Thursday, January 7, 2021

Cavaliers find no Magic in the Kingdom

   On a day that our country won't forget, there was a basketball game in Orlando.

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost their second straight game in Orlando to the hometown Magic, this time by a score of 105-94.

Collin Sexton led Cleveland with 21 points and Andre Drummond scored 19 points with 15 rebounds,

Cleveland gets no breaks on the schedule as they are back at it on Thursday in Memphis against the Grizzlies.

Swashbucklings

1)  I'm going to admit something.

I didn't watch this game as closely as I normally do because of the events in Washington. 
I was watching, but I didn't take my normal amount of notes and I was paying just as much attention to a more important event.

2) The Cavaliers got off to a hot start unlike their first game in Orlando when the Magic scored the first ten points of the game.
This time, Cleveland held Orlando to 15 points in the first quarter, but the lack of depth made this unable to be sustained.

3) Orlando lost point guard Markelle Fultz for the season when Fultz tore his ACL when Isaac Okoro cut off Fultz's path to the basket and Fultz's knee buckled and gave way without touching Okoro.
Sorry to see as Fultz had begun to turn his career around with the Magic and was averaging fourteen points and six assists this season.

4) The Cavaliers did become a bit healthier with the return of Isaac Okoro to the lineup.
Okoro scored ten points in twenty-eight minutes of action and hit four of his five attempts from the floor.

5) Part of the health problems for J.B. Bickerstaff is having to find more minutes for players that have moved up the bench with players ahead of them being unable to play.
The beneficiary against Orlando was rookie power forward Lamar Stevens, who scored ten points and grabbed six rebounds in a season-high twenty-one minutes of play.
Earlier in the season, the player that was playing more off the bench was Dean Wade, so it'll be interesting to see if Stevens has moved ahead of Wade in Bickerstaff's eyes as a situational four off the pine.

6) Collin Sexton scored 21 points to keep his twenty-plus point streak alive but tweaked an ankle in the loss.
Sexton says he can play through it, but that's something to watch against Memphis with Sexton being a player that relies on being explosive to the basket with penetration. 

7) Cedi Osman didn't have his shot falling in this one as Osman finished with only four points and hit only one of his twelve shot attempts.
Osman continued his streak play after scoring 18 points in the previous loss to Orlando.

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