The Cleveland Cavaliers have had a pattern this season. When facing teams missing one or more star players, they have brought the hammer. Show an obvious rotational weakness to this upstart group and they would pounce. Miami, Milwaukee, Utah — even some of the league’s best teams have lost big when they didn’t bring their full arsenal against the Cavs.
That was supposed to be the outcome against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night, especially since when the teams met in December in such a situation the Cavs clobbered the Bulls. This time around, with the Bulls missing Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball, among others, the Cavs should have been in line to do so once again.
Instead the Bulls, losers of four straight coming into the game, entered in a place of desperation that the Cavs, riding a five-game winning steak, did not have. The game was close throughout, including 102-103 with four minutes to go, before the Bulls blew it open down the stretch to win 117-104 and halt the Cavs’ win streak.
The Cavs went to Chicago and lost to the short-handed Bulls. Who stood out for good or ill from Wednesday night’s disappointing game?
DeMar DeRozan led the way with a game-high 30 points, scoring primarily through an unstoppable stream of tough jumpers from all over the court. Nikola Vucevic broke out of a slump and poured in another 24 points himself, while rookie guard Ayo Dosunmu hit 7-of-8 shots for 18 points with eight assists. Alex Caruso returned from a long absence to post a game-high +18.
The Cavs as a whole struggled to slow down the Bulls, who shot 54.7 percent from the field and 10-of-22 (45.5 percent) from deep. Offensively the Cavs played well until that late-game stall out. Evan Mobley and Darius Garland both played well, with Mobley scoring an efficient 18 points and Garland putting up a double-double with 20 points and 12 assists.
Who from the Cavs had the best night against the Bulls, and who had the worst? Let’s highlight one stud and one dud from this loss to the short-handed Bulls to help illustrate the story of what happened on Wednesday night.
1 stud from Cavs loss to Bulls: Lauri Markkanen
Lauri Markkanen‘s best skill is his ability to shoot efficiently and prolifically from outside, and even while the Cavs have been surging this year his shot has come and gone. For the season he has shot just 33.5 percent from deep, running hot or cold on a game-to-game basis.
Wednesday night was a hot shooting night, as Markkanen hit nine of his 14 shots en route to a team-high 28 points, including 5-of-9 from deep. He hit multiple shots off of movement, serving as that necessary floor-spacer to open up the interior for Garland and Mobley.
He wasn’t just a shooter, however, cutting hard into the paint on multiple occasions to score into the rim. His teammates did a great job of finding him on those cuts, and he was a solid 4-of-5 inside the arc including one thunderous dunk. Even more impressively, he racked up six foul shots, shooting 5-of-6 from the stripe.
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Markkanen was a team-worst -12 on the night, but he wasn’t targeted defensively and it was a group “effort” (failure) in preventing DeRozan from scoring. On DeRozan’s 14 made shots only three were on Markkanen, and all were contested. He isn’t the type of defensive stopper the Cavs needed — the loss of Lamar Stevens was felt acutely, and the puzzling lack of minutes for Dean Wade — but he wasn’t the reason DeRozan sliced them up. Overall his hot shooting night helped to carry the Cavs until things came to a screeching halt, for the entire team, in the final four minutes.
1 dud in Cavs loss to Bulls: Jarrett Allen
Jarrett Allen is in the midst of an All-Star campaign, with an excellent shot at making the team for the first time in his career. That can be true while still acknowledging that his outing on Wednesday night against the Bulls was brutal.
Offensively Allen was largely quiet, which is inexcusable against a soft set of defensive big men. He shot 2-for-5 for the game, scoring six points. Nikola Vucevic gave up huge scoring nights to players like Day’Ron Sharpe, Brandon Clarke and even Al Horford in recent games, but Allen couldn’t seem to get into good position or convert. Lauri roasted this frontcourt, as he should; Allen couldn’t get anything going. Nikola Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan is one of the worst defensive 4-5 pairings in the league, and Allen couldn’t take advantage.
Defensively he in turn was roasted by Nikola Vucevic, including being blown by trying to contest on the perimeter and being schooled on the block by Vucevic’s post moves. He had some decent moments, but there are a half-dozen plays the defensive coaches will be going over with Allen on tape. That kind of mediocre night is not up to his normal standards.
Allen was a -10 on the night and had a whopping four turnovers to match his season-high. Allen didn’t chuck 20 shots or play matador defense, but he is usually a hyper-efficient force inside who blocks shots (just one against the Bulls) and walls off the rim. He did none of that well on Wednesday night.
Overall the Cavs were in the game late on the road against the team in first place in the standings. The Bulls were missing LaVine and Ball, true, but the Cavs are playing without Collin Sexton and Ricky Rubio. They were down just one point with four minutes to go against a team that shot lights out from deep; these games happen, and the Cavs should still feel good moving forward.