When looking back at their last contest on Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Cleveland Cavaliers started the game off slow, trailing 72-59 at halftime. They came out the gate hot in the 3rd quarter scoring 31 points and holding the 76ers to only 13. A mix of tough makes from Philly and costly mistakes from the Cavs led to their demise falling 118-114, but it turned into a heck of a contest, particularly with how Cleveland started so slow.
With All-Star center Jarrett Allen out with a fractured finger, the Cavs knew going into this game that MVP favorite Joel Embiid was going to be a lot to handle. Embiid scorched the Cavs finishing the game with 35 points, 17 rebounds, and 5 assists.
The Cavs were also missing forward Dean Wade (knee soreness), who has been a defensive anchor of sorts for them this season. Lamar Stevens got the nod filling in for Wade admirably only seeing 18 minutes of action but playing some solid defense as usual and had 8 points on 66% from the field.
All-star Darius Garland had another day at the office pouring in 22 points, to go with 7 assists and 5 rebounds, but struggled from the field shooting a measly 33% and going 25% from 3. These shooting struggles along with a weak fourth quarter where the team really could have used him prevented me from putting him as the stud of the night. The stats were there but he shot the ball too poorly and was saved by his free throws.
Rookie sensation Evan Mobley had a weak game scoring 13 points to go along with 9 rebounds, and 3 assists. Mobley hit his averages but with Allen out of the lineup and him hitting a career-high 30 points against the LA Clippers Monday night you just wanted more out of him.
He is a rookie after all and I will give him a pass considering he was busy either manning up Embiid or playing help defense. As you can see from Embiid’s totals Mobley had his hands full. For these reasons, I will grant him a pass from the dud of the night.
The loss pushes the Cavs to a 39-30 record and with the red-hot Toronto Raptors on their heels they need to play with a sense of urgency or else they may just find themselves in the play-in and could potentially miss the playoffs altogether.
With that said, let’s take a look at the Cavaliers stud from this close loss to the Sixers on Wednesday, before then hitting on the Cavs dud for this one.
Cavs stud: Isaac Okoro
Isaac Okoro was tasked with guarding James Harden and did a good job at slowing him down. This is not an uncommon task for Okoro as he normally guards the opposing team’s best perimeter player. Harden finished with 22 points and 11 assists but Okoro made him work for those numbers.
Harden shot okay from the field at 42% (5-of-12), however, he was an abysmal 16% from 3 shooting 1-of-6. Ice was practically one of the only bright spots from the Cavs in the first half, and without his contributions then, this might’ve been way out of reach for Cleveland the rest of the way.
Okoro finished the game with 17 points and 5 rebounds and splashing 3 three-pointers, going 3-of-5 from downtown. Okoro has struggled from long range this season being pretty unreliable but he came through tonight being the spot-up shooter in the corner the Cavs need him to be.
The former 5th pick out of Auburn was second on the team in scoring behind Garland and will realistically never put up glorious numbers but his impact is almost always felt on the defensive end.
Caris LeVert deserves some recognition as well scoring 15 points and dishing out 7 dimes off of the bench. This is just his second game back from a brief hiatus due to an injury and it is encouraging to see that he has accepted the role of a ball-handler off the bench and beginning to excel at it. Wednesday’s performance for him was a nice follow-up to a solid first game back on Monday.
Cavs dud: J.B. Bickerstaff
Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has been pretty solid for the most part this year, being a defensive-minded coach and orchestrating the Cavs defense to being one of the best in the whole association. Bickerstaff is in the running for Coach of the Year but straight up got out-coached Wednesday night. Granted his matchup was against one of the best in Doc Rivers but his rotations and decision-making were just inexcusable.
My first gripe is with Cedi Osman getting no playing time. I get starting Lamar Stevens in place of Dean Wade but I think the Cavaliers really could have used Osman. Admittedly, Osman is wildly inconsistent but there wasn’t a time in the second quarter to throw him out there and see how he is feeling? Not to mention the 10 empty minutes given to Dylan Windler who just recently got back from a G-League stint.
Did Bickerstaff think sending him down would ignite some type of fire in him? Well, it didn’t and he basically did nothing going 0-of-1 from the field to go along with 2 rebounds and a steal. I really think Osman would have done more in that same amount of playing time; in fairness, Windler is better defensively. He’s just not providing much, if anything, on the other end, and Osman should’ve gotten some playing time.
My second issue is Kevin Love just not seeing enough time. This team is young and inexperienced at times and as we saw in the first half, this can snowball into poor situations like giving up 72 first half points and taking rushed shots.
With a veteran like Love out there, he can help slow the pace down and stretch the floor with his shooting ability. Love has had a career revival scoring 14 points per, to go with 7 rebounds this game. Love has been reliable for the Cavaliers this season and is putting himself into the Sixth Man of the Year conversation.
Overall, the rough start was hard to come back from even after a stellar 3rd quarter. The Wine and Gold will look to bounce back from this loss when they take on one of the other MVP candidates in Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Friday.