All summer long we heard LeBron James preach that getting Cleveland to a championship level would be a process, and Wednesday night we saw that process is still ongoing. Cleveland while not having the best shooting nights for two of their three stars they still made San Antonio earn the victory. In the first half Cleveland and San Antonio went toe to toe while LeBron started things off with 11 points in the first half, but after that Kawhi Leonard played some excellent lock down defense on James that he only scored four points in the second half on 6/17 from the field.
LeBron’s off game normally would’ve killed The Cavaliers, but he received some help from Anderson Varejao who scored 23 points and 11 rebounds and Kyrie Irving scoring 20 points. Not only did Irving’s offense come in handy, but his defense really helped keep Cleveland afloat. Kyrie’s defense on Tony Parker only allowed 8 points.
San Antonio erased an 11 point deficit with 1:47 left in the half which was pretty impressive it was a true team effort going into halftime with Cory Joseph, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan, and Ginobli all scoring before halftime to make it 47-44 Cleveland.
The second half started off terrible for The Spurs with Cleveland going on a 6-0 run all points scored by Kevin Love, but Tim Duncan broke the scoring drought with a dunk that got San Antonio going. Duncan would finish the game with 19 points and 10 rebounds, but the player of the game for San Antonio was Boris Diaw who scored 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. Diaw did a little bit of everything and as the 3rd quarter came to a close the The Spurs lead The Cavaliers 72-69.
In the fourth quarter The Cavs struggled to score but still kept the game close with a solid defensive effort where usually Varejao is best known for. Well it was his scoring that helped Cleveland force another lead change in the second half. Cleveland and San Antonio had 15 lead changes in the second half alone and 18 total in the game. You can’t say enough about Kawhi Leonard’s defensive performance on James which caused James to not score a single basket in the fourth until 1:09 left in the ball game.
With 17 seconds left The Cavs would be down 91-88 with 17 seconds left and Irving would drive to the basket to get the foul call where he made both free throws to make it 91-90. Cleveland would foul Manu Ginobli who made the first and missed the second. Varejao grabs the rebound and immediately throws it to LeBron who’s driving down the court with 7 seconds left and as James goes around the back he has Duncan and Ginobli playing defense on him as soon as he tries to dribble after that he would lose the ball and Duncan would recover to end the game.
https://youtu.be/ceRcylOWM1I
As you can see James raised his hand pretty much stating “my bad” after the turnover and I wouldn’t be surprised to see LeBron have a big game on Friday when they face Waashington.
The Cavs went through a shocking scoring drought from two key pieces LeBron and Kevin Love which put them in the position they were in at the end of the game. You won’t see a night where Love and James don’t score towards the end of the season, but The Cavs took a step forward tonight as a team going toe to toe with the defending champions.
The Spurs move to 7-4 who face Minnesota on Friday and The Cavaliers move to 5-5 on the year and face Washington Friday.
