Cavs loss to Clips left bad taste, but roadie has had its share of positives

Currently, the Cleveland Cavaliers are three games into their first lengthy road trip of the 2022-23 season, with the team last letting one slip away Monday at the LA Clippers.

The game was one with runs for both sides, and for two-and-a-half quarters or so, there was plenty of big-time shooting from both sides. The game generally had its share of fireworks, before things bogged down some.

From there, the Cavaliers would start to assert themselves, and picked up strings of stops in the fourth quarter, and with about five minutes left, looked to be well-positioned to put the game away.

Unfortunately, it didn’t play out that way. The Clippers ratcheted up their defense, Cleveland’s ball and man movement stagnated at a bad time, seemingly due to fatigue to some degree, and the Clips took advantage of getting to the free throw line in the bonus. Eventually, despite Cleveland at one point having a 112-100 lead with 4:37 left, L.A. stormed back, took the lead, and would go on to win 119-117.

This game was not one to be too frustrated about, though, in the grand scheme. This Cavaliers team is still largely young at its core, and these types of games can be meaningful for them to learn from.

Granted, it did leave a bad taste in ones’ mouth, sure, but despite that, the road trip has treated the team well so far, with wins at the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers in mind, too.

It was disappointing how the Cavs couldn’t finish at the Clips, however, they’ve had a solid road trip thus far.

Make no mistake, the Cavaliers let that game slip away, with fatigue looking to be a factor in that stretch run for the Clippers. The Cavs being scoreless because of lack of ball movement in the closing part of that game did them in, which stunk, considering they’d been moving it so well throughout the contest, and a bunch in other games.

And at times in that last Clipper game, I frankly thought it would have been sensible to have Lamar Stevens in there as an alternative to Isaac Okoro, and just perhaps as an alternative to Evan Mobley at the 5 for a bit, Robin Lopez could’ve been useful there.

Mobley did have a fairly effective game offensively off-ball, which was a key factor in him amassing 26 points, but he did end up fouling out, due to the fourth quarter in times when Jarrett Allen was not out there, to a considerable extent. Mobley was a minus-20 in the contest, also, and while that’s completely uncharacteristic, he wasn’t his best defensively in that one.

That said, even with this last frustrating close to last game for Cleveland, as we hit on, this road trip has had its share of positives.