by The last two weeks have seen the Cleveland Cavaliers struggle to closeout games, and in today’s game the Cavaliers faced last years number one seed in the eastern conference the Miami Heat.
This game saw the Cavaliers jump out to a early lead and they never let that go, the Cavs won the game by 26 points by a final score of 113-87.
The Cavaliers early in this game struggled to maintain ball control, having six early turnovers to start this game, with the Heat also struggling with ball control.
The Miami Heat’s best player, Jimmy Butler did not play in this game as he out for the remainder of this Heat road trip.
The Cavaliers were also missing a key piece to this game with Kevin Love being out, and listed as to day-to-day with a broken thumb.
The Cavs stand out player of this game is Darius Garland, Garland finished the game with 25 points and 7 assists. In the last three games Garland has scored 51 points against the Timberwolves, 23 against the Bucks, and then in double overtime game against the Hornets scored 41 points. Garland is on a hot streak, and seems to be only getting better despite the early season eye injury.
In many early season games the Cavs have needed Donovan Mitchell to come up big for them in scoring, and that was not the case tonight, Mitchell only scoring 13 points in this dominant performance.
The Heat being down their best player the were at a disadvantage for this game, and no one for the team came up big for them with Butler being out. The Heat’s top scorer in this game was Bam Adebayo, coming away with 21 points, and 6 rebounds.
Adebayo was the main reason that the Heat were able to hang in the early portion of this game with the Cavs, then the Cavs went on a 21-2 run at the end of the first half. The Cavs never looked back from there.
Midway through the fourth quarter Cavs coach J.B Bickerstaff pulled the starters and this was one of the first games of the season where the Cavs had an all around great performance.
Coming off their five game losing streak, the last two games have seen the Cavaliers come away with wins now putting the overall record 10-6 through the first 16 games of the season.
The Cavs will be playing a back-to-back, tomorrow night against the Atlanta Hawks, the same team that ended the Cavaliers season last year in the play in game.
