a wonderful team effort to defend against the cuts and switching beautifully by Chicago.

In hindsight it looks dumb having Mo inbounds this. But it's also the first game, and there's time to adjust. I've coached (not basketball but a similar sport) and ran plays in practice that have strange personnel wrinkles that work. Then you run it in a game and it gets destroyed and you look like an idiot as the coach. That's fine, it'd part of the job. As others have pointed out some of the Cavs cuts also weren't timed perfectly.

Maybe that limited what Mo should have had as second options. Or maybe Mo shouldn't have been making the pass in the first place.

So either they work on the play again and give it another shot, or they run it with a different person throwing the pass. It is up to the coach to make sure it works better the next time. It's an egregious coaching error when they run it again a few weeks into the season and it gets destroyed again. For now let's see if they learn from their mistakes. And let's see if Chicago also learns and can defend similar situations just as well in the future.

A well but not perfectly executed play by the Cavs (coaching included). Even better defense by the Bulls.