In the Cleveland Cavaliers’ first of back-to-back games, they faced the Golden State Warriors, who were coming to town after going to overtime and losing in Boston just the night before to the Celtics. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, James Wiseman, Andre Iguodala, and Andrew Wiggins were all inactive for the Friday night matchup.
Before tipoff, the Cavs’ spread stretched to as high as -10.5 over at FanDuel. It was the opposite of what we expected without the Warriors’ core players like Steph Curry competing in Cleveland. The Cavs didn’t necessarily play horribly on offense; it was the Warriors ripping the nets wearing the team out from deep in the 120-114 loss.
Hostile is an excellent word to describe this matchup in a game where head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and Cleveland’s bench dog Raul Neto both received technical fouls during the game. In the first quarter alone, the Jordan Poole-led Warriors were 7-of-9 from behind the arc on (77.8%) shooting.
Cleveland attempted only five threes, connecting twice at the end of the first. Both teams shot 50 percent from long range in the second quarter; Steve Kerr’s team drained seven to Bickerstaff’s Donovan Mitchell-less groups’ four. The Cavaliers did keep the three-point battle close in the second half with one less make than their opponents (eight to their nine), where both teams had 20 attempts in the final half.
The team from Cleveland had a better overall shooting percentage from the floor at 50 percent. The team who once battled the Cavaliers in four straight NBA Finals hit 48.8 percent. The Cavaliers also shot it better from the stripe than the team from the Bay, too. Both teams had 19 attempts, where the Cavs shot a letter B grade (84.2%) to the Warriors (68.4%).
With that said, here we’ll examine one stud and dud from this Cavs’ loss.
The Cavaliers overlooked this Warriors team by thinking it was all butter without former NBA champions reigning down on their parade, yet they had more hunger. When Golden State made 23 three-pointers, and you get outrebounded by 10, the odds aren’t going to be in your favor. Aside from Cleveland being without their soon-to-be 2023 All-Star Donovan Mitchell on Friday night, this is a game the Cavs should have won.
Discouraging, disappointing, and concerning are all words that could describe Friday night’s debacle. The way the Cavs played is different from the game you envisioned the Cavaliers having, where they now have to try and quickly bounce back against an Eastern Conference powerhouse, the Milwaukee Bucks. Let’s look at the Cavalier who carried his weight and another who had his worst game of the month coming off a hot streak.