The Cleveland Cavaliers for the second game in a row were able to come away with an upset win, with this time being in a 99-87 W against a Denver Nuggets contending-caliber team. This was by no means the prettiest game, as the Cavs had to scrap and quite frankly just gutted it out. Neither team was able to shoot the ball particularly well. The Cavaliers only shot 28 percent from three-point land, while shooting 46.3 percent from the field and the Nuggets had more issues, only shooting 23.7 percent from three and 40.7 percent from the field overall.
Even with all of that the Cavs again were able to scrap and gut out a tough win against a really good team, especially defensively. Cleveland didn’t allow a ton of easy looks and mostly when the Nuggets tried to get inside, Evan Mobley/Jarrett Allen were typically there to contest them at the rim.
Denver was forced to settle for outside jumpers and the shots simply weren’t falling for the Nuggets on Monday night. Plus, the Cavaliers were able to force 22 turnovers, which led to 16 points. From the start, it felt like the Nuggets were never able to get in a groove, were off-balance, and never had any control of this game. No player really stood above the rest and this is your classic complete team effort that found a way to win.
All in all, this was an important win for the Cavs and early on in the season, can be a building block W this young Wine and Gold team can hope to build on. That’s regardless of Jamal Murray still being sidelined for Denver due to a torn left ACL during last season.
Anyhow, here, we’ll take a look at a stud and dud, in relation to the Cavs side of things, even with the complete team effort/result.
We’ll begin with the positive first.