Cavaliers drop final pre-season contest with 118-95 to Celtics
BY STONE LEXINGTON
CAVALIERS BEAT WRITER
(CLEVELAND, OH) - Cleveland Cavaliers head coach John Beilein hoped to use the Cavs’ final preseason game against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday as a dress rehearsal for the start of the NBA regular season, but a lack of big bodies forced him to alter his plans.
Just before the Cavs’ shootaround on Tuesday morning, the team learned that Tristan Thompson wouldn’t be playing later that night (rest). That, compounded with Ante Zizic being out with a sore left foot and John Henson missing the game with a right groin strain, left the Cavs shorthanded for their final preseason tuneup.
“That’s what I had really hoped to go into this thing, play it like a game as much as you can,” Beilein said. “And then this morning, we found out Tristan wasn’t going to go right before shootaround…It’s tough to approach it like a regular game and say ok, let’s just go and try to win the game.”
Cavs power forward Kevin Love scored the Cavs’ first eight points on Tuesday, helping Cleveland jump out to an early 8-2 lead. Unfortunately, that was the extent of the Cavs’ advantage, as the Celtics immediately took control of the game.
Boston led 27-19 after the first quarter and extended their lead to a 55-44 advantage at halftime. With two quarters to play, however, the Cavs certainly weren’t out of the game — That is until the second half started.
Boston rookie point guard Carsen Edwards left the locker room at halftime on a mission to completely take over the game. Before half of the third quarter had even elapsed, Edwards had drained eight crushing three-pointers that helped extend Boston’s lead to 22 points. Edwards had just four points at halftime, but when he converted a layup with 4:22 to play in the third to reach 30 points for the game, Boston had taken an 86-63 lead. The Cavs never recovered, falling 118-95 in the newly remodeled Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
“I’m certainly disappointed with the score,” Beilein said. “I’m really disappointed we couldn’t execute a lot of things.”
Second-year guard Collin Sexton led Cleveland with 20 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field. Rookie guard Darius Garland chipped-in 16 points on 6-of-13 shooting.
Several Cavaliers have had standout moments this preseason, none more than Thompson. Thompson entered Tuesday averaging a team-leading 14.5 points on 61 percent shooting and a team-high nine rebounds per game. As one of the veterans on an extremely young Cavaliers squad, Thompson will be expected to lead the youthful bunch to the best of his abilities.
Aside Thompson, Matthew Dellavedova, John Henson, Brandon Knight and Kevin Love are the only other players on the team born before 1992; and to say this team will undoubtedly experience growing pains this season is an understatement.
The Cavs now have a week off before they tipoff their regular season in Orlando against the Magic on Oct. 23. The time away from game-action won’t keep the players off the court, however.
“We’re going to take tomorrow off, and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday are really like a mini training camp for us,” Beilein said. “These next three days will not be about Orlando, they’ll be about how can we get our communication and synergy better, because it’s not very good right now…It’s been really hard, but it’s going to make us better.”
POSTED 04/15/2019 22:55
Lake County Sentinel
