Cavs: 1 stud, 1 dud from comeback win over Celtics

The Cleveland Cavaliers could have easily lost last night. They were coming off a game Friday night, a strong win over the Detroit Pistons. The Boston Celtics had just knocked off the defending champions. The Celtics were favored in the game, and the Cavs would get another crack at them on Monday night.

Then the game started, and the Cavs couldn’t score to save their lives. They went scoreless for over seven minutes in the first quarter, logging just nine points total. They were down by as many as 19 points, and many teams would have folded at that point.

Instead, the Cavs fought back, smothering the Celtics with their defense to induce a scoreless stretch of their own, this time in the second half. They clawed their way back, and the last eight minutes of the game was a back-and-forth affair with the score tied more often than not. Then at the end Garland came up huge with a pair of free throws to take the lead and secure the win.

The Cavs overcame a 19-point deficit to beat the Celtics and get to 9-5 on the season. Who were the stud and dud from another memorable night?

This was a special night for the Cavs to begin with, their first nationally televised game of the season. They broke out their new city edition uniforms and court, which looked excellent on the screen. The crowd was absolutely hopping when the Cavs made their second-half comeback, something that hasn’t been true for much of the last few years.

The Cavs’ defense flexed its muscles Saturday night before a national audience, and their popular young rookie made an even larger name for himself. He leads the way as we identify a stud and a dud from the 91-89 victory.

Cavs: 1 stud from comeback win over Celtics – Evan Mobley

The Boston Celtics are a very good defensive team, and for much of the game they held the Cavaliers’ offense down. That included Evan Mobley, who for the first 20-plus minutes of the game was 0-for-3 from the field with 0 points.

Mobley didn’t let a slow offensive start impact his effort, as he had seven rebounds and was playing excellent defense including a block to open the 2nd quarter. Then the shots started to come around, both the attempts and the baskets. He scored his first points on a pullup jumper from the free-throw line with 3:15 seconds left in the second quarter. He hit a 3-pointer two minutes later. Then in the second half he leaned into that smooth jumper to take what the defense was giving him.

Mobley has a long way to go in building out an NBA frame. He was unable to budge Robert Williams III or Grant Williams, although when Jayson Tatum rotated onto him late in the game he backed him right into the basket and scored an easy layup. Yet even when Mobley was largely walled out of the paint he was patient and trusted in his jumper which went down again and again.

In the 4th quarter it became the Mobley show. Schroder roasted the Cavs in the first half but found it tough sledding in the second, and he tried to drive in on Mobley early in the fourth. Mobley shut him down, then blocked his jumper with his fingertips. He went down on the other end and hit a turnaround jumper on Grant Williams. Later, as the Cavs’ defense was holding Boston to a long scoreless stretch, the Cavs got out in transition after a turnover and Osman found Rubio, who found Mobley for a streaking wide-open dunk.

The highlight moment was with about five-and-a-half minutes to go. Mobley misses a shot in a tie game, and many players would be down on themselves for a beat or two. Not Mobley. He sprints in transition to catch up to Jayson Tatum and blocks the ball right out of Tatum’s hand before he can complete his finger roll:

Initially ruled a goaltend, the Cavs challenged and it was overturned. Those two points turned out to be the difference. Mobley finished with a line of 19 points, nine rebounds, two steals, three blocks, just one foul, and was a team-high +16 in a two-point win. Evan Mobley was incredible Saturday night.

Honorable mention to Cedi Osman, whose energy keyed the Cavs on both ends of the court. He hit a huge 3-pointer to start the 4th, and came up with the game-winning stop to end it.

Cavs: 1 dud from comeback win over Celtics – The entire offense as a whole

The Cleveland Cavaliers scored nine points in the first quarter. That’s it – just nine points. In fact, a Darius Garland pullup shot gave them nine points with 7:16 remaining in the quarter, and they promptly went scoreless the rest of the quarter. Some of that was a tough Celtics defense, but much of it was just bad offense.

It continued in the second quarter, and the Cavs had just 38 points at halftime. The most points they scored in a single quarter all game was 29. While Garland, Ricky Rubio, Osman and Mobley all had moments, at the end of the game the Cavs won scoring just 91 points.

Cleveland shot just 38.2 percent from the field and 26.3 percent from long-range. They couldn’t find penetration for much of the game, and had to settle for scoring on low-percentage jumpers in the second half. They had only 17 assists as a team as many of those jumpers came in isolation.

The defense absolutely stepped up, and it got the Cavs a huge comeback. win. The Celtics are a really tough defensive team. Yet the Cavs got lucky in this one; they aren’t going to be able to win with such an anemic offensive performance very often this year.

This article could have been “5 studs from the comeback win” as Ricky Rubio was key to unlocking the offense in the second half, Osman was awesome, and Darius Garland was the only thing keeping them afloat in the first half. The crowd at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse was tremendous. This was a really good win over a good Boston team and it is yet another piece of evidence that this Cleveland team is different, and better, than what we expected.