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.
Cavs stud: Lauri Markkanen
As I alluded to on the previous slide, Markkanen easily had his best game as a Cavalier recording an efficient 31 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, and 4 steals. Markkanen was an excellent 6-of-12 from three-point land and played some solid defense on whoever he was manning up for that possession. Of course, Jokic did get buckets on Markkanen in stretches, but Markkanen’s active hands did pay off, and he did force some crucial misses in key sequences, and in fairness, Jokic is one of the game’s best and most versatile bigs.
The 31 points, 6 made threes, and 4 steals are season-highs for Markkanen. The season has not been perfect for Markkanen as it has been injury-ridden but hopefully, he can use this game to get into a rhythm. Regardless, this type of game from him is encouraging just a few weeks out from the start of the playoffs.
Markkanen’s clutch overtime three-pointer was when the decision was clear for who was getting the stud of the night. Both Evan Mobley and Garland had fantastic games as well though and deserve some recognition.
Garland dropped 25 points and dished out 14 dimes to go with 4 rebounds, including 1 huge offensive rebound in overtime that we touched on.
Mobley had one of the best games of his young career, from there, recording 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks. His nine points in overtime were crucial for Cleveland, too, as was his help defense.
Cavs dud: Isaac Okoro
After an impressive performance against the Philadelphia 76ers in a close loss on Wednesday, Isaac Okoro lived up to his nickname ice as he was just that today when shooting the ball; that’s obviously not the reasoning for the nickname, however, in that sense, it was applicable here.
Okoro was a team-low 25% from the field going 2-of-8 and missing all 3 of his three-point shots. Okoro finished the night with 4 points and 5 rebounds in 37 minutes of action. There is not much to say about this very forgettable offensive performance, and Okoro is going to have to play better on that end if the Cavs wish to hang onto the 6th seed.
Now, on a positive note, Okoro did do a quality job defensively, and did have some really good contests. His grit was still impactful, to some degree, and I can’t necessarily completely grill him here, as he was a plus-18. The offense just needs to be there more consistently.
An honorable mention dud would be Caris LeVert. LeVert also had a solid game against the 76ers but ended this one with an abysmal 27% from the field going 3-of-11. LeVert recorded 10 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists so not awful, per se, but the shot just was not falling. I wanted to give LeVert the benefit of the doubt considering he is still getting used to playing with the Cavs, too, and he did knock down 3 of his 3 attempts from deep.
This was a huge win for the Cavs so I will not dwell too much on the negative but I have to ask the question, no Cedi Osman again? J.B. Bickerstaff again did not play Osman, which is a concerning trend of late.
Anyway, Friday night was the first leg of a back-to-back, as Cleveland will host the Detroit Pistons tomorrow as they look to even up the season series against them.