It doesn’t matter who plays or who doesn’t, whether the game is at home or on the road, the Cavaliers just cannot beat the Chicago Bulls. With several injuries hurting both teams, what was left of the Bulls handled what was left of the Cavs on Wednesday night at The Q, 95-85, for Chicago’s 10th straight victory over Cleveland overall, its sixth straight at The Q. Call that a washout.
Anderson Varejao recorded his 10th straight double double — one short of Elmore Smith’s team record — with 11 points and 15 rebounds as the Cavs dropped their third straight game to fall to 4-15. No player in Cavs history has had 15 or more rebounds in 10 consecutive games. Donald Sloan had a season-high 14 points.
Marco Belinelli had 23 points and Luol Deng 22 for the Bulls (9-8).
“I’m proud of our guys,” Cavs coach Byron Scott said. “They’re battling. They’re playing as hard as they can right now. A lot of things are not going our way. But besides that first quarter when we let it kind of get out of hand — couldn’t make a shot and couldn’t get stops — after that we played pretty solid.”
“But that’s the problem right now with us. We’ve got to play a damn near perfect game on both ends of the floor. The effort has been great. It was great tonight. We’re just going to keep working. That’s the only thing we can do. We’ve got 25 percent of the season gone. We’ve still got a lot of games left. We’re going to just keep working. We’re going to keep getting better.”
Scott started veteran Daniel Gibson in place of Waiters on Wednesday, after shifting small forward Alonzo Gee to shooting guard Monday at Detroit and promoting reserve small forward Omri Casspi to the starting lineup. Scott was hoping the changes would prevent the Cavs from falling behind like they did at Detroit, where they trailed after the first quarter, 30-17.
Instead, it was worse. The Cavs trailed, 25-11, after the first quarter against the Bulls. Chicago shot 66.7 percent in the first quarter, while Cleveland shot just 31.3 percent.
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