Cleveland’s 2024 starts with an unfortunate 121-124 loss to the Toronto Raptors on New Year’s Day. Who looked good? What about the Cavs stood out? Here’s a look as Cleveland loses the 2024 opener in Toronto.
Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Ty Jerome are out with injury, so to start the new year Cleveland went with a starting lineup of Donovan Mitchell, Max Strus, Isaac Okoro, Dean Wade and Jarrett Allen.
Caris LeVert had a great night, finishing with a team high 31 points, four rebounds and four assists. This is impressive, considering he came off the bench.
Mitchell also had an overall solid outing. He finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and seven assists with four steals. He did take a questionable shot with 18 seconds left, resulting in Cleveland losing possession (and eventually the game), but he continues to be one of Cleveland’s top contributors.
Allen, although he didn’t have the outstanding level of performance he’s shown the last couple weeks, he did finish with a respectable 16 points and 11 rebounds.
While Okoro (16 points, one rebound and three assists) and Sam Merrill (16 points, three rebounds and one assist) had similar nights, they are indicative of what each brings to the table. Okoro secured his stats (including two blocks and a steal) across a 27 minute span while Merrill played for only 16 minutes. Okoro remains a defensive stalwart, Merrill is becoming one of Cleveland’s hot hands off the bench.
Although it’s a small margin, the Cavs did manage to drop their team turnover total this game to nine. Pairing that with their nine steals it’s a definite improvement to their recent performances. These nine steals resulted in 13 points, though, which could have been the difference between a win and a loss tonight.
While they did score almost half of their points in the paint they struggled to get second chance points, finishing with only six.
The final score is also a bit deceiving to the overall performances of these two teams. While Cleveland did lead at one point by three, Toronto was largely in control. Their largest lead of the night was 19, and they walked away with the dub. It never felt like Cleveland had a grasp on the game.
There is Toronto’s new players to consider (RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley) as teams can sometimes play better immediately after acquiring new players, this is still a team these Cavaliers should beat.
Although they’re still missing a few pieces, this Cleveland squad looks a bit unpolished tonight compared to where they expected to be at this point in the season. Granted they’ve been dealing with injuries all season, they’re reaching a point of the season where their true potential should be showing.
Cleveland will look to bounce back this week against Washington on both January 3 (Wednesday) and 5 (Friday).
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Featured photo courtesy of NBA.com
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