After climbing back into the game on two separate equations, the Sixers fell to the blazing hot Cavaliers 97-84 tonight, as Kyrie Irving and Lebron James led the Cavs to their 11th consecutive victory. After losing a contested battle with the Eastern Conference leading Atlanta Hawks, 91-85, on Saturday night in Atlanta the Sixers were feeling confident about their recent play, even though they lost in Atlanta, as they squared off against the streaking Cleveland Cavaliers tonight in Cleveland. The Cavaliers came into the game holding a 10-game winning streak and a 6-game home winning streak to throw on top of that. After a rocky beginning to Cavs Coach David Blatt and superstar Lebron James’ relationship, which even included Lebron taking a 2-week absence from the team, the Cavs seemed to have turned the tides as of late and they have been becoming much more of a threat to the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
The loss of multiple important players in the Sixers locker-room over the past week or so hasn’t been bothering the Sixers play on the court too much, but their offense may have looked a bit weird at times during tonight’s game, and throughout the past few games for that matter. It seems to be much more of a “pass first” offense rather than one guy (MCW) always forcing plays to occur that shouldn’t be. Michael Carter-Williams has been quite during the past few games. He’s not getting as many minutes and with having played only 19 minutes tonight, he’s not jacking up as many shots and as a result the Sixers shot percentage has increased. With that being said, Carter-Williams’ shot percentage unfortunately hasn’t increased as he struggled shooting the rock again tonight, posting 2 points on 1/9 shooting from the floor.
Robert Covington and second round draft steal Jerami Grant acted as the producers tonight for the Sixers with both men tallying 18 points apiece. Grant, who was 3/5 from three-point range on the night, also acquired 7 rebounds down low to give the Sixers some sort of presence on the boards. Covington, who had another one of his magnificent games from beyond the arc, was 4/8 from deep on the night and he also snatched 7 steals, which gave the Sixers tremendous opportunities to score on the fast break. As for Nerlens Noel, he struggled significantly in his 32 minutes of game action, only notching 4 points on 2/5 from the floor and only hauling in 4 rebounds during the game. It was about as bad of a night as the MCW/Noel duo as had over the course of this season. Luckily, the Sixers didn’t get blown out and kept the game close for the most part, thanks to multiple guys supplying quality minutes.
As for Cleveland they didn’t really dominate the Sixers like they may have expected too but they did manage to pull away in the end effectively and similar to the way Championship contending teams put other teams away. Rebounding late in the game gave the Cavs a major advantage as Kevin Love racked up 15 boards throughout the course of the night, with multiple clutch rebounds hitting his hands in the fourth quarter. Kyrie Irving led the team with 24 points while also accumulating 5 assists on the night. A few of those dimes went to Lebron James who had himself a solid night versus the Sixers defense. The King scored 18 points while dishing out 11 assists, as well as playing lockdown defense on the opposite end of the floor. Lebron acted as the facilitator tonight for Cleveland and led the Cavs to this Victory, which puts them at 30 wins on the season. Cleveland was a plus-19, scoring wise, while Lebron was on the floor tonight versus the Sixers. He may not have scored a thousand points but the Sixers had no answer for the King.
The loss dropped the Sixers record to a dismal 10-39 on the season, while the wins boasted the Cavs win total to 30, as they’re sitting pretty at 30-20.
Next Up: vs Denver, tomorrow night, 7:00pm tip.
