CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Monday night’s game against the last-place Magic was one the Cavaliers had to have.
They won it, 107-101, but potentially lost their sensational rookie Evan Mobley for an undetermined amount of time in the process with a sprained left ankle.
Thanks to another All-Star effort from Darius Garland, who scored 25 points and handed out 11 assists for his 26th double-double of the season that saw him tie Mark Price’s franchise record for point-assist double-doubles in a single month set in November of 1990 with his 10th point-assist double-double in March, the Cavs were able to shake of another blow to their promising season.
“The injuries can be emotionally staggering at times,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who did not have an update on Mobley after the game, said. “But they found a way to keep it together.”
Garland hit from the baseline then drilled a three with 2:25 remaining to push the Cleveland lead back out to 8, all but delivering a knockout blow to Orlando’s comeback bid.
“It’s my job to do. It’s not a feeling, just basketball,” Garland said. “I get buckets, I score the ball so it’s nothing new. Just having that confidence and teammates having that confidence in me to make those plays and shoot those kind of shots is cool to have.”
The injury to Mobley sparked a run by the Magic, who erased a 20-point second quarter deficit and led by as many as 4 in the fourth quarter.
“It gutted us to lose Evan, whether it’s for a game, two games, three games or whatever it may be,” forward Kevin Love, who came off the bench to score 19 points to go with seven rebounds, said. “We need to keep fighting and hope that he recovers quickly and can be out there with us because he means so much to the team.”
Make no mistake about it, Mobley going down cast another black cloud over another milestone for these young, battered and bruised Cavs – clinching their first winning season since 2017-2018 with their 42nd victory and the first winning season for the franchise without LeBron James since they won 47 games during the 1997-98 campaign.
“I’m happy for J.B., I’m happy for the organization,” Love said. “I just wish that everybody was healthy and here to celebrate it with us.”
Lauri Markkanen scored 10 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter and Dylan Winder, who has spent the bulk of his time with the G-League Charge this season, played big minutes down the stretch in the fourth to finish with 5 points and a career-high tying 9 rebounds.
Mobley went down in the second quarter with 5:11 remaining when he landed on Magic forward Franz Wagner while contesting a shot.
“He rolled it pretty good,” Love said.
Mobley, who was a point shy of hitting 1,000 in his rookie season, limped to the locker room with trainer Steve Spiro moments later.
At halftime the team announced Mobley would not return.
“Mentally, I think it struck us a little bit seeing our rookie of the year go down like that,” Garland said. “We just had to pull it back together and that’s what we did. We got back to playing our style of basketball and came up with a win.”
Losing Mobley for any significant amount of time could be devastating to the Cavs chances to make the playoffs considering they remain without All-Star center Jarrett Allen, out the last 11 games due to a broken finger, guard Rajon Rondo has not played since March 12 because of a right ankle sprain, and shooting guard Collin Sexton has been out most of the season following surgery to repair a torn meniscus.
Earlier Monday the Cavs announced they lost Dean Wade for the season due to surgery to repair a torn meniscus.
Now they await more test results for Mobley Tuesday.