The amazing thing about Doncic is he had 35 points and 13 assists, but 8 of those assists were on 3-point shots. Four more were lobs for dunks. 12 of his 13 assists resulted in either a dunk or a 3. Just insane. In the first quarter Doncic assisted on seven 3's. The Cavs doubled him and he simply hit the open man, usually Finney-Smith, who got on a roll and scored a career high 28 points.
Between points and assists, Doncic had a direct hand in 61 points. Like I said in the preview, if it's close the team with the best player wins. It was close until 87-87 and the Mavs pulled away. Trailing by six points at halftime Luka took over the game in the third, scoring 20 points. He was totally unstoppable. Maybe Mobley could have slowed him down but I doubt it.
Great to see LeVert get going with 32 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists. That's the guy we thought we were getting from Indiana. If he can keep that going the rest of the season and we can get Allen and Mobley back for the play-in we could be tough to beat.
Goodwin was a -17 in 13 minutes. The Cavs fall to pieces when Garland is out.
The Cavs were pretty good offensively, scoring 112 against the second best scoring defense in the league. But defensively they were helpless against Doncic, allowing 120 points to a team that averages 107 and was missing Spencer Dinwiddie, a 17 ppg guy.
The Cavs needed better performances from Markkanen and Love, who were 3-for-13 from deep. Okoro had 2 points in 32 minutes on 1-for-5. To beat Dallas the Cavs needed everybody to play well but that was not the case.
Garland had another great game with a line of 25/5/10 and 4 steals. He was a +10. When he was on the bench the Cavs were -18 in 11 minutes.