Cavaliers hold off Hornets 112-103
BY STONE LEXINGTON
CAVALIERS BEAT WRITER
Sunday afternoon, the Cleveland Cavaliers met the under-the-radar Charlotte Hornets in a battle between two of the Eastern Conference’s leaders. Cleveland entered Sunday with a three-game lead over the Toronto Raptors for first place in the East, while the Hornets had quietly climbed their way to the third spot in the conference. The Hornets, however, proved no match for the Cavs as Cleveland put together a convincing 112-103 victory over Charlotte in Quicken Loans Arena.
“We came out in that third quarter, we got the lead up to 20, they had to take the first timeout,” Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue said. “That was a plus for us tonight, coming out and establishing ourselves in that third quarter.”
With the win, Cleveland won the season series 3-1 over Charlotte. The Cavs led by double-digits for much of the contest and by an 86-71 margin at the end of the third quarter. When Charlotte converted a three-point play with 4:24 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Hornets cut Cleveland’s lead to 96-92. However, Cavs shooting guard J.R. Smith, who tied a season-high with 27 points, knocked down one of his six three-pointers on the next possession to put Cleveland back up seven points. When LeBron James and Kevin Love converted back-to-back buckets less than two minutes later, the Cavs were back up double-digits and in control of the game.
James led Cleveland with 31 points, eight rebounds and 12 assists. As remarkable as that statline is, Smith kept the Cavs afloat with big shot after big shot. Love totaled 25 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
The Cavs were without Kyrie Irving, who sat out the contest with a sprained right ankle. Irving suffered the injury Friday in Atlanta against the Hawks, and Lue said he wasn’t sure how much time Irving would miss. With the playoffs not set to begin for another two weeks, Irving should be ready for the postseason’s arrival. Matthew Dellavedova started in place of Irving and totaled six points, five rebounds and nine assists.
The Cavs held a slim 22-20 in the first quarter but closed the period with a 9-1 run to take a 29-19 lead into the second quarter. Cleveland only extended its lead in the second quarter. When Channing Frye and Dellavedova sank back-to-back three-pointers, followed by James and Tristan Thompson layups, Cleveland took its largest lead of the game, 48-27, with 5:16 remaining until halftime. The Cavs led 58-42 at the end of two quarters.
“When you’re missing one of your top scorers like we were missing Kyrie to go with that second unit to kind of give us a scoring punch, we took LeBron off the floor and it was kind of hard to get scoring with him and Kevin off the floor at the same,” Lue said.
Despite being a top three seed in the Eastern Conference, the Hornets have navigated the 2015-16 regular season with hardly any notoriety. Charlotte entered Sunday committing the fewest turnovers in the NBA (11.9 per game), while also having made the fifth-most three-pointers in the league. They committed 15 turnovers against Cleveland and made nine three-pointers. Meanwhile, the Cavs rank just ahead of the Hornets in three-pointers made, having connected on more than 800 shots from beyond the arc this season.
“They don’t turn the ball over,” Lue said on what has impressed him about Charlotte. “They do a great job of running their offense for 24 seconds.”
Kemba Walker led Charlotte with 29 points, six rebounds and seven assists. Marvin Williams chipped-in 22 points, six rebounds and three assists.
The Cavs extended their home record to a solid 32-7 and reached 100 points for the ninth time in the last 10 games. Cleveland also connected on 16-of-29 three-pointers against Charlotte, extending their franchise-best record to 15 straight games hitting double-digit three-pointers. The streak is the longest active in the NBA and the 2nd-longest by any NBA team this season (Golden State, 16 games from Nov. 9-Dec. 8, 2015).
The Cavs have just five games remaining on their regular season schedule, starting with a matchup in Milwaukee against the Bucks on Tuesday
POSTED 04/03/2016 19:07
Lake County Sentinel
