Before the 2022-2023 NBA season, most around the NBA seemingly thought the Eastern Conference was the tougher of the two conferences, especially at the top. With top teams like the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks bringing back their key players for this season, most thought the Cleveland Cavaliers would have a tough time cracking the top four seeds. Instead, the Cavs have been fantastic since dropping their opener to the Toronto Raptors, as the Wine and Gold have won four straight contests since.
On Friday night in a matchup with last year’s Eastern Conference Champions, the Boston Celtics, the Cavs showed the rest of the NBA that they meant business. After digging themselves into a 13-point halftime deficit, and at one point being down by 15 points, Cleveland got two strong second half performances by Caris LeVert and Donovan Mitchell to lead them to a comeback 132-123 victory in overtime.
On the night, the Cavaliers were lead in scoring by Mitchell and LeVert, who became the second pair of Cavalier teammates to score 40 points or more in the same game, per NBA History. The first pair? LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals, where each had 41 points.
It was a huge win for the Cavs early in the season, but there are still things that they need to work on to consider themselves a real title threat. That said, let’s take a closer look at the Cavs stud and dud here from this W in Boston.