Game Night Observations: A Gritty Win, Craig Porter Jr.'s Heroic Night, Rest and Darius Garland's Toe
What a wild 72 hours on South Beach.
MIAMI — Expecting the Cleveland Cavaliers to split their two-game set in Miami was fair headed into Monday night’s game. Exiting Wednesday night’s contest, those expectations came to fruition in the unlikeliest of ways.
With Donovan Mitchell (rest), Evan Mobley (rest), Darius Garland (injury management) and Jaylon Tyson (concussion) all out, the Cavs found a way to beat the same Miami Heat team that took them down in overtime on Monday night 130-116. On Monday night, Miami was the team that dictated the style of the game for nearly the full 53 minutes and forced the Cavs to play out of character. Wednesday night was the opposite.
The Cavs, despite not leading for a single second of the first three quarters, were able to keep things close enough throughout the night before dominating the fourth quarter. Prior to the game, Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson spoke about wanting to judge the team based on their compete level without the star players.
That test was passed with flying colors.
“Phenomenal. Even in the first half we were -- it felt like we were in a good place, even though the game was really close, guys gave a phenomenal effort, I played 11 guys, 11 guys contributed,” Atkinson said. “It was one of those games where we felt really good about our process. And obviously not all games are like that. There’s just a real positive energy that we’re going to turn this thing around.”
Jarrett Allen led the Cavs in scoring with 30 points and added in 10 rebounds. His presence was much greater than on Monday night when he only played 1:44 of the game’s final 17 minutes. The Cavs were able to find Allen frequently mismatched onto smaller players on the Heat, allowing him to capitalize on it. He scored 12 points on 4-of-4 from the floor in the fourth quarter.
For as good as Allen was on Wednesday night, he wasn’t the best player for the Cavs.
Because that Honor Goes To…
