CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – It wasn’t pretty, but a win is a win.
And that’s a good as Saturday night got in the eyes of Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff following a 94-87 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
It was a downright slop fest full of turnovers and bangers off the rim.
“We’ll take the win, but that was a disappointing game for us,” Bickerstaff said. “We didn’t play the game and approach the game with the seriousness that we needed to. It’s over now. We got a win, but we can’t afford to play that way.”
What should have been a blowout after the Cavs opened a 17-point lead in the third quarter ended up being entirely too close for comfort late even if Cleveland never surrendered the lead over the final 30 minutes of play.
“I just thought our approach was wrong,” Bickerstaff said. “Mistakes we were making, the way our offense bogged down, that’s not how we’ve played.”
The reason for the tight game down the stretch came down to turnovers – 23 of them in total to be exact that allowed the Thunder to hang around and score 20 points off them.
Guard Darius Garland played one of his sloppiest games if the season by committing a team-high eight turnovers.
“We’ve got a target on our back now, so we just have to come in, focus, be ready to play all 48 minutes,” Garland said. “In the second half we were up [17] at one point and we just took our guard down. They just came back and made it a dog fight so if we just play like that for all 48 minutes I think we win by 2 or more.”
Garland led the Cavs in scoring with 23 points and he handed out 11 assists. It was his fifth consecutive game with at least 20 points, and he’s recorded a double-double in six of his last seven games. Garland has 15 of them on the season.
Garland became the third Cavalier in team history to start 150 or more games before turning 22 years old joining LeBron James (266 games) and Kyrie Irving (174 games).
Then there were the missed free throws. Cleveland shot and abysmal 18 of 35 from the charity stripe.
And let’s not forget the bricks from beyond the arc – 6 of 27 or 22.2%.
“We didn’t play well,” Bickerstaff said. “We won the game, but we didn’t play well. That’s on all of us to be better.”
Bickerstaff’s postgame message was received loud and clear.
“We’re the hunted,” Garland said. “Everybody wants to beat us now. We have to play hard for all 48 minutes and play Cavaliers basketball for all 48 minutes. That was the deal with coach. He just told us that we gotta be on our game for all 48 minutes, we gotta be locked in.”
As sloppy as the game was Saturday night, it wasn’t all bad.
In the first half the Cavs assisted on 14 of their 19 field goals and finished with assists on 22 of 35 makes for the night.
They also crashed the glass, led by Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, who combined for 30 of the team’s 54 rebounds, the 10th time this season the Cavs pulled down at least 50 boards.
Mobley had a career-high 17, 12 on the defensive end, to go with a 15-point effort while Allen had 13 and scored 14.
“We just gotta play harder throughout the entire game and not take teams for granted,” Mobley said.
“We didn’t come out with the energy that we normally would’ve.”
The Cavaliers are 8-1 this season when Mobley records a double-double. Mobley’s 17 rebounds are the most by a Cavs rookie since Zydrunas Ilgauskas grabbed 17 rebounds on March 4, 1998. Allen’s team-leading 25th double-double, which matches his total from last season, pushed the Cavs to 20-5 when he finishes with a double-double.
It was also the 18th time the Cavs held their opponents to under 100 points and it was the ninth time opponents shot below 40% from the field.
Cavs forward Lauri Markkanen suffered what appeared to be a serious injury to his right ankle or lower right leg when he landed awkwardly while trying to contest a shot with around 4 minutes left in the second quarter. The team said that he suffered a right ankle sprain, and he did not return. Markkanen immediately grabbed the back of his right ankle and the entire Cavs bench ran onto the floor to check on him. After being down for a few minutes, Cedi Osman and Dean Wade helped him off as he put very little pressure on the leg and foot. He finished with 9 points and 2 rebounds and a blocked shot in 13 minutes.
With 7:04 left in the fourth quarter Kevin Love went after Thunder forward Luguentz Dort, who threw a vicious elbow at Love after Love fouled him while attempting to wrestle the ball away from Dort. After a brief few moments the officials got everyone separated and ejected Dort following the review, which saw fans chant “kick him out” while officials looked at replays.
The win pushed Cleveland to 8-2 in its last 10 games at home while extending their win streak to five over Western Conference foes, their longest winning streak over Western Conference teams since November 11-December 16, 2017 (six straight).
