Game Night Observations: Signs of Special, Jarrett Allen's Big Night, Max Strus' Rhythm

The Cavs are 29-4 on the season. They might never lose again!

Photo credit: Erik Drost

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Los Angeles Lakers 122-110 on Tuesday night to ring in 2025 with their eighth consecutive win.

This game isn’t going to be one that people think of at the end of the season for the Cavaliers. They have bigger wins on their resume both in terms of magnitude and margin. This game can just be looked at as just an average victory. Fittingly, the Cavs average game this season is a 122-110 win, the final score from Tuesday.

Tuesday’s situation is what makes this win impressive for the Cavs. The statement isn’t in how they won, but rather how the business was handled. On Monday night, the Cavs beat a good Golden State Warriors team in San Francisco. They then boarded a plane for Los Angeles, arriving in the early hours of the morning. Waiting for them was a Lakers team with two days of rest in the bag and a tip-off time 23 hours after official Ed Malloy tossed the ball into the air against the Warriors.

That situation usually doesn’t result in a win. In the NBA world, that’s called a scheduled loss. Every team has them on the docket throughout the year. Tuesday in Los Angeles was one for the Cavs. It would have been an easy night to look in the mirror, say that the deck is stacked against them and let that be that.

The way the Cavs played on Tuesday night was the opposite of that. They played the way a championship caliber team does in this situation. Good teams are content with a 2-0 start on a four-game road trip and understand the chips stacked against them in this spot. Great teams don’t care about those things. It’s clear where the Cavs fall in that conversation.

Tuesday night was yet another data point that tells that story.