For the first time since November 5th, the Cavs were the victors. And it came at an unlikely time. The Cavs (3-8) bested the Philadelphia 76ers (7-5). The 76ers were playing good basketball as of recently despite missing their newly-acquired superstar center Andrew Bynum. They had won three straight but sweeping a home-and-home series almost always proves to be more difficult than it sounds.
There was little excitement leading into the game due to the news that Kyrie Irving would miss the next four weeks with a fracture in his left index finger. The Cavs bench has been abysmal thus far in the season and it was without Jeremy Pargo due to the fact that he was named the starter in Irving's absence. In addition, Daniel Gibson missed his second straight game with a sore right elbow.
The story of the night was the performance of Jeremy Pargo. The second year point guard stepped up and set the tone early. He scored 7 points and had an assist in the first 6 minutes of the first quarter. Pargo followed it up with a 6 point second quarter. Pargo did his best Kyrie Irving imitation by scoring in a miriad of ways and played with a lot of control and confidence. When Chris Grant traded for Pargo in late July, it was assumed that he did so in order to get a second round pick from the Grizzlies. Jeremy Pargo should not be anointed the backup to Kyrie Irving quite yet, but he contributed quite a lot already considering what few assets the Cavs gave up in order to acquire him from Memphis. To put it into perspective, Pargo came into Friday night's game having scored 8 points in three appearances. One has to wonder how much of a buzz there would be if Pargo had this performance in Madison Square Garden while wearing a New York Knicks jersey. The Cavs probably would not have won this game if it weren't for his 28 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists. The only logical explanation is that Jeremy Pargo pulled a Thunderstruck and somehow acquired Kyrie Irving's talent prior to the game.
Jeremy Pargo's performance is going to outshine the bench actually showing up. The numbers weren't great, but the shortened three man bench scored 20 points. Most impressive was C.J. Miles scoring 13 points and converting on three out of four attempts from beyond the arc.
Much like Jeremy Pargo, the Cavs set the tone early. Three minutes into the second quarter, the Cavs more than doubled the score of the 76ers and had a comfortable 36-17 lead. It turns out that they needed almost every one of those points because Philadelphia made it a game and actually had a short-lived two point deficit in the fourth quarter.
It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and your beloved NBA and NFL teams are both playing at a .200 clip. When it comes to things we can all be grateful for, winning sports teams are clearly not among them. Tonight, it was the Cavaliers (2-8) keeping pace with the miserable Browns, as Kyrie Irving’s worst outing of the young season sent them stumbling to an 86-79 loss in Philly.
Mavericks Saturday night. The Mavericks were on the second night of a back-to-back while the Cavaliers hadn’t played since Tuesday, but that didn’t matter as the Wine & Gold dropped their fifth straight to fall to 2-7.
up, and the result was a 114-101 loss to the Nets in the last game of a frustrating 1-5 road trip. All of the problems that plagued the Cavaliers throughout the trip- poor defense, atrocious bench play, unbalanced scoring- were on full display in the team’s first-ever game at the Barclay’s Center.
Two nights after blowing a 26-point lead in Phoenix, the Cavaliers got a firsthand lesson in how to properly thwart a comeback, courtesy of Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder. In the space of just three possessions, a nip-and-tuck battle turned into an OKC runaway, as Kyrie and the road weary Cavs took another one on the chin, 106-91.