1 stud and 1 dud for Cavs in their overtime win over Nuggets

It was a rollercoaster of a game for the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night but they were able to come out on top in a 119-116 overtime victory over the Denver Nuggets. After a solid first quarter, the Cavs fell apart in the second quarter and found themselves trailing 11 at halftime 52-63.

The Cavs played with a sense of urgency in the second half outscoring the Nuggets by 11 and forcing overtime, though. That stellar second half play included being down 14 with 10 minutes left and being able to tie the game.

Denver took an early lead in overtime but the Cavaliers’ defense prevailed allowing just 2 points in the final three-and-a-half minutes of the overtime period while they were able to score 10 in that same amount of time.

Coming out of a timeout with under a minute on the clock, Darius Garland drove to the hoop and attempted a tough layup that just barely rolled off the rim. Garland gave his maximum effort extending for a huge offensive rebound and kicking it out to Lauri Markkanen who nailed the three-pointer putting the Cavs up by 3 with 30 seconds remaining. Markkanen easily had the best game of his Cavalier career, but we will get more into that later.

Denver coming out of their final timeout would score their only points of the final 3 minutes of overtime with a Nikola Jokic basket. Jokic was a handful on Friday night, recording 32 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists, but the Cavaliers did get some key stops against him. And for whatever reason, in Jokic’s minutes, the Nuggets were outscored by 16, and the Cavaliers staying the course did pay off.

This win pushes the Cavs to a 40-30 record and with the Toronto Raptors falling to the Los Angeles Lakers last night in overtime, the Wine and Gold get a little bit of breathing room clutching on to that 6th seed in the Eastern Conference.

Now let’s get to my pick for the Cavs stud of the night from this last one.