The Cleveland Cavaliers will welcome the Dallas Mavericks into Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse tonight as they look to get to 3-3 on the season.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will welcome the upstart Dallas Mavericks into Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse tonight as they look to get to 3-3 on the season.
The Mavericks are led by the two-headed monster of Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis and have been very good this season. They currently sit at 3-2 on the season with their only losses coming to the Portland Trail Blazers by two points and an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night.
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This season, against the spread, the Cavaliers currently sit at 4-1. The only game they didn’t cover the spread was against the Milwaukee Bucks and their three-point barrage in the fourth quarter.
The Action Network opened this game up with the Cavaliers as five-point underdogs. A whopping 82% of the money has come in on the Mavericks, yet the line hasn’t moved and still stands at Cavaliers +5.
Tonight’s game, for the Cavaliers, will be all about stopping Doncic and Porzingis, which admittedly will be much easier said than done. Both Doncic and Porzingis have been incredibly good this season.
Through five games, Doncic is a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Basketball-Reference, he has per-game averages of 26.2 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 8.4 assists. The second-year man has been so good this season and is truly jumping into the upper-echelon of the elite NBA players.
Porzingis, the Mavericks number two option, is also having an All-Star caliber season thus far. Again, according to Basketball-Reference, he has per-game averages of 21 points, 8 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 2 blocks.
The way Cleveland has to defend these two is to make them shooters. Both are very capable outside shooters, but their percentages haven’t been great thus far this season. Porzingis is shooting just 33.3% from deep on 4.8 attempts per game. Doncic is shooting just 31.8% from deep on a whopping 8.8 attempts per game (all stats per Basketball-Reference).
Both players are capable of getting hot from deep so it is a dangerous game to make them outside shooters, but they haven’t quite gotten it going from there yet.
For the Cavaliers, Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love are their two-headed monster so far this season. Thompson is coming off of his worst game of the season in the Cavs’ last game against the Pacers, a lot of it was due to foul trouble, however. He had just seven points and 10 rebounds according to ESPN.
Love had another splendid game against Indiana. He had 22 points, 17 rebounds, and 4 assists according to ESPN.
In order for the Cavs to not only cover the spread in this game but win the game outright, they need to get more consistent play from their rookie guard. Darius Garland had a miserable game against the Pacers (0-10 from the field), and quite frankly, hasn’t been great so far in his rookie season. Per Basketball-Reference he has per-game averages of 8 points and 3.4 assists with a miserable effective field goal percentage of 35.8%.
The bet – Dallas Mavericks -5
This is a game for Thompson, who has hopes of making the NBA All-Defensive First Team this season, to really show that he is worthy of that selection. He passed step one when he contained Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee. Tonight, he will have to slow down Porzingis and he will likely shadow him throughout. Thompson has shown that he has the ability to slow down great players so he certainly will make it tough on him.
However, the Cavaliers don’t have anyone to slow down Doncic, and that will be the difference. Cedi Osman will likely be matched up with him from the jump, but it’s unlikely Osman will be able to slow him down.
Osman is shooting the ball very well this season, but he has stretches where he disappears during games. Per Basketball-Reference, he is averaging 9.2 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.6 assists on the season while sporting an effective field goal percentage of 63.2%. He, unfortunately so far this season, hasn’t taken that next jump in his development that the Cavs had hoped for.
Defensively, he is sporting the best rating of his career so far this season as it sits at 107 (Basketball-Reference). Osman will have to step his game up to another level in order to slow down the potential MVP.