At halftime in the Cleveland Cavaliers game on Friday night at the Milwaukee Bucks, one had to feel confident that Cleveland could keep their winning streak going. The Cavs were up by 11 then, had their offense humming and were opportunistic on defense.
Then, the Bucks turned the tables in the blink of an eye in the third quarter. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis and Milwaukee had a 22-2 run in the third, and in the quarter overall, they outscored the Cavaliers 35-10. The Cavaliers ultimately lost the contest then, and in the fourth, their defense didn’t have much sustained success for multiple possessions, either.
The Bucks did hit some tough shots, but Antetokounmpo and company were too much in the second half in general, shooting 54.3 percent from the field. Evan Mobley and the Cavs, meanwhile, couldn’t get any shots to go it seemed in that third, and shot 31.4 percent after halftime.
Even without Khris Middleton, Milwaukee looked like a team that has gone through their share of battles, in the postseason at that, and a Cavs team with a ton of youth still couldn’t stop the bleeding when it mattered.
Now, Jarrett Allen would only play 12 minutes in the game, as he landed on his right hip after a tough fall following him trying to contest an Antetokounmpo shot, which was a pump fake, eventually. The Cavs aren’t the same without him, and hopefully, it isn’t too serious; Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com had this update following the game, which could lead one to be reasonably optimistic, on the plus side.
#Cavs Jarrett Allen seemed to be moving OK in the locker room after the game despite the hip injury that led to him playing just four minutes in the second half. Allen strolled toward his locker and jokingly said, "I'm getting old"
— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) November 26, 2022
Nonetheless, that Milwaukee game was another one where the Cavaliers were going through it, if you will, on the road. Cleveland has lost their last five road contests, and fell to 4-6 on the 2022-23 campaign on the road after Friday’s game.
The Wine and Gold have to be sharper to be more viable away from home, and in time, they can improve there. Their youth has just been apparent in recent road contests, and they’ll have to clean up.
The Cavs have been in a road funk, but that’s bound to happen with a young group, and they’ll have to work through it.
The Cavaliers at this stage are 12-7, and they’re third in the Eastern Conference, after sweeping a four-game homestand as of Wednesday. It’s not the end of the world, and the Wine and Gold are third in net rating thus far this season.
As we’ve hit on, though, Cleveland hasn’t been the same on the road, as they’ve lost their last five games away from the friendly confinds of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, with three of those contests being on teams’ Western road trip.
In several of those outings, the Cavaliers looked to have had control, too, as they blew leads late at the LA Clippers and at the Golden State Warriors, and in these last two games at Milwaukee, were done in by runs in the third quarter.
In these past five road outings, they’ve again had their issues either closing contests, or in third quarters, and for some stretches, the shots haven’t fallen. The offense is going to go through Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, and there can be some lulls, and in both Milwaukee games, not having Jarrett Allen (along with Dean Wade in the first one) much didn’t help.
Granted, this is not a unique problem for young teams, and the Cavaliers, by comparison, are 8-1 at home on the season here. At Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, they’ve had a net rating of 10.1, compared to 3.4 on the road. In this span of contests, however, the Cavaliers net rating on the road in that span has been a ghastly -11.8, and their effective field goal shooting clip has been 52.2.
If the Cavaliers can find ways to prevent huge runs, and get some more contributions from the bench, as they did at home recently, and find ways to maybe create more early offense, that could aid the group away from home.
As we touched on, it hasn’t necessarily been all doom and gloom for Cleveland in these recent road tilts, but their youth and inexperience has shown in stretches at times, and they haven’t been able to respond.
They can still get this corrected, it’ll just take them having better poise, and better communication in some stretches on defense. It’d make a difference to have Kevin Love and Caris LeVert back sooner rather than later, too, for what it’s worth.
We’ll again see on the Allen front, of course. This Cavs team needs him, but generally, they’ve just had some general growing pains in these road contests in the past few weeks. It’s nothing to overreact too, though.