Cavaliers hold off Magic 104-103 
​ BY STONE LEXINGTON
CAVALIERS BEAT WRITER
Ah, January — That annual time of year when the Cleveland Cavaliers become a magnet for NBA speculation. But, that can be expected with a team that has the best player, and possibly most popular athlete, on the planet.

Since LeBron James returned to the Cavaliers in 2014, Cleveland has been at the forefront of NBA headlines, and this season has been no different. While James and his comrades have reached the NBA Finals each season since his return, claiming the ultimate prize two seasons ago, daggers of doubt have been hurled at his teams as the winter months reach their coldest.

In his first season back from his championship awakening in Miami, James’ Cavs lost six straight games in January before immediately going on a 12-game winning streak. Last January, the Cavs experienced a stretch where they lost six of eight games before winning 10 of their next 12. And entering Thursday night’s contest against the Orlando Magic, the Cavs had lost five of seven games in January.

January hasn’t been the kindest month to James and his Cavaliers, particularly this season with the continued integration of Isaiah Thomas, and Thursday night’s game against the Magic nearly turned into another disaster. Nevertheless, the Cavs escaped with a 104-103 victory over Orlando in Quicken Loans Arena and pushed their record to 19-1 against the Magic in their last 20 games.

“It’s part of the game,” Tyronn Lue, Cavs head coach and NBA player for 11 seasons, said. “I’ve been through a lot of teams, ups and downs throughout the course of a season. But the biggest thing for us is that we’re starting to get healthy.

“We’re starting to figure out who can play with who, and what lineups and what we have.”

The Cavs are almost completely healthy for the first time this season, as Derrick Rose returned Thursday evening from a left ankle sprain and personal issues that sidelined him for the previous 32 games. The only player who remains out of the Cavs lineup is Iman Shumpert, who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in early December.

Rose, who played just 13 minutes on Thursday because of a minute restriction, finished with nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field. He looked quick and aggressive, and had several key plays in the second half when the Magic made a furious run.

“The last few days in practice he’s been great, pushing the basketball,” Lue said of Rose. “I think the biggest thing is just his conditioning is different, because he was the best conditioned guy we had early on in the season and now his conditioning has been down a little bit. But he’ll be fine.”

Rose isn’t the only point guard that recently returned to the Cavs lineup. The integration of Thomas has been choppy since the star point guard returned to the floor on Jan. 2. In his first five games with the Cavs, Thomas scored at least 17 points in three of the outings. However, he failed to reach double-digits in scoring in the other two contests and entered Thursday shooting 36 percent from the field and just 23 percent from the three-point line. Even his free throw percentage had dipped below 70 percent from the better than 90 percent he shot from the charity stripe a season ago.

But those numbers should be expected in his first playing time since last May. Thursday night against the Magic, Thomas helped the Cavs get off to a quick start, scoring eight of the Cavs’ first 11 points to help Cleveland take an early 11-4 lead. The Cavs led 36-20 at the end of the first quarter and by a 20-point margin, 67-47 at halftime. It looked like Cleveland was going to cruise to an easy victory over the Magic, but again, this is January.

Orlando immediately began to battle back in the third quarter. When Magic point guard Elfrid Payton threw an alley-oop to Aaron Gordon for a thunderous dunk with 4:05 remaining in the quarter, Orlando had cut Cleveland’s lead to single digits, 79-70, for the first time since the 5:38 mark of the first quarter. Less than five minutes later, the Magic had tied the game at 80 with two Jonathan Simmons free throws.

“Not playing through the game for 48 minutes, it hurt us tonight,” Lue said.

After Orlando’s run to tie the game, the Cavs used a 9-0 run to regain a comfortable lead, but the Magic wouldn’t go away. By the time just 1:39 remained in the game, Cleveland held only a slim 102-101 lead. When Magic point guard Shelvin Mack sank an open floater with 31 seconds to play, Orlando took a 103-102 lead, their first advantage of the night. After it looked like the Cavs were going to cruise to victory, it suddenly appeared as if Cleveland was going to blow another large lead.

On the ensuing possession, however, Thomas drove the lane and was fouled with 11 seconds showing. He calmly knocked down both free throws to put the Cavs up for good. Orlando failed to get a clean shot off in the final 11 seconds, sealing the Cavs win.

Thomas finished with a season-high and game-high 21 points, three rebounds and four assists. James totaled 16 points, five rebounds and four assists.

James, who now sits just 25 points away from becoming just the 7th player to score 30,000 points in his NBA career, hasn’t been known to not let a January slump derail his train to the Finals. If the Cavs reach the Finals again this season, it will be the eighth straight time James has graced the series. Cleveland’s king was also named a starter to his 14th straight All-Star team on Thursday, the longest such streak in NBA history.

“When he came into the league, they just talked about he’s a pass first guy, a guy who passed the basketball,” Lue said. “He’s known for making guys better, but then to make guys better and then still score 30,000 points, that’s a great achievement.”

Lue wasn’t sure how many points he totaled in his career.

“Nowhere close to that,” he said with a laugh. “He might of had more in one season than I had all my career.”
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​POSTED 01/18/2018 22:21
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