Shorthanded Cavs Dismantle The Detroit Pistons
No Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell? No problem for the Cavs.
Cleveland has recently played their fair share of games against opponents who have elected to rest their star players. This time it was the Cavs who gave their star backcourt a rest against the Pistons.
Technically, each player was out with an injury. However, if you look at Cleveland's schedule this week, it isn't hard to read between the lines and see what was going on.
But the Cavs were able to come away with a dominant 113-85 win over Detoirt thanks to a fantastic showing from Cleveland's reserves.
Watch the postgame press conference here:
The game was truly never that close.
The Cavs came out and outscored the Pistons 32-14 in the first quarter alone and they outscored them 37-17 in the fourth. Detroit did make it a little bit more interesting in the middle quarters and was able to get within six points. However, one more run by Cleveland officially put the game out of reach.
Cleveland focused their offensive attack in the paint early on in the game, especially with them missing their backcourt. Evan Mobley finished with 19 points and Jarrett Allen dropped 20 in the win.
Detroit had no answer for these two and the Cavs ended up outscoring the Pistons 70-32 in the paint.
Both Raul Neto and Caris LeVert stepped into Clevaland's starting lineup with Garland and Mitchell out. They combined to score 29 points and provided some fantastic playmaking for a team that was missing it with their two primary ball handlers out.
Whenever a team is without its two leaders anything can happen. But the Cavs were able to come together and pick up a great win for the team.
They've now won four games in a row and have used the dust-up between Mitchell and Dillion Brooks as motivation.
Cleveland will look to keep the momentum rolling and will be back in action on Friday night when they take on the Pelicans down in New Orleans.
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