Very surprised to see the badly undermanned Cavs trailing by only 2 points with four minutes to go, but then it was deja vu. Just like last night when the Thunder hit four consecutive 3's with the game on the line the Pacers hit four straight to close it out. Haliburton hit the first three and then assisted on the fourth. In crunch time the All-Stars take over.
But give the Cavs credit for fighting and making it competitive. Mobley had 33 points and 14 rebounds, showing a glimpse of what we hope to see from him offensively in the future. He's starting to throw his weight around and bull his way to the rim where he can score with either hand. He had Myles Turner guarding him, so 33 points is no joke.
LeVert had an impressive line of 31/5/8, but he missed 6 of his 9 free throws and that hurt. Strus had a nice line of 20/11/6 but was only 7-for-20 from the field.
Emoni Bates had his deer in the headlights moment as he was a -15 in 7 minutes and failed to score. His first NBA shot was an airball from deep.
Niang is now up to 9 points in 60 minutes on 4-for-19 from the field. He's a -25 in those 60 minutes of action, or should I say inaction.
With three bench players starting the Cavs' bench was outscored 61-11. The good news is our starters outscored theirs by 38 points and three of our starters aren't starters.
The guy I felt who really hurt us was Nesmith, who scored 26 off the bench with 9 rebounds. He was 5-for-9 on 3-point shots. They had four bench players who were +17, +18, +21, and +21.
I was really impressed with Wade's defense, as usual. Despite scoring just 6 points in 37 minutes he was the only starter with a positive +/- at +3.
The Pacers finished with just seven turnovers; the Cavs had six. I can't ever remember a game where they had six turnovers or less.
If we had Garland or Mitchell we would have hammered these guys. Heck, if either of them could have just played Bate's seven minutes (when we were outscored by 15 in a 12-point loss) we would have won. Hope they can both go on Tuesday, and Allen, too.