Game Day Observations: Playing with Joy, a Highlight Pass and a Needed Rest

The long local nightmare of one week and four losses is over.

Photo by Kace Lott on Unsplash

The Cleveland Cavaliers snapped their four-game losing streak on Sunday afternoon with a 120-91 win over the Utah Jazz.

It’s important to not overreact to things, both good and bad. The Cavs losing four consecutive games for the first time this season isn’t a true indicator of who the Cavs are or will be when the playoffs arrive. That’s true in the same way that the team outscoring Utah 37-19 in the third quarter doesn’t mean that everything that has plagued the Cavs in the last month or so is magically fixed.

With that context in mind, the Cavs finally looked like the Cavs again on Sunday afternoon against the Jazz. For the first time in what feels like ages, the Cavs took over a game defensively and used that to open the third quarter on a 23-4 run.

For the first time in a long time, a Cavalanche took place. Those events, catastrophic for opponents, haven’t happened during this losing streak. The Cavs hadn’t been able to piece defensive stops together frequently enough to make it happen, and when they have, the offense didn’t follow.

The third quarter wasn’t the Cavs at the peak of their powers, but it was the loose outline of what that looks like. The Cavs forced stops — Utah didn’t score its first points until Jordan Clarkson hit a jumper with 6:20 left in the quarter — and capitalized on them. The ball movement was terrific, even if the team wasn’t connecting on 3-pointers at the rate they’ve become accustomed to.