The Cavaliers came off of the All Star Break looking flat, and go 0-2 on the week.
Game 1, vs The Denver Nuggets: The Cavs are usually the team that gods down big and comes back to win, this go around? It was Denver as Cleveland blew a comfortable lead. Evan Mobley had 31 points through 3 quarters… and then, to my knowledge, didn’t touch the ball in the 4th. You have to feed the hot hand. Mitchell and Garland took the blame here, admitting that they shouldn’t have tried playing hero ball and should’ve passed inside. Accountability is good, especially for such a young team, but man… this loss sucked. Jokic continued his likely MVP season with another triple double, while Michael Porter Jr scored an efficient 25 for the Nuggets as they steal the win in Cleveland, 115-109.
Game 2, @The Atlanta Hawks: Easily the worst game of the season for Cleveland. Flat, no fight, no push, no shove. No offense, no defense. The Cavs never put their foot on the gas. It was as if the car didn’t have a pedal. What makes this worse, is it was against a BAD Hawks team. Yeah, they have Trae “Turnover” Young, and Dejounte Murray, who are good. But they do not match up well with Cleveland at all, and shouldn’t have won this game. But there are no excuses, they outplayed Cleveland and DID win. They exposed lazy defense. They played hard on defense, and slowed us down offensively until it was too late. It was a pitiful performance, but I know that the players aren’t happy with that. They’ll bounce back, per usual. Garland had 33 for Cleveland while Young had 34 for Atlanta, in a 136-119 Hawks win.
All stats provided courtesy of NBA.com
John Zimmerman