Cavaliers keep rolling with a BLANK victory over Wizards.
The Washington Wizards are the unquestioned worst team in the league. The Cleveland Cavaliers treated them as such as they ran away with an easy 118-87 win.
The Cavs jumped out to an early lead. They quickly established themselves as the more dominant team as they jumped out to a quick 19-6 lead fueled by four Donovan Mitchell assists and six points of his own. That set the tone for the rest of the evening as they kept the Wizards at arm’s length the entire contest.
The Cavaliers kept steadily extending their margin of victory thanks to their defense. They did a good job of running Washington’s shooters off the three-point line which led to midrange shots and contested looks at the rim. The Wizards finished just 48% of their attempts at the rim.
Mitchell choked out any slim chance of a Wizards comeback midway through the fourth. He converted a nice reverse layup, stole the inbound pass from Bub Carrington, and then drained a three to give the Cavs a 101-77 lead. Both teams immediately subbed out their starters after that. Mitchell finished with 19 points and 7 assists in 28 minutes.
Mitchell did suffer an injury scare as he briefly went back to the tunnel with what appeared to be a shoulder injury. He reentered the game shortly thereafter. Darius Garland wasn’t as lucky.
Garland left the game in the third quarter with a head injury after bumping into Wizards center Jonas Valanciunas. He was evaluated for a concussion and didn’t re-enter the game, but appeared fine in the locker room post-game. He had 12 points and 3 assists in just under 17 minutes.
It’s difficult to take too much away from a game where the Cavs had six or the seven best guys playing on their team. This was about as wide of a talent gap as you’ll see in an NBA game which makes it hard to draw any substantive conclusions from this one.
We can say that Evan Mobley feels extremely confident in matchups where he has an advantage. We’ve seen that whenever he catches a small guard in a mismatch and whenever he’s going against an inferior team. The latter was the case against Washington.
Mobley got wherever he wanted to on the court offensively while making life difficult for every Wizard on the other end. It’s exactly what you want to see from Mobley in a game like this. He finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 assists.
Dean Wade was able to play for the first time in a few weeks. He didn’t have a strong offensive impact as he only contributed 1 point in 19 minutes, but it was good to see him on the court. Wade’s versatility gives the Cavs some much-needed front-court versatility.
The Cavs are in the midst of a tough stretch of games as they play eight games in 12 nights which includes games against the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets. Getting an easy, low-stress win in this stretch is ideal.
