CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cedi Osman knows he’s not Darius Garland, but he sure looked like him Saturday night.
Osman scored 15 points and handed out a career-high 11 assists in the absence of Garland, but it wasn’t enough to help the Cavaliers end a losing skid that reached six games following a 124-107 loss to the Miami Heat at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
“I believe this is my first double-double with an assist,” Osman said. “It’s good, but I feel like it would be better if we had a win.”
One night after not attempting a shot in the 22:08 of playing time, Kevin Love took two in the game’s opening minutes. By halftime he was leading the Cavaliers with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting including going 4-for-5 from downtown. Love finished the evening with 25 points, six rebounds and three assists.
“I think tonight I just wanted to come out and be super aggressive I know I miss my first two in the post,” Love said. “I felt like I had a really good base and I wanted to just go out there and find some sort of rhythm because that had never really happened to me before.”
Love’s hot start mirrored the team’s run out of the gate. The Cavaliers got the strong start they wanted following a disappointing performance the night before. The Wine and Gold shot 77-percent (7-for-9) from 3-point range and 56-percent from the field. They rode that strong shooting performance while handing out ten assists as a team to grab an early 36-29 lead after one quarter.
“I thought they both were really good. The way that the Heat defend, they force you to make that extra pass,” head coach J.B.
Bickerstaff said. “They’re going to send bodies to the ball and stay in the paint to try to protect that paint. You’ve got to be willing to make those kickouts, and we did that tonight.”
Collin Sexton also scored 25 points for the Cavs in the loss while issuing eight assists. Sexton said he wanted to make it a point to get Love involved early and often following his shutout against the Wizards.
“I wanted to make sure I was getting the shots that I liked and just shoot them whether I was making them or not,” Love said. “I wanted to take advantage of how they were guarding me and shoot it with confidence and make sure I wasn’t forcing anything.”
Love admittedly said he wanted to emphasize getting going early against the Heat. A pre-game chat with coach Bickerstaff laid out a game plan for how he would get into attack-mode right from the jump.
“Last night was an absolute anomaly and that’s why JB and I had the conversation about finding ways to get myself involved, especially early. I think naturally you see a couple go in and you make a couple around the rim that the hoop just gets bigger,” Love said. “I definitely wanted to put that one behind me and just move forward and see where I could be more effective on the offensive end tonight.”
In total, the Cavaliers knocked down 20-triples and finished the evening shooting 50-percent from the field and 50-percent from 3-point range.
With Osman shoved into more ball handling duties,
“The way that they play is they sell out to protect the paint and they bank on the fact that teams won’t move it enough and keep taking those shots,” Bickerstaff said. “I thought tonight we did a great job of continuing to move it
While the Cavaliers were successful moving the ball, as a team they assisted on 30 of 37 made field goals, it came with a price. The Wine and Gold committed 19 turnovers as a team that led to 24 points for the Heat.
As the Cavs committed turnovers, the Heat were able to erase the early lead and grab a 67-60 edge by halftime.
“That’s good basketball. That’s sharing the ball, that’s sharing the ball that’s playing it the right way. The turnovers got us tonight,”
Despite being thrust into a different role due to injury, Osman said the position wasn’t one he was unfamiliar with.
“I think it was at the beginning of the season when Colin and Darius were out so it was me and Dot (Damyean Dotson),” Osman said. “I’m really familiar with a point guard position so I didn’t really have any issues. I didn’t do anything special tonight I was just trying to make the right place and create shots for my teammates and for myself.”
Following the break, the Heat ran off a 21-11 run to build a 17-point lead midway through the third quarter. The Cavs were never in jeopardy of winning from there as Miami closed out the win in the fourth quarter, putting Cleveland in the midst of its second-longest losing streak.
“Show me a good loser I’ll show you a loser but at the same time I feel like that allows us o lock in even more and understand what’s most important,” Love said.
The Cavs next chance to end it, comes Tuesday when they host Phoenix.