CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – It’s not quite March yet, but it felt like it Tuesday night.
Max Strus hit a 60-footer at the buzzer to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a 121-119 win over the Dallas Mavericks at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Here’s our top Wine & Gold Nuggets from a thriller that went down to the final buzzer.
Had it all the way – It’s going to take a few minutes for the buzz to die down in the wake of Strus’ miracle at the buzzer. From his perspective, there was no doubt in his mind. Strus knew it was going in. “I did [know],” Strus said. “Yeah, it felt good. The last five of them felt good.” Strus’ heroics saved the Cavs from a bitter loss. With 2.6 remaining, P.J. Washington scored at the rim off a feed from Luka Doncic, who gathered the loose ball after Evan Mobley deflected the inbounds pass to give the Mavericks a 119-118 lead. Out of timeouts, Strus quickly inbounded the ball to Mobley who flipped it back to Strus. Strus took one dribble, gathered and let it fly from behind and to the left of the Cavs ‘C’ logo. Nothing but net. “It was special, but I've had some moments in my career where I've gotten hot like that, caught a rhythm,” Strus said. “I mean, it's fun when you do that and every time I shot it I felt like it was going in.” As the sellout crowd erupted, the Cavs poured off the bench to mob Struss and douse him. “I'm not going to be the guy to be like, oh, it was cash,” Donovan Mitchell, who led the Cavs with 31 points, said. “I'm not going to be that guy. But I didn't feel like it was going to be that far off. I feel like it was going to be close… But man, just to see it go through, especially what he did for us in the fourth to see I have it be him too. You know what I mean? I think that's what you, you dream of a shot like that, you know what I mean? So for him to hit that after what he did for us, the whole fourth quarter, man, it's only fitting.” To Mitchel’s point, the Cavs don’t win Tuesday night without Strus, and it has more to do with a 67 second stretch late in the fourth quarter than his buzzer beater. Trailing by 10, Struss went of hitting threes on four consecutive possessions to cut Dallas’ lead to 1, 113-112 with 2:35 remaining in the fourth quarter. “What he did tonight was absolutely ridiculous,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “To come back in that fourth quarter. For us to be down the way we were. But that's who Max is.” Strus made seven threes and finished with 21 points. The last one he’ll remember for a long time, maybe. “I don't even know what happened,” Strus said. “I've seen videos, but yeah, just want to celebrate with the team and celebrate the win.”
Let ‘em fly – The Cavs getting back to shooting threes with volume Tuesday night wasn’t a coincidence. “We just got to shoot it,” Bickerstaff said prior to the game. “I think there's been opportunities that we've turned down some good looks.” Cleveland launched 40 threes and hit 20 of them. “Feel like we could have got a few more too,” Mitchell said. “I think the biggest thing, it's just continuing to take those, the attempts and numbers average out. You know what I mean? I've been part of an organization before I got here that was big to go in for 50 threes, you know what I'm saying? So this is nothing new for me to see, and I think now, look, we're all seeing, we've seen it since we went on the run. So just getting back to what we've done. We hadn't gotten there the past two or three games, so just continuing to do that. Get the shots up.” Bickerstaff has been preaching to use the paint to create open looks on the perimeter and they worked it to near perfection against Dallas. “It was big,” Jarrett Allen, who finished with 19 points and nine rebounds said. “It all started with Max Strus… We were finally getting up to our desired high quality shots number. We were just sharing the ball and shooting our shots.”
Doncic dominates – A day before his 25th birthday, the NBA’s leading scorer torched and tormented the Cavs up until the closing seconds. Doncic finished with 45 points while making 17 of 29 attempts, including six of 11 from beyond the arc, to go with nine rebounds and 14 assists. “Honestly, I thought I did a solid job,” Strus said of his defensive effort against Doncic. “I know he has 45, but he's a tough guard. But that's what I was focused on tonight and everything else took care of itself. I'm just happy we got the win.” Doncic, who scored 14 of the Mavericks 15 final points in the first half to helps cut a 15-point deficit to 4 at 60-56, scored 11 in the first quarter, 16 in the second, eight in the third and 10 in the fourth.
Welcome here – Kyrie Irving received a rousing ovation during the first timeout before play resumed after the team played his game winner from Game 7 on the Humungotron. “He should have his jersey retired for sure,” Mitchell said at shootaround when asked about how Irving’s legacy in Cleveland should be viewed. “I mean the only championship in team history. I think he was a big part of that, huge part of that, and I think that's something that should never go overlooked.” Irving scored 30 while pulling down six rebounds and delivering three assists. “They're both tough individual players, but then you put them collectively, especially when they got it going the way they did, I think it's tough,” Mitchell said of Irving and Doncic combining for 75 points. “We play good defense. There's some things we could have done better. The one I think of for myself is in the first half, I'm just standing there, Luka has the ball. It's easy to catch and shoot, you know what I mean? Making it tougher. But sometimes great players make tough shots. So being able to make them work defensively as much as we can, but at the end of the day, it's just how do you respond to those tough looks because that's what we're going to see come playoff time.”
Keeping it real – Bickerstaff was matter of fact when asked before the game about the Cavs crowded schedule coming off the All-Star break that has the team playing five back-to-backs before late March. “Nobody gives a s***,” Bickerstaff said.
Starting 5 – Bickerstaff went with Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Max Strus, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen Tuesday night.
