Recap: Lakers 128, Cavs 99 (Or, 12 Good Minutes)

The Cavs fell in Staples Center to the Lakers by 29 points for their first night of a back-to-back away stint against LA’s two basketball organizations. This was the Lakers’ ninth straight win. The Cavs play the Clippers tomorrow.

Kevin Love led the Wine and Gold with 21 points and 11 boards. Tristan grabbed another double-double with 17 and ten. Those two just weren’t enough for LeBron James who had 31 points and eight assists on a 12-16 shooting night. Dwight Howard went 9-11 from the floor for 21 points. He also sucked up 15 boards. Alex Caruso added six assists and put up a plus-minus of +25.

The Cavs came out firing strong in the first against a lack luster Lakers team. Cleveland looked like All-Stars, as they consistently made the extra pass every chance they got. They had eight assists in the quarter and only finished the game with 21, that’s some foreshadowing of what’s to come. The Lakers had 33 on the evening for what it’s worth.

The ball found the right guy every time someone had a mismatch, and Kevin Love had nine points and seven rebounds as smaller guys kept landing on him. Darius Garland had four points and one assist, but was making grown up plays every time he touched the ball. And, defensively, the Cavs held the Lakers to 40.9% shooting to enter the second up 27-21.

The Lakers finished the night shooting 54.5%.

Tristan looked like he was in the same league as LeBron holding him to four points in the first twelve.

Darius Garland ended the night with 16 points and four assists on 7-13 shooting. Collin Sexton had 16 points on 16 shots to go with four assists.

In the second quarter, the Cavs looked passable early on. In the first few minutes of play Cedi Osman took a charge and Tristan goaded Dwight Howard into an offensive foul. Garland got two assists and scored a quick two on a twelve footer to put the Cavs up 13 with 9:54 to go in the quarter.

Then Garland checked out and Sexton started the Sexton show. He immediately had a travel. Then he bricked a 3 and the offense came to a stunning halt as he was -13 in the quarter. In the second six minutes of play, the Cavs managed just nine points and one assist. The Lakers ran off all the misses and put up 17 points to enter the half down one, 48-47.

The third quarter is where it all unraveled for the Cavs. The Lakers came out strong as James led the team with five assists accounting for 11 points; he’d get deep in the paint and just hold his dribble long enough to find the open man. He put up nine of his own. The Lakers went on a 17-4 run to go up by 12 with four minutes to go in the frame. The Cavs entered the fourth down 84-70.

The fourth was even worse than the third. The Lakers put up a hefty 44 points against a team that showed they deserved zero respect. With 11 minutes to go Garland threw a bad pass that Quinn Cook stole. A gaggle of Lakers raced down the floor and over passed the ball trying to get a throw back pass for a giant slam. It failed. The King recovered the ball down low though and dribbled out. He then tossed a lob to Dwight Howard for an automatic lazy lob. The rest of the quarter played out that way, as the Lakers just did whatever they wanted to a pathetic looking Cavs group.

Shooters shoot. Ain’t that right, @DwightHoward? 👌 pic.twitter.com/ZsjpGAR7rj

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) January 14, 2020

Gripes

1. The Cavs did everything correct in the first and blew it the rest of the night. This team just doesn’t have the talent to not play correctly. It’s absurd that they held the Lakers to 40.9% shooting in the first, and the Lakers ended the game shooting 54.5%. They shot 59.1% in the final three quarters.
2. Collin Sexton continues to hijack the offense. He isn’t reading defenses. He decides if he’s going to shoot the ball before he even touches it. And, defensively, he’s getting beat whenever his man isn’t involved with the ball. He has zero concentration right now. It’s no wonder he was a team worse -26. He even attempted to dunk on JaVale McGee and was stuffed. Even JaVale knows if he were Collin that he can’t dunk on JaVale. It doesn’t take much awareness to figure that one out.
3. The Lakers had 68 points in the paint. The Cavs forgot to help and recover. LA was penetrating and hitting the roll man with ease most of the evening. Howard made a living off the dump-offs.
4.  The Cavs also helped them out by turning it over 20 times leading to 30 easy points

Hypes

1. Sexland is done. Darius is showing that he’s above Sexton as a player. Garland was finding Love when he was open most of the night and seemed to be a very very willing passer. He ended the evening with the best plus-minus of any Cavalier that played a decent amount of minutes at -5.
2. Love and Thompson got their numbers and had some moments early on….trade value. Remember the trade value in double-doubles.
3. Cedi seems to have found his shot again. He had 15 tonight and went 4-6 from downtown.

Confident Cedi. 🔥🔥🔥

📺 #CavsLakers on @FOXSportsCLE pic.twitter.com/rKDQldjXYl

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) January 14, 2020

Let’s hope the Cavs don’t enjoy themselves too much in the City of Dreams tonight. They take on the Clippers in the less than 24 hours, and the Clippers are coming off a ten point loss to the Nuggets.