1 stud, 1 dud from Cavs’ dispiriting loss to the 76ers

1 dud: Jarrett Allen

Jarrett Allen is rightfully considered an All-Star snub, losing out on a spot that was instead given to Khris Middleton by coaches who don’t seem to have been watching this season very closely and just chose frontcourt players by reputation. He seems to have channeled that chip on his shoulder to some dominant games in the past two weeks.

Then he ran into Joel Embiid, not only an All-Star starter but one of the front-runners for MVP. Allen is making $20 million per season on a new contract to provide size inside, to help the Cavs match up against some of the bigger interior players in the East while Evan Mobley builds his weight and strength up.

While Allen has certainly brought that interior presence for much of the season, he came up empty against Embiid on Saturday night. Embiid scored 40 points, much of that in a direct matchup with Allen. In a 10-point loss, Allen played 33 minutes and was a -27 on the night. He had one highlight block on Embiid, but also was the unfortunate victim of a Dunk of the Year nominee.

The Cavs should be good enough to not only hang with a team like the Philadelphia 76ers, but beat them, especially in a situation where they trade three rotation players for James Harden but don’t yet have the All-Star in their lineup. Allen was hardly the only Cavs player to struggle — Isaac Okoro could only muster one shot, while the bench shot 10-of-31 from the field. Yet he went up mano a mano with Embiid and was clobbered as thoroughly as that dunk above indicates.

The Cavs have a couple of nights to stew over this loss before taking on the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night in their final game before the All-Star Break. They’ll get three more cracks at Embiid and the 76ers too. Hopefully they can evaluate what went wrong on Saturday night and rebound to continue to fight for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.