While Cleveland heads into Sunday’s home matchup with the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics sporting the league’s best record, the Cavaliers also come in trying to avoid a three-game losing streak.
Cleveland had its 15-game winning streak to open the season interrupted in its last meeting with Boston, a 120-117 win for the host Celtics on Nov. 19. The Cavaliers recovered with a pair of wins over Toronto and New Orleans, but fell in meetings with the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday and Friday.
A 20-point, 22-assist game from Trae Young on Wednesday powered Atlanta to 135 points, the most Cleveland has allowed this season. The Hawks followed the 11-point win in Cleveland with a 16-point rout of the Cavaliers on Friday in Atlanta.
The consecutive losses dropped Cleveland to 17-3, tied with Boston for the NBA’s best mark in the loss column. The Cavaliers maintain the league’s best winning percentage at .850 but are trying to avoid their first three-game losing streak since last April.
“Our defensive engagement was good,” Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said, contrasting Friday’s loss with Wednesday’s. “(But) our offense kind of tanked. It’s hard to be mad at our guys. They’ve been phenomenal offensively.”
The Cavaliers ranked No. 20 in points per game a season ago with 112.6. In their first season under Atkinson as coach, they lead the NBA in scoring at 122.4.
Friday’s contest was Cleveland’s lowest-scoring output of the season despite 29 points from Darius Garland and 24 from Evan Mobley. Donovan Mitchell managed less than half of his season average (24.1) with 12, while 14.5-point per game scorer Jarrett Allen managed just six.
The Cavaliers look to get back on track against a Celtics team riding a seven-game winning streak. The Celtics, averaging the NBA’s second-highest point-per-game output at 121.2, have bookended their streak with 139 points in a rout at Brooklyn on Nov. 13 and 138 points in a win Friday at Chicago.
Jayson Tatum scored 35 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in Boston’s nine-point defeat of the Bulls. He is averaging 28.7 points, which includes his 33-point performance in the win over the Cavaliers.
In Friday’s NBA Cup win, Boston also got a huge performance off the bench from Payton Pritchard. His 29 points (19 in the fourth quarter) came on the heels of a 20-point outing in the Celtics’ 126-94 home blowout of the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday.
“The key to him is he finds different ways to impact games. He’s grown as a player over the course of his career,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said of Pritchard. “He’s a complete player. I know it sounds weird, but he’s one of the best three-level scorers I’ve seen for his size, and he’s just a high-level competitor.”
At 15.6 points per game, Pritchard is one of five Celtics averaging more than 12 points along with Tatum, Jaylen Brown (24.7), Derrick White (18.3) and Jrue Holiday (12.1).
–Field Level Media