CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Cavaliers have been making a habit of getting off to fast starts lately.
Coming into the second half of a back-to-back against the Sacramento Kings, one where both teams played 24-hours earlier, the Wine and Gold wanted to be the ones to throw the first punch.
Indeed, the Cavs came out swinging, but had to endure a counterpunch from the Kings before recovering to win their third-straight 117-103 on Saturday night at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
"We lost the rhythm of the game. The game started to get chopped and then we had four fouls in the first 50 seconds of the fourth quarter,” said head coach JB Bickerstaff. “So how (working) through that, how we can now impact that rhythm again, go back in our favor and kind of stem that tide a little bit.”
The Cavs set a blistering pace to put a near-perfect cap on the first 24 minutes. They led by 13 points after the first quarter and used a 12-0 run over 94 seconds in the second go up by 27 with under two minutes to play in the first half.
It was the sixth time in the last eight games the Cavs have led by at least 25 points. Defensively, they held Sacramento leading scoring De’Aaron Fox scoreless for the first quarter.
“It was electric, and it was everybody that was a part of it. You felt it in the building, you felt the fans energy, you felt them pushing the guys,” Bickerstaff said. “It was a symmetry of our energy on the floor and the fans energy in the crowd. There are certain things in certain moments that we're capable of. We just need to be able to sustain that more.”
One night after his best outing of the season where he scored 16 points, Isaac Okoro posted 11 points in just over eight minutes of action in the first quarter. He finished the night with 20 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists.
In total, seven Cavaliers scored ten or more points including Jarrett Allen (19 points, 11 rebounds), Cedi Osman (18 points), Evan Mobley (15 points, 15 rebounds), Darius Garland (16 point, 13 assists) Ricky Rubio (15 points) and Kevin Love (11 points).
Garland’s 13 helpers marked a new career high as he continues to look calm, cool and collected while taking the reins of the offense in the absence of Collin Sexton. He secured his eighth double-double of the season. Garland had seven double-doubles in his first two years in the league.
“We talk about those dynamic point guards, and they make the defense pay for whatever coverage they go to. And I think Darius is now starting to see that” Bickerstaff said. “He’s making whatever play needs to be made where the defense has made their mistake.
The third-year man out of Vanderbilt kept the Kings off balance all night, driving and dishing to create offense both himself and his teammates. Garland’s ability to draw defenses in forced Sacramento defenders to make difficult decisions all night.
“When you've got a guy who can make all the shots and pick and roll and then you've got big guys who can roll and put pressure on the rim and finish the way they can. “There's really no right thing that the defense can do.”
The Cavs hit the halfway with an 81-52 lead, which tied a franchise record for the most points scored in the first half. But despite piling on 45 points in the second quarter, they only scored 36 points in the final 24 minutes.
After starting the fourth quarter 0-for-5, the Cavs appeared staggered for the first time. After a technical foul by Bickerstaff, the Kings used a 17-4 run to cut the deficit to single digits.
Bickerstaff lamented the technical he was issued, feeling it directly attributed to the malaise that the Cavaliers went into to start the final frame.
“I let my problems become the team's problems and snowballed from there, but the guys did a great job of bailing me out and sticking together and figuring out a way to win it,” Bickerstaff said. “It's my job to steady the ship and not add to the problems. So that's on me. But again, the guys have been sticking together and they bailed me out tonight.”
With 8:20 left, Bickerstaff turned to his closer and inserted Rubio back into the lineup. Rubio canned a pair of crucial threes with less than 2:30 to play that pushed the Cavs lead back to double-digits and gave them some much needed breathing room to close it out.
“That’s who Ricky is, you know, some guys have it and Ricky is a guy that’s proven to have it. He’s a guy you can lean on a guy you can believe in in difficult situations,” Bickerstaff said. “You know, there's no fear. There's nothing he hasn't seen. You know, you think about, you know, since he's been 13 years old, what he's seen like, there's nothing and there's no moment in the game of basketball he hasn't been in.”
The win wrapped up a busy week with five games in seven days, that saw the Cavs go 3-2 during that span.
“We know we have in our locker room. We know what we can do.
We've got to go out there and do it,” said Garland. “Just go with a game plan, watch the film, see where we get better at and play 48 minutes like we talked about already. Just play all 48, keep the same temp and energy and we’ll be good.”
