The Cavs appear to be back on track. After a horrendous road trip, Cleveland is back in the business of putting Wins in the win column. They still only went 1-2 on the week, but they were injured all week and played well despite that and finished off the week with a 2 OT win. Let’s take a look.
Game 1 vs the Minnesota Timberwolves: Cavs down Jarrett Allen and Donovan Mitchell. The two bigs of Minnesota haven’t worked this season, UNTIL this game. A big part of this was Jarrett Allen missing the game, but no excuses. Darius Garland was PHENOMENAL. DG scored 51 points, with 27 in the fourth quarter to nearly bring the Cavs allllll the way back. Lamar Stephens was the Cavs second leading scorer with 15. Garland dished the ball around, and Love and Osman scored 14 each. The big surprise from this game was Mobley struggling badly. He had 13 rebounds but only 4 points. However, Garland broke out of the shooting slump he was in with this game. 10 3’s, on 50% shooting but it wasn’t quite enough as the Cavaliers fall 129-124.
Game 2 vs the Milwaukee Bucks: A tale of 3 quarters. The Cavs played very well 3 out of 4 quarters… but that lone bad quarter hurt. The Cavs went into the half down just 1, but in the third quarter fell as many as 17 points down. The Cavs were without Allen again, and the bench unit did us no favors, with inconsistent offense and defense. Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland did their thing, scoring 23 each, while Garland also tossed out 8 assists. Evan Mobley looked good, scoring 20 points and racking up 7 boards. The Cavalier defense held Giannis in check scoring-wise but struggled with the offensive game of Brook Lopez. Lopez was raining 3s, blocking shots, and doing whatever he wanted out there as the Bucks take the win off of a big third quarter by a score of 113-98.
Game 3 vs the Charlotte Hornets: Terry Rozier is a BALLER! The Cavs late-game defense nearly failed again. When the game clock hits 4 minutes left in the fourth, this team truly loses its mind. They forget how to play, and this game is another example of that. Up 10 with FIFTY seconds left. How did we end up with 2 overtime periods? Oh…yeah, Terry Rozier went crazy. Kelly Oubre Jr had a better game scoring-wise than Rozier, but Rozier was clutch in the fourth. Hit the game-tying 3 with 0.5 seconds left to send the game to OT. Thankfully after the first OT period, the Cavs pulled away. Mitchell and Garland started cooking again. Mobley started playing his elite defense again. And just like that, we were winning again. Darius Garland had a huge game, scoring 41 points with 6 assists. Mobley finished with 21 points and 18 rebounds, which is a career-high. Allen returned and grabbed 12 boards along with 20 points. And Mitchell did his thing per usual, being clutch late game and consistent early game, finishing with 34 points and 6 assists. Cavs win 132-122.
I love this team. The Cavs take on the Miami Heat up next, on 11/20/22 at 7 PM Eastern. All stats provided are courtesy of NBA.com
John Zimmerman