1 stud and 1 dud for Cavaliers in OT win over Wizards on Sunday

Heading into Sunday night’s game against the Washington Wizards in their home opener, Cleveland Cavaliers fans had to have been encouraged from their early play.

Cleveland didn’t get the job done in a three-point loss at the Toronto Raptors in the season opener on Wednesday, but there were positives from that one, and the Cavaliers handled the Chicago Bulls 128-96 on Saturday. As a side note, the Bulls do desperately miss Lonzo Ball, who is still set to seemingly be out for an extended period, with a knee injury.

Either way, Cavs offseason trade acquisition Donovan Mitchell had been terrific in those two contests, too. And in those first two outings, he became the first Cavaliers player to have 30-plus points in both of his first two games with the Wine and Gold, per the Cavs.

Now, the Cavaliers haven’t had Darius Garland since near the end of the first half of the Toronto game with an eye injury, which is unfortunate early on. He’ll reportedly likely be back later this week.

That said, the group has played really well, for the most part, and they followed up that Chicago game with a win versus Washington on Sunday, in which they prevailed in overtime 117-107. There were a few instances when it seemed the Cavs would pull away, before the Wiz would keep hanging around, and they made some key shots. The game being on the second leg of a back-to-back for the Cavs was tough, objectively.

Cleveland fumbling the lead late led to this one going to overtime, which was still a bit surprising, given how the Cavs largely controlled things since the later portion of the first quarter, to that last point.  Kristaps Porzingis started well, and hit some crucial shots at various points, leading to 18 points, and four triples, and Monte Morris played under control. From there, Bradley Beal was cooking, with 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting, and to reiterate, this one was a hard-fought contest.

However, the Wine and Gold got a spark from their bench in the first half, and Cedi Osman and Dean Wade gave the group energy in stretches.

Osman was one of the key shooters for Cleveland again, leading to 16 points, 13 of which came in the first half, and he hit three triples, and had three assists in 32 minutes, including in overtime. Wade had 12 points, hit two triples, and his defensive positioning and help sense made a difference; his heady sense and movement feel played into him being a game-high plus-19.

I also have to give Jarrett Allen his due for his play, particularly on defense. There were some bumpy moments offensively, and Porzingis got loose from beyond the arc a bit, but Allen did some nice work on switchouts at times, and he came up with a bunch of unheralded plays as a helper, and had two big blocks. His finishing and effort late/in overtime eventually led to him having 15 points and 14 rebounds, too.

So taking everthing into account, then, which players qualified as the Cavs stud and dud from this one?

The stud had to be Donovan Mitchell, from my view.