Home cooking can always do a lot for your well-being and those good vibes can have an excellent effect on your production. In this case, the Cleveland Cavaliers, are benefiting from that comfort of home in a big way as they put an exclamation point on this early-season hot streak. The Cavs have now won three in a row at home and are riding a four-game win streak in all to give them a record of 21-11. That positions them in third place in the Eastern Conference.
The Cavs battle the first-place Milwaukee Bucks (22-8) on Wednesday down at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. It should be another classic between these two teams who have already played twice. Both games were in Milwaukee and Cleveland played okay but weren’t able to show yet that they are contenders for the top spot, at least not at the moment.
This latest run of victories for the Wine and Gold should at least give them the confidence that they can beat the Bucks this time. To be the best, you have to learn to beat the best.
Back in the day, the Chicago Bulls had to learn how to beat the Detroit Pistons to become the six-time champions that they became back in the early 1990s. Cleveland today has an outstanding and talented team filled with youngsters. They finally have a skilled veteran in Donovan Mitchell and that should continue to help cement this team in conversations surrounding postseason play.
Before the Cavs get to that postseason, let’s look at this latest homestand thus far, four games in, and some of the things that have stood out in it. While these things have been noticed while the team has grown this season, it’s reinforced certain developments.
Takeaway No. 1: Comeback wins lead to a crushing win over the Utah Jazz
Cleveland is now 15-2 at home which is the best home record in the NBA right now. They’ve won four straight games and the last three at home. In the first two games of the homestand, the Cavs made late-game comebacks against the Indiana Pacers and then the Dallas Mavericks to gather momentum on the homestand. They took those big games and wasted little time in their next battle against the Utah Jazz on Monday night where they started the game on fire and never let up in a crushing defeat.
In those first two “Kardiac Kids” moments of the home series, the Cavaliers started both games out very sluggish and weren’t playing good defense, especially on the inside. But in both games, they were able to outscore their opponent by big margins in the fourth quarters and pull off the wins. However, in the Mavericks victory, they had to go to overtime and then survive the final 10 seconds of multiple shot attempts to survive 100-99.
In the Pacers game, in that fourth quarter, Cleveland outscored them by a 35-18 margin, and in the Dallas game, they outscored the Mavs 29-21 in the last frame. Learning to not fall short in the first three quarters could obviously do this Cavs team a wealth of good moving forward.
They seemed to get the memo because in the Monday matchup against the Utah Jazz they outscored them 29-21 in the first quarter and then 33-23 in the second. Having a 20-point lead at halftime is a lot more fun for a team than always having to mount comebacks.