Game Night Observations: A brutal first half and Danny Green's debut
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Danny Cunningham covers the Cleveland Cavaliers for 850 ESPN Cleveland and thelandondemand.com. He can be found on Twitter at @RealDCunningham. The Cleveland Cavaliers lost to the Philadelphia 76ers 118-112 on Wednesday night, snapping their winning streak at seven games.
This was a game that the Cavaliers didn’t look up to the challenge from the start. Throughout the winning streak, the Cavs were the team that delivered the opening punch. More often than not, they were the team that played at an intensity level that was a notch or two above that of their opponent.
Wednesday night, the 76ers did those things to the Cavaliers and left little doubt while doing so. In the first half, Philadelphia built a lead as large as 28 points. The Sixers looked like a team that was ready for a showdown between two of the Eastern Conference’s best four teams. The Cavs looked like they were ready for the All-Star break.
The intensity wasn’t anything close to what it has been over the last two weeks. At times it looked like the Cavs were going through the motions, just trying to get through one final game before a week off.
These types of things happen in the NBA sometimes. The Cavs have played 61 games, which will be tied for the most in the league prior to the break. Wednesday night was their seventh game in the last 11 days. Maybe as much as it was the team looking ahead to the break, it was a team that was out of gas.
The Cavs were much better after halftime. Despite trailing the Sixers by as many as 27 points after the break, they were able to go on multiple runs that cut into Philadelphia’s lead. A furious rally in the fourth quarter allowed the Cavaliers to get the game within four points at 116-112 with less than 30 seconds remaining in regulation.
Evan Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, and Darius Garland were really impressive in the second half and all big reasons as to why the Cavs were able to mount a significant comeback. Mobley finished the night with 23 points, Mitchell had 33, and Garland had 27. Of those totals, Mobley scored 21 in the second half, Mitchell had 25, and Garland had 14.
It’s a great sign that the Cavaliers fought back as hard as they did. With the All-Star break here, it would have been easy for them to roll over and start vacationing on the bench in the fourth quarter. This team has too much pride and grit to continue to get blown out the way they did in the first half.
Either way, it’s certainly a disappointing way to close out this portion of the season, especially in a game that was flexed onto national television.
The newcomer
The Cavaliers did have Danny Green on the floor for the first time after signing him to a contract earlier in the day on Wednesday. He first entered the game with 5:17 left in the second quarter as he was the fifth guy off the bench behind Dean Wade, Caris LeVert, Raul Neto, and Lamar Stevens.
In the second half Green was inserted into the game much sooner, playing the final 2:37 of the third quarter before logging nearly four minutes in the fourth quarter for a total of 11:48 of on-court time. Monitoring how Green looks after the All-Star break could be a big deal for the Cavs. He’s just eight months out of tearing the ACL in his left knee.
It will also be interesting where Green’s minutes come from and which rotation members will lose minutes. On Wednesday, the Cavs were without both Cedi Osman and Ricky Rubio, meaning that the rotation didn’t look normal without those two guys. Osman is one of the candidates to lose minutes with Green in the fold now. Dean Wade may be as well.
While in Memphis, Green was not playing both ends of back-to-backs and it’s plausible that will be the case in Cleveland, too, although the Cavs only have two back-to-backs left in the final two months of the season.
Tiebreaker news
This loss to the Sixers means that the two teams have tied the season series thus far at 1-1. These two teams will meet again, in Cleveland, on March 15.
The winner of that final game between the two teams will clinch the tiebreaker for playoff seeding, should the two teams finish with the same record. Winning that game, for either team, could be the difference between playing a team like the Miami Heat that has loads of playoff experience or a team like the New York Knicks in the first round. That could be a big deal. That game will end up as another very important night.
