Cavaliers drop in playing seeding-Lose in Brooklyn

    The Cleveland Cavaliers showed much more heart and spirit in Brooklyn than they did in losing to Orlando Tuesday night but it wasn't enough as the Brooklyn Nets dominated the final quarter and dropped the Cavaliers a spot in the playoff seeding with a 118-107 Nets win.

 Cleveland trailed by as many as seventeen points in the first half but rallied to lead by the end of the third quarter before Brooklyn outscored the Cavaliers by sixteen points in the final quarter.

Darius Garland led Cleveland with 31 points while Lauri Markkanen and the returning Evan Mobley each scored seventeen.

Cleveland will finish the season Sunday afternoon at home against Milwaukee in a game that could determine their position in eighth or ninth place for the play-in series.

Swashbucklers

1) After a very disappointing effort in Orlando, the Cavaliers showed the heart and courage to battle back against a team with superior firepower.

I just have a feeling that had the Cavaliers played like this in Orlando, they would have escaped with a win and helped themselves in the seeding race.

2) Evan Mobley played well in his return with seventeen points, seven rebounds, and three assists and didn't seem to have missed a beat.

If the Cavaliers have any chance of getting out of the play-in series, Mobley is going to have to come up big.

3) Darius Garland charged the basket with abandon with many of his 31 points coming on drives down the middle or along the baseline with one acrobatic score that is sure to be part of the week's highlight packages.

Garland has almost single-handedly kept this team afloat down the stretch-get ready to pay the man, Koby Altman!

4) Even with the lead after three, I didn't feel good about the win because Brooklyn still had Kevin Durant, who took the game over in the final quarter as part of his game-high 36 points.

Cleveland has a talented young team but they still have no answer for a player like Durant in the clutch.

5) Cleveland slipped from seventh to eighth, which means this for now- if the season ended today the Cavaliers would travel to Brooklyn for the 7-8 game.

Entering the evening, it was the other way around.

Cleveland's game against Milwaukee on Sunday will tell the tale. A win and a Brooklyn loss would lift them to seventh.

A win would keep eighth, although a Hawks and Hornets loss would do the same.

The Hawks own the tiebreaker over Cleveland, so a Cleveland loss and an Atlanta win could drop them to ninth place.