CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Some nights it’s just not your night.
Not much went right for the Cavs as the Pacers, led by 19 from Andrew Nembhard plus 18 points and nine rebounds from Pascal Siakum, rolled to a 108-93 win Sunday evening at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Here’s the top Wine & Gold nuggets from Sunday evening.
End of the road – The Cavs suffered just their fifth loss and their 12-game win streak came to an end with one of their worst performances of the season. “Some days we have one of these games,” Darius Garland said. “I mean went an entire month without a loss. So I mean we were due for one. I just didn't know when it was going to come, but tonight was the night.”
Nights like this – Cleveland scored a season-low 93 points and shot a season-worst 26.8% from three and second-worst 39.8% from the field in the loss. “I think kind of the the easy out for us would be [to say] we didn't make shots,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Maybe it's happened two or three times all year. What disappointed me was our first half was phenomenal defensively, and then the second half we fell, fell off. So we couldn't sustain our defense... We live with days like that, nights like that. But just disappointed our defensive mindset in that third quarter and really the whole second half.” Garland led four in double figures for Cleveland with 20 points, but he hit just three of nine from beyond the arc. “We didn't play to our standards,” Garland said. “The first half was pretty good. Second half just kind of got away from our principles, getting into the ball, dictating a little bit, got some easy ones. It was ball game.”
Taking control – The third quarter has not been good for the Cavs in recent games. “We've talked about it with the group,” Atkinson said. “I don't know. We got to get better halftime speeches I think.” Indiana used a 27-5 run to take control in the third quarter that saw them outscore Cleveland 37-18 to lead 77-71 after three and they never looked back. “Our standards got to be higher,” Atkinson said. “I think we tend to relax when we get these leads and how the NBA is now, it's like snap of the finger all of a sudden. It's a high score. So I just think there's a little bit complacency when we get a lead, but that's alarming. I think if we've given up 37 points or more the last three games in the third quarter.”
Fast slow start – The Cavs opened the game with a 10-0 run in the first 2:10 but scored just nine more points in the quarter and trailed 21-19 after one. It was the lowest scoring first quarter of the season for Cleveland.
Haliburton’s hammy – Hamstring tightness kept Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton off the floor in the second half. Haliburton was ruled out at halftime and finished with two points, five assists and a rebound in 18:30. “I don't know if there was a little bit of a relax, oh, Halliburton's out, their best player or do you just kind of relax” Atkinson said. “That's not our team usually, but it happens. They're humans.” Without Haliburton the Pacers outscored the Cavs 68-40 in the second half. “That can't happen,” Donovan Mitchell, who scored 19, said. “That's on all of us. Like we always say there's going to be nights, we don't make shots. Shots don't fall, whatever happens. But to give up [68] points, we did a good job defensively in the first half, but to give up that many points, the second half can't happen and that's on all of us.”
Under the weather – Ty Jerome was inactive Sunday night. “He was pretty sick [Saturday],” Atkinson said prior to the game.
All-Star stretch – Including Sunday night’s game, the Cavs will play 13 games against teams at or above .500 leading up to the All-Star break.
Starting 5 – Atkinson stared Dean Wade along with Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. Prior to the game it appeared Max Strus would start instead of Wade but Atkinson said that was never the plan.
