Everyone knew the importance of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ four-game Western Conference road trip against playoff contending teams. How did the Cavs fare against tough competition on the road? Well, Cleveland came away unscathed with a 4-0 mark on the trip.
With the Wine and Gold finishing another undefeated week, what were the big themes of the trip? Here are the three biggest takeaways from Week 11 of Cavs basketball.
1. Third quarter offense
To start the season, the Cavs had a tendency to come out of halftime a bit sluggish, but they have grown out of that tendency, especially on this road trip.
Offensively, Cleveland was dominant in third quarters, averaging over 33 points. They won two third quarters, tied one, and lost another by one point.
Cleveland hasn’t scored below 29 points in third quarters over the last four games and were the reason for the offensive explosions that we saw throughout the road trip.
The mark of a great team is exploiting halftime adjustments made by the opposing team and the Cavs have done a good job of that.
2. Evan Mobley’s rising three-point volume
Mobley is enjoying a career season from three-point range, shooting over 41 percent from long-range on about three attempts per game. However, over the course of the trip, the story was the volume in which he was shooting them.
Across the four games, Mobley averaged five three-point attempts per game and made 50 percent of them. He was shooting them with confidence, which has forced defenses to close out and guard him on the perimeter.
It is no secret that the floor spacing of Mobley adds another dimension to Cleveland’s offense and him increasing his three-point volume to keep the defense honest is very encouraging.
3. Game-changing runs
The Cavs are currently on a ten game winning streak and they have won each game by double-digits. The reason for that has been their ability to go on game-changing runs.
Take the Lakers game for example. Cleveland went up 96-80 with about nine minutes left in the fourth quarter. Over the course of the next seven minutes, LA went on a 27-16 run to cut the lead to 112-107. The Cavs ended the game on a 10-3 run to close the game out.
Against the Warriors, the Cavs were only up 46-38 at halftime. They went on a 20-5 run to begin the third quarter to go up 23 and Golden State never recovered from that.
Cleveland has shown throughout the year that they can get hot at any time and stay hot. That has been the theme of the road trip and winning streak.
What’s next for the Cavs?
The Cavs began their four game homestand with a 115-105 win yesterday against the Hornets. The biggest game of the week will be against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are the number one seed in the West and that game will be on ESPN on Wednesday. Cleveland ends the week with matchups against the Raptors and Pacers.