CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Cavs might not be full strength but they are back to playing like the best team in the NBA.
Darius Garland scored 26 and Donovan Mitchell 24 to lead seven Cavs in double figures as Cleveland rolled to a 137-115 win over the Hawks at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
Here’s the top Wine & Gold nuggets from Thursday night.
Work to do – The Cavs have won three in a row to climb back to 30 games above .500 again with their franchise record 12th 130-plus scoring night. “Work's not done,” Garland said. “It's regular season. Our main goal is to win a championship, so regular season is cool, but postseason what matters to us.” Thursday night marked the 17th time three Cavs scored 20 or more points in a game this season. “We still got a long ways to go,” newly minted All-Star forward Evan Mobley said. “We still got to focus on getting better in certain areas and the goal isn't to have the best record during the season. It's for postseason.”
Third time the charm – After dropping the first two meetings to the Hawks, the Cavs ran them out of the gym thanks to a 39-21 third quarter. “It's just chemistry,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “That's the continuity we've talked about, but it's also, you got to have skill to do that, right? You got to have the willingness to do it, share it, but our skill level is super high. That makes it easier. Quite honestly tonight we didn't really call many plays. That's just them out there hooping and yeah, really I think it's a fun. I enjoy watching these guys play.”
Dynamic duo – It’s clicking in a big way this season for Cleveland’s All-Star backcourt of Garland and Mitchell. “I did feel like watching film last year on them, they were both kind of, would always be coming back begging for the ball,” Atkinson said. “Now I feel like they've found that balance like, hey, you're bringing it up this time. No, you're bringing it up. No, we're both coming to the ball. Okay, you got the ball, I'm getting to my space, I'm getting to my spot. So that's super important. And then like I said, their skill level, two of the best shooters in the league not only catch and shoot off to dribble, incredible creation ability. Both can pass phenomenally. I don't know what back court has that combination.” The duo combined for 50 points and 13 assists in the victory, the 39th of the season for Cleveland. “Off the floor, we vibe. We are great. That's my brother,” Mitchell said. “I think the biggest thing on the floor is you look at how before I got here, he was pretty much the only creator on the team. Ball dominant. I wasn't the only creator in Utah, but one of the only creators in Utah, ball dominant as well. So it's going to naturally take time…. It takes figuring things out, takes positive, takes negatives, and now you're starting to see that flow that throughout the game. And you also got to give Kenny a lot of credit. Being able to put us in positions to succeed.”
Pulling away – After leading by 8 at halftime, the Cavs blew the Hawks out in the third quarter 39-21 thanks to 12 points from Mitchell and Cleveland finishing the period on a 20-6 run. “I was surprised,” Atkinson said. “I was expecting us to be stuck in mud tonight. I was really surprised how fresh we looked physically…This is an athletic team we're playing, they're long and I'm like, man, if we don't have the juice against this team, this could be a long night. And we had to juice. So it surprised me a little with the schedule we've had.” Cleveland shot 58.2% from the field, second-best of the season, and their 137 points were the third most scored to date.
Finding time – Atkinson confessed after the game Ty Jerome wasn’t even part of his rotation at the start of the season and Jerome scored 20 for the seventh time this season. “It makes my job harder, believe it or not,” Atkinson said of finding minutes for him. “I think when this season started, I did not pencil him in into the rotation. I should probably tell him that before I should say it to you guys, but too late now. But really [he was] probably going to be the 12th Man.” Jerome has scored at least 10 points seven times in his last nine games.
Big boards – Mobley and Jarrett Allen combined for 25 of the Cavs 49 rebounds against Atlanta. Mobley recorded another double-double with 16 points and 10 boards.
10k – For the second time this week the Cavs had a fan hit a half-court shot to win $10,000. They also had another fan hit the shot on January 25.
Starting 5 – Atkinson started Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Max Strus, and Jarrett Allen.