The Cavs can now look LeBron James in the eye. The King remained on five consecutive victories with the jersey of the Lakers against his heart franchise. But the situation has changed and Cleveland is now making its return to business a reality with its 8th straight victory to sign an almost perfect start to the season.
Last night on the Californians floor, JB Bickerstaff’s troops took half time before regaining their game and winning 114 to 100.
“A match lasts 48 minutes and I was hopeful that at some point things would fall into place. That’s what happened in the second half.”, simply entrusted the coachdelighted with the reaction of his team.
JB Bickerstaff as locker room leader
The talk of the break based on the defense after conceding 64 points in the first half, was quick to have the desired effect. Cleveland is indeed left on a scathing 13-2 led by an incisive Mitchell-Mobley-Allen trio. The Cavs then continued their momentum, repeating the same move early in the fourth quarter with a 15-5 in order to calmly slip away to victory.
“Our guys believe in our defense and know that when we call on each of them, we can chain stops. It’s five guys’ business to protect the paint. At halftime, we told them: ‘If they beat us by making disputed 3-pointers, it will be the staff’s fault. But if they beat us scoring in the paint, it will be everyone’s fault. They took that message to heart.”he added.
Since the start of the season, the staff of JB Bickerstaff has obviously been able to find the words to re-motivate his troops, with once again the Garland-Mitchell duo in charge (24 and 33 points) to do the job in attack, and a defense who was able to raise his level in critical moments last night.
“I don’t know how he does it, but he gets into us and we take his speeches which sting us to the quick. We listen to him, we try to execute what he tells us in the second half. He’s the one running it all. He draws up all the game plans. He takes care of all the strategies, and knows the specifics. We try to listen to it. We will continue to follow him.”admitted Darius Garland.
And now the Clippers
In addition to continuing to take valuable victories, the Cavs can approach the rest of the season with appetite given their room for improvement.
“In the first half it was attack, attack, attack. There will always be times like this. But it felt like we were letting them do what they wanted. We did not dictate our tempo to them. At half-time, we had this discussion and when we came back, we set the tone defensively. As a result, they scored 36 points in the second half. This is the team we can be. We just have to continue to be inspired by it and have two halves like that.continued Donovan Mitchell, big plus of this start to the season.
Next opponents of Cleveland tonight, the Clippers are warned.
| Shots | Bounces | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | GM | Minimum | Shots | 3 points | LF | Off | Def | Early | pd | bp | Int | CT | party | Points |
| Donovan Mitchell | 7 | 39.7 | 48.1 | 43.8 | 85.7 | 1.0 | 3.4 | 4.4 | 7.1 | 3.6 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 3.3 | 31.1 |
| Darius Garland | 2 | 27.8 | 39.3 | 41.7 | 85.7 | 0.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 7.5 | 3.0 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 2.0 | 16.5 |
| Evan Mobley | 8 | 33.7 | 55.2 | 20.0 | 76.7 | 1.5 | 4.9 | 6.4 | 2.1 | 2.4 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 2.6 | 15.1 |
| Caris Levert | 8 | 35.7 | 36.1 | 45.5 | 80.0 | 0.8 | 3.6 | 4.4 | 6.3 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 3.0 | 14.8 |
| Jarrett Allen | 8 | 32.9 | 57.3 | 0.0 | 71.4 | 4.0 | 7.4 | 11.4 | 1.1 | 1.6 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 13.6 |
| Kevin Love | 8 | 19.8 | 46.4 | 43.8 | 82.4 | 0.9 | 6.5 | 7.4 | 2.6 | 0.9 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.1 | 12.4 |
| Cedi Osman | 8 | 24.0 | 43.3 | 38.5 | 78.6 | 0.4 | 2.4 | 2.8 | 2.3 | 1.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 2.6 | 10.5 |
| Dean Wade | 8 | 24.6 | 53.5 | 50.0 | 72.7 | 0.5 | 2.9 | 3.4 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 8.6 |
| Robin Lopez | 5 | 9.9 | 78.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 2.0 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 4.4 |
| Raulzinho Neto | 7 | 12.2 | 41.7 | 33.3 | 100.0 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 1.9 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 4.1 |
| Isaiah Mobley | 1 | 4.1 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
| isaac okoro | 8 | 16.0 | 33.3 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.1 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.9 | 2.4 |
| lamar stevens | 3 | 7.6 | 40.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 2.0 |
| Mamadi Diakite | 2 | 2.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 1.0 |
