With Wall of Honor ceremonies scheduled for earlier today at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the Cavaliers host Mikal Bridges and Nets in Cleveland on Sunday evening.
The Cavs capped a stellar week of hoops on Friday — beating the Eastern Conference-leading Celtics on Tuesday and losing to the West’s best on Friday, topping the Timberwolves in overtime. Darius Garland scored a team-high 34 points and Jarrett Allen had a monster double-double as Cleveland earned its eighth straight victory against a Western Conference opponent.
The Nets announced their recent roadie with two straight losses – including a double-digit defeat last night in Charlotte. Cam Thomas led all scorers with 31 points and Nic Claxton notched a double-double, but Brooklyn allowed the Hornets to shoot 54 percent from the floor and managed just 17 points in the final quarter.
The Wine & Gold have won all three meetings against Brooklyn this year and have won five in a row in the head-to-head series. Cleveland welcomes Kevin Durant and the Suns to town Monday night before heading out on a three-game roadie that begins Wednesday night in New Orleans.
The Nets have remade their roster in recent years, but it’s clear that Mikal Bridges is their face of the franchise.
The iron man of the league, who played his 456th back-to-back Saturday night at Charlotte, enters Sunday’s contest averaging 20.9 points per game, but has only topped the 20-point plateau twice in his last 11 games and is shooting 37 percent from the ground in his last seven outings.
Still one of the best two-way players in the league, the 6thThe Villanova swingman has been rock solid in three games against Cleveland this year – averaging 24.0 points per game on 42 percent shooting.
Speaking of two-way players, Isaac Okoro put on another defensive clinic Friday night — and he was pretty good on the offensive end as well.
In Friday’s overtime win, Okoro kept control of Anthony Edwards, holding the All-Star guard to 19 points on 7-of-27 shooting, while hitting 3-of-5 from the floor for nine points. The nine-point performance ended Okoro’s streak of five consecutive double-digit performances, but he is still averaging 14.0 points per game on 53 percent shooting over the six-game stretch.
It seems like Jarrett Allen draws a tough assignment every night. And every night, he delivers.
Cleveland’s standout big man will have another interesting night at the office on Sunday against Brooklyn’s Nic Claxton, the 6th in the league.th-Ranked shot blocker who has double figures in four of his last five games.
Over the year, Claxton achieved 24 double-doubles, or 11th in the Eastern Conference.
Rake 6th in this category is Jarrett Allen, who posted his 31st of the season Friday night – exploding for a career-high 33 points, going 9-of-19 from the field and 15-of-21 from the field, leading both teams with 18 rebounds (one game after grabbing 19 rebounds against Atlanta). ).
Allen faced Brooklyn – the team that drafted him with the 22sd overall pick in 2017 – twice this season, doubling in each competition.
