CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – There’s days like this, even for the best teams.
The Cavs rallied from 18 down in the second half led by 32 points from De’Andre Hunter to beat the Portland Trail Blazers in overtime, 133-129, Sunday afternoon at Rocket Arena.
Here’s the top Wine & Gold nuggets from Sunday afternoon.
First to 50 – The Cavs became the first team in the NBA to 50 wins. With their 10th consecutive win, Cleveland hit 50 wins in a season for the 13th time.
Comeback Cavs – After rallying from 22 down in Boston Friday and 18 Sunday, it marked their first back-to-back wins for the Cavs after trailing by 18 or more points since 1997-98. “Resiliency, grit, you could say all that, but it's just the belief in each other,” guard Max Strus said. “The belief in this locker room, we're never out and we all believe in each other to the fullest. And we just know there's just a belief in this locker room that any given night we can win every single game and we want to win every single game. So it doesn't matter where the score is, how much we're down, who's in, who's out, we just believe and that we can win and have enough every single night.”
Slow start – After overcoming a 25-3 deficit at Boston Friday night to beat the Celtics, the Cavs didn’t storm out of the gates Sunday either. Cleveland shot just 33% in the first quarter and trailed 27-24 after 1. Portland ended the first half with a 15-0 run to take a 54-42 lead into the locker room with the Cavs making just 15 of 46 shots. “Come off a huge win now you got to play a hungry, evolving team, a team that's playing really good basketball, 11-4 over their last 15,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “We come out not focused and not high energy. It's kind of normal what happened, but for us to make that comeback, I didn't think we were going to win the game. I really didn't. I said this is one of those games we just don't have it. I think De’Andre really took us from the abyss and got us a W.” Trailing by 18 in the third quarter, Cleveland went on a 22-5 run to cut Portland’s lead to 94-93 with just over 8 minutes to play. Hunter hit back-to-back 3s to give the Cavs a 104-103 lead, their first advantage since early in the first half. Ultimately the game went to overtime, but Cleveland ended up outscoring Portland 37-35 in the third, 40-30 in the fourth and 14-10 in OT to win.
Whistles galore – A total of 53 personal fouls were called and the two teams combined to shoot 70 free throws, the most in a game since 1990 according to StatMuse. “I thought the refs were really bad tonight, especially Natalie [Sago],” forward Ty Jerome, who finished with 25 points, six assists, five rebounds and six steals, said. “She was really bad. So when stuff like that happens, they kind of lose control of the game and you just got to keep your head. I thought that first half was ridiculous. Third quarter was horrendous and just got to keep your head and keep playing.” The Cavs ended up with just one timeout remaining at the eight-minute mark of the third quarter because Atkinson used up two replay challenges – winning the first then losing the second. “It was a lot of whistles out there today, but I think we did a good job playing through it and not letting it affect our game plan and stuff like that,” Hunter said.
Strus is loose – Strus hit a corner 3 that gave the Cavs a 118-115 lead with 15.4 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Strus finished with 14 points, nine rebounds and three assists. Atkinson called Strus ‘Wild thing’ to describe Strus’ energy he brings to the floor. “You got to give me a Vaughn jersey, huh,” Strus said. “I just think we needed a boost. I try to play as hard as I can every single night and give us some type of boost, some type of energy to win each night and every night's something different. So I just try to do that and like I said, propel us to get a win.”
6 and out – Evan Mobley fouled out with 1:14 remaining and the game tied at 113 after catching Blazers forward Deni Avdija with an elbow in the post. It was the first time this season Mobley, who is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, fouled out of a game.
Two-way – The Cavs signed forward Nae’Qwan Tomlin to a two-way contract Sunday. Tomlin signed a 10-day contract with the team on February 10th and appeared in three games.
Starting 5 – Atkinson started Darius Garland, Max Strus, Evan Mobley, De’Andre Hunter, and Jarrett Allen.
