Cavaliers charge by Boston in OT

    The Cleveland Cavaliers seemed to be on their way to a flat outing and defeat to the visiting Boston Celtics, trailing most of the game and often by double-digits before a run with under four minutes to go put them back in the game.

Cleveland held a brief lead but it was the Celtics with a chance to win with two free throws from Grant Williams and under a second to play.

Williams shoots over eighty percent from the free-throw line, so it seemed that the Cavaliers comeback would be for naught.

However, Williams missed both charity tosses and a Marcus Smart putback attempt failed and would force overtime that would see the shorthanded Celtics run out of energy and allow Cleveland a surprising 118-114 win.

Donovan Mitchell scored forty points and grabbed eleven rebounds with Evan Mobley providing the main support with twenty-five points and seventeen boards to lead the wine (err black) and gold to the win.

Cleveland will travel to Miami for an unusual two-game set against the Heat on Wednesday and Friday, which is followed by an even odder pair of games in Charlotte against the Hornets on Sunday and next Tuesday.

Swashbucklings

1) While this was a terrific ending for Cleveland in winning a game that they didn't really deserve to win, their play up until the final half of the fourth quarter was less than stellar.

The Cavaliers seemed disinterested at times and as talented as they are, I would hate to see them fall into a trap of thinking that they can turn their play off and on when they think they need it.

2) What makes the game even worse is Boston playing without Jayson Tatum and Al Horford and the Celtics reached town late and were exhausted from a double-overtime loss in New York to the Knicks the evening before.

Under those conditions, the Cavaliers should have never been in this situation.

3) Lamar Stevens didn't enter the game until the fourth quarter with the Cavaliers faltering but Stevens scored eight points and added eight rebounds in his seventeen minutes in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Stevens even hit a three-pointer, which doesn't happen often, and should he develop that shot more consistently, the high-energy forward could find himself as a key contributor off the bench,

4) The win for the Cavaliers was their first over a team with a winning record since February 10 and improved their record in overtime to 7-0.

5) Donovan Mitchell's forty points look even more impressive considering that Mitchell is playing through a finger sprain suffered in Cleveland's blowout win over Detroit last Saturday.

Mitchell hit fourteen of thirty-four shots and while I am certainly not knocking Mitchell by any means, it will be interesting to see how long the finger injury takes to heal and could it affect his shooting while he is playing through the injury,