Winning a game without your best player is always going to be difficult, and that’s the task that the Cleveland Cavaliers faced on Friday night with Donovan Mitchell out with a sore right leg. Also missing were Kevin Love and Dean Wade, scooping an important hole out of their rotation.
Even so, this is a tough defensive squad with a lot of depth, with the intent of slowing down their opponent to hang in the game. The Sacramento Kings came in 3-1 in their last four with one of the league’s best offenses. Playing without De’Aaron Fox, their second-best player, the game seemed winnable at tip-off.
The Cleveland Cavaliers had a win in hand before an absolutely epic collapse to the Sacramento Kings. Who stood out for the Cavs for good and for ill?
The Kings were red-hot from 3-point land, making six straight to start the game. Yet the Cavs hung around, battling back and ultimately taking a 95-87 lead with less than five minutes remaining in the game. The defense was working and the offense was doing just enough to put the game away.
Then suddenly the gears ground to a halt. The Cavs would not score again, giving up a 19-0 run to the Kings to close the game. That 95-87 lead became a 106-95 loss for one of the most unsettling and painful losses of the season. If you take out the first five minutes and the final five minutes, the Cavs win this game 88-70. The Cavs dropped to 16-10 and 11-2 at home, with a sharp turnaround ahead tonight against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Let’s dig a little deeper by highlighting one player who had a good game overall, and two that were a mess and led to the collapse.
1 stud from Cavs loss to Kings: Jarrett Allen
The utter collapse at the end of the game erased much of the game script for the Cavs in the box score; players who were in line to finish with a +10 plus-minus suddenly fell into the negatives. To find a player to highlight, we have to look a little deeper and consult the eye test.
There are no perfect Cavs players from last night’s collapse, but Jarrett Allen comes the closest. With De’Aaron Fox out for the Kings Domantas Sabonis took on an even larger offensive role, and a Kings win would seemingly require a big night from the big.
Instead, Jarrett Allen shut off the hose. Sabonis was just 5-for-12 on the night, and only one of those was a score directly on Allen (two putbacks in scramble situations, two other layups against other defenders). Allen otherwise blocked or altered multiple shots and prevented Sabonis from even attempting others. All but one of Sabonis’ attempts was at the rim, and he hit just half of those.
Allen never got going offensively with just nine points, and his five turnovers are unacceptable for a low usage center. Still, among an entire team of disappointing performances, Allen was excellent for most of the game and set the tone for an elite defense, other than the first five minutes of the game and the final five when the Kings went off.
Shouts to Cedi Osman, who had 17 points, four rebounds and three steals in his 35 minutes of game time.
1 dud from Cavs loss to Kings: Starting Backcourt
If you want to point a finger at a player for performing poorly, good luck deciding between Darius Garland and Caris LeVert. The Cavs’ All-Star guard was wildly inconsistent on the night, scoring 19 points on 7-of-17 shooting, with a decent-enough six assists but a brutal six turnovers (part of 19 total turnovers for the team). Against a middling defensive team Garland was unable to overcome the extra attention the Kings showed him.
That should have meant openings for LeVert, who started in the place of Donovan Mitchell last night. Instead, LeVert showed once again why he isn’t a great fit on this team. He scored a game-high 22 points, but he needed 21 shots to get there. He was 9-for-21 from the field, including 2-for-7 from outside the arc. He grabbed six rebounds and dished six assists, but he was also a mess defensively and finished as a game-worst -21.
Garland and LeVert should have been better than a backcourt of Davion Mitchell and Kevin Huerter, but they were not. Especially on a team starting Lamar Stevens at the 3, the Cavs need more from their backcourt, and without Mitchell the Cavs just couldn’t deliver.
This was a game the Cavs should have won, but too many turnovers and poor shooting were overwhelmed by great shooting (the Kings went 16-for-33 from deep) and an offensive attack that is maximizing the Kings’ talent. Losing a game on a 19-0 run is a gut punch, and the Cavs need to channel that and never let it happen again.