BOX SCORE

SACRAMENTO-Kyrie Irving struggled to find the bottom of the basket Sunday evening as his Cavaliers (13-24) turned in a poor effort on the road in a 124-80 blowout loss to the Kings (13-22) – the 44 point difference their largest margin of defeat of the season.

Fresh off of a 25 point, eight assist performance in the win at Utah, Irving would have liked to have a do-over in this one as he could only muster seven points on 3-14 shooting from the floor to go with his five assists.

Perhaps the only bright spot on the night was Anderson Varejao who scored 10 points (all in the first half) and collected seven rebounds and six assists in only 26 minutes. Starting 2-guard C.J. Miles also chipped in 14 points (5-8 field goals, 3 for 3 3-point attempts) as he continues to be a viable scoring threat from behind the arc in recent play.

Following the loss, forward Luol Deng offered some words of wisdom to his team desperately needing some veteran leadership after a team their poor performance tonight .

“Individually, it is not the last time we are going to have a bad game,” said Deng. “If you are trying to make it in this league for a long time, you are going to have many days where you don’t play your best. Just what I asked of everyone was to have each other’s back. That’s how you win games. You go out there for 48 minutes and have each other’s back and play as hard as you can and you live with the result.”

For as far apart as the two teams looked in the box score at the end of the game, Cleveland came out of the gate strong in the first quarter behind a couple of quick buckets by Luol Deng set up by Anderson Varejao – who had four assists in the quarter – as the Cavs raced out to an early 7-2 advantage.

After both teams got settled in and began to trade baskets, the Kings and DeMarcus Cousins would put pressure on the defense early as Cousins would put up 9 points and 5 rebounds in the opening period.

Following an Isaiah Thomas layup with 3.2 seconds remaining, C.J. Miles would calmly take the inbound and connect on a half-court heave at the buzzer to give his Cavs a 32-29 edge heading into the second.

As little defense and a run-and-gun pace continued to be the common theme into the second quarter, Cleveland would quickly find themselves down by 10 after Jimmer Fredette became a one man wrecking crew.

Fredette scored 8 points in the quarter on 3-4 shooting including a couple of triples that gave the Kings a bit of breathing room and they would never look back.

Add in a couple of Ben McLemore tomahawk dunks and the Cavs quickly found themselves down 59-50 heading into the intermission.

Almost uncharacteristically, Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters had their difficulties on the offensive end of the floor in the contest and especially in the first half (combined 3 points on 1-10 field goals).

Thanks in large part to double-digit scoring efforts by Miles and Varejao, the Cavs were lucky the deficit was not worse than it was with Irving and Waiters struggling to find any sort of rhythm in the opening 24 minutes of action.

After the break, the Cavaliers’ shooting woes would continue in the third as they only managed to score 11 points on 4 of 17 shooting. Sacramento on the other hand would find a serious groove behind Thomas who scored nine of his game-high 26 points in the third en route to a 89-60 advantage heading into the final quarter of play.

When the Cleveland deficit hit 38 with 8:55 remaining in the contest, head coach Mike Brown would take out his starters as his team would go on to be outscored 35-19 in the fourth.

While many things can be taken away from a loss like this for the young Cavs, Brown’s message to his team was short and simple.

“The only thing that we need to think about is ‘how did we react when were down.’ Did we fight or did we not fight? That’s it. It’s simple. Did we fight or did we not fight? And we did not fight.”

Cleveland will look to rebound from their performance in Sacramento Tuesday night when they travel to the Staples Center for a 10:30 p.m. ET first tip against the Lakers for the third of their current five-game road trip.

Post game shots

Despite the loss, off guard C.J. Miles continues to be a bright spot of late. In his last five games he is averaging 21 ppg on 55.4 percent shooting from the field and 51.6 percent from deep.

With 9:25 to go in the second quarter, Kyrie Irving’s running hook shot moved him past the 3,000 point milestone for his career. Irving would finish the night with 3,006 career points.

For as often as the Cavs struggled offensively, Brown was equally as frustrated with his team’s showing on the defensive end of the court. “I thought our guys defensively were not good to start the game,” said head coach Mike Brown. “When we got down, that competitive spirit on the road that you need just was not there and that is something that we have to understand. When you go on the road you are going to have to defend. If you don’t come into a building thinking defense first you can get in trouble – especially on the road as shots don’t always fall.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related