CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Georges Niang led seven Cavaliers in double figures with 25 points, but it was Evan Mobley who hit the biggest shot.
Mobley canned a three from the side with 28.2 seconds left to help push the Cavs past the Philadelphia 76ers 117-114 Friday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Here’s our top Wine & Gold Nuggets from Friday night.
Going deep – Mobley’s late three had a tremendous effect on multiple levels. “It brings a lot,” Mobley, who finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds, said. “It brings a lot of spacing. Guys can't help off as much. More lanes will be open, and I just got to keep shooting them like that with confidence and keep working on it and knocking them down and I feel like it will just help the team a lot and help myself as well.” Obviously, it helped the Cavs pick up a crucial victory before a grueling road trip. It also put opponents on notice to respect him from three. “I think the bigger thing is just for him is his confidence,” Donovan Mitchell said. “Late game… it's easy to make those, not easy, but easier to make those early first three quarters, but to be able to hit that shot in that moment, that's big time on top of the way he was playing, continue to be a force. But I think for him to hit that, I think it was huge. And teams want to leave him. You can tell him to keep shooting it.” Getting Mobley to take those shots beyond the arc has been a point of emphasis and he hit 2-4 in the win “To have the courage to take that shot in that moment just speaks to him like he is the ultimate competitor, the ultimate winner,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. He's willing to do whatever it takes to help us win. He's just not afraid of the moment.”
Dark knight – Mitchell, who had missed 13 of the previous 15 games, sported a black protective mask after undergoing surgery to repair a nasal fracture two weeks ago. “First time with a mask,” Mitchell said. “Yeah, I threw it the first workout. We got a new one, so this is the final version. So we saw the final one tonight, but like I said, it is just continuing to build upon it. It haven't played in two weeks, but I'm working hard and once we getting back into my groove, but the biggest thing is we got to win tonight.” Mitchell scored 12 points to go with eight assists, three rebounds and two steals in 32:17. “Just getting back into the swing of things,” Mitchell said. “Take time, keep playing, get your rhythm back playing, get your body day playing, sitting, getting back in the game. You have to go through that. So felt pretty good. Obviously I could have played better, felt better, but just continue to taking step by step.”
Staying in the moment – Mitchell’s future in Cleveland continues to hover over the organization and make headlines. Earlier this week, Cavs chairman Dan gilbert expressed his optimism Mitchell will sign an extension and last week on a podcast Niang, who has played with Mitchell for years, expressed a similar sentiment. “My focus is we got a lot things to focus on outside of that right now, to be honest,” Mitchell said. “I got to focus on myself getting back for this group, focus on getting over the stretch, continuing to be ready when it comes time. So I'll handle that. When it comes to, and I understand you got to ask that question, but I'm going to give you the same answer. My teammates know me at the end of the day and we're going out there trying to find ways to win the championship and it starts with days like tonight.”
Quarter drop – Niang hit 10 of 14 from the field, including 5-8 from beyond the arc to lead the Cavs. “I don't know if you knew that I played for the Sixers last year, so it felt good to beat them, especially after we felt like we had dropped two of them without Joel [Embiid],” Niang said. Niang has scored in double figures in 11 of his last 13 games. “He's like a little X factor, but G Wagon, he's always ready to go, so we love that about him,” Darius Garland, who scored 14 points and handed out 12 assists, said. “We always have that competitive spirit and he brings that energy, so we really needed from him and had a good performance tonight.”
Balanced attack – Seven Cavs scored in double figures, including three double-doubles. Cleveland also had 34 assists on 45 field goals made. “That's what we want to do,” Bickerstaff said. “We want share the ball. We don't want to be individually dominant in one spot. Teams can load up to that, can take that away. That's something that we've been trying to grow throughout the year… So if you're moving the basketball, sharing, the basketball teams are going to have to pick and most of the time it's going to be a bad decision if we keep sharing it and get it to the open man.”
Milestone man – Garland hit the 2,000 assists mark in his career during the third quarter. With the dime, Garland became the third Cavalier to record 5,000 points and 2,000 assists before the age of 25 joining LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.
Playoff slugfest – The game felt like a playoff slugfest at times and saw 27 lead changes, including 16 in the second half, and 8 ties. “Every game's a playoff game,” Mitchell said. “We look at a game like tonight – energy, the execution on both ends of the floor. It's a playoff atmosphere. That's with these next eight or seven, whatever that are left, that's what it's going to be every night. It's not like we're playing against teams that are done for the year. We're playing against teams that are fighting for the one, two seed. You got the Lakers, you got the Clips, you got the Suns. They're fighting for playoffs.”
Starting 5 – Bickerstaff went with Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Max Strus, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen Monday night. It was the first time since February 28 the starting five played together.
