Cavs News: Allen optimism, help from Clips, lottery red flags

It was a bit disappointing when the Cleveland Cavaliers couldn’t secure a victory on Friday at the Miami Heat in the second game this week of their miniseries in South Beach.

The Cavaliers played pretty well for much of the game offensively, but they couldn’t contain Jimmy Butler in the fourth quarter, and despite nice efforts from their wings and Donovan Mitchell, Butler made a ton of plays down the stretch.

For the Cavs, it wasn’t the end of the world, in losing by four, particularly with Darius Garland out Friday because of a quad injury he sustained in the second half at Miami on Wednesday.

The Wine and Gold are still largely fine, too, but it was awful to see Jarrett Allen suffer an eye injury with just under four minutes remaining in Friday’s game after getting fouled by Bam Adebayo. There was not an update postgame, however, there was a bit more clarity on that on Saturday, to some extent.

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Allen was listed as being doubtful for Sunday’s game at the Charlotte Hornets with his eye injury. Granted, that’s not necessarily a relief, and seeing another key player, such as Garland before early in the season, get hit in the eye was not fun for Cavs fans.

A report from Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com from after the last game stated that Allen’s eye got ‘pretty messed up,’” though, which was not ideal.

Allen is an invaluable player for the Cavs, and after how he missed most of post-All-Star play last season (finger fracture), this latest ailment had to have everybody feeling a terrible sense of deja vu.

Fortunately, there was a sense of optimism following a further report from Fedor on Saturday. He stated how the team said Allen is dealing with an eye contusion, but it was maybe the “best-case scenario,”and a source of his expressed the following below.

Allen is again doubtful on Sunday; still, this was encouraging news, and it could’ve seemingly been much worse. Fedor’s source in the report noted how Allen will ‘hopefully be back sooner rather than later.’” Phew!

The Cavaliers were not in action on Saturday, but they did get other relief then, aside from the Allen injury update. The LA Clippers helped the Cavs out by beating the New York Knicks, who have been a surging bunch and had recently moved into the No. 5 seed in the East behind the Cavaliers.

The Cavs have had issues against the Knicks this season, and now, the Brooklyn Nets have moved back into that No. 5 spot at 38-29, with the Knicks right behind them at 39-30, based on win percentage. Personally, the Nets following the trade deadline shakeup would seem to be a better matchup to me.

As for that last Knicks outing, Kawhi Leonard paced the Clips with 38 points, Paul George had 22 points and New York did not what’s been a typical star-level performance from Julius Randle then. The Clips won 106-95, as the Knicks lost their third straight contest by way of shooting just 35.6 percent overall.

A few milestones came for Westbrook and George in the process, in a game aiding the Cavs. Westbrook moved into ninth all-time in assists, and George became the 14th player ever to hit 2000 threes.

NBA news

March Madness is set to commence, and naturally, as many have already been, it’s sensible for fans and pundits alike to project where prospects could potentially slot in in the 2023 NBA Draft.

As for the upcoming class, though, something that jumped out from Saturday was a piece touching on weaknesses from possible lottery picks. Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report emphasized the biggest red flags for his latest projected top-14 picks to come in the lotto.

You can check out what those were for prospects such as Scoot Henderson, Nick Smith Jr. and the Thompson twins at Wasserman’s link above.

Next up: The Cavaliers will have another miniseries next here, at the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday and Tuesday night.