Cavaliers coach Byron Scott stressed one word when his team left the locker room at halftime of Wednesday night’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Rose Garden: composure.
“The last thing we had written on the board was composure, and I thought we had that the latter part of the game,” he said after the Cavs held off a furious Portland comeback and escaped with a 93-88 victory. “We kept our composure, just tried to run our plays, tried to get the type of shot that we wanted. Then we knew on the other end we had to defend and we were able to do that the last couple minutes of the game.”
Kyrie Irving led the Cavs with 31 points, and he scored six straight after rookie Damian Lillard’s 20-footer with 2:07 left gave the Blazers an 86-85 lead, their first since early the first quarter.
“The game is on the line, you want to give the ball to your best player,” Scott said as his team improved to 10-31. “You want it in his hands as much as possible. He was able to make some big shots, some big plays, made some free throws at the end as well. But the one jump shot that put us back up by three was the nail in the coffin….That’s what Kyrie can do.”
Scott was talking about Irving’s 17-foot turnaround jumper with 26.9 seconds left that gave Cleveland an 89-86 lead. He made two free throws with 19.7 seconds left, and Tyler Zeller added two more with 14.1 seconds left. But Zeller had a hand in back-to-back big plays for the Blazers than nearly cost the Cavs the game.
He gave up an offensive rebound to former Cav J.J. Hickson and then fouled him on the basket as Portland closed to 85-82 with 2:35 left. Hickson missed the free throw, but Nicolas Batum slipped in untouched to grab the miss and score to pull Portland within a point. After Alonzo Gee missed a layup on the other end, Batum, who had 23 points and 12 rebounds for Portland, grabbed the rebound, setting the stage for Lillard’s big shot.
After the Cavs led by as many as 19 points in the first half, Scott could see another game slipping away after halftime.
“I knew they were going to make a run,” he said. “It was just a matter of how were we going to handle it. I’ve seen this movie before, too. I was wondering how we would do this time compared to a few of the other times that we’ve had. I was just hoping we didn’t have another rerun. Luckily tonight we were able to hold [them] off.”
Tristan Thompson had 19 points and 14 rebounds as the Cavs improved to 10-31 after following Scott’s game plan designed to take advantage of the fact that the Blazers were coming off an overtime loss in the altitude at Denver on Tuesday.
“We should have the fresh legs, and we should be ready to get up and down the floor and run as much as possible,” Scott said before Wednesday’s shootaround. “Their starters play a ton of minutes every night, so we’ve got to try to take advantage of that by making them guard us every single time down the floor and when they miss, getting back in transition. If we don’t, then we’re playing right into their hands.”
The Cavs followed their coach’s advice and jumped off to a 12-7 lead that forced Portland coach Terry Stotts to take a timeout with 6:44 left in the first quarter. But Cleveland never let up, pushing the lead to 24-14 and then 26-16. Batum scored five straight points to get the Blazers within 26-21 after the first quarter. He led Portland with 11 in the first period.
But Irving, whose grandfather brought a crowd of 60 fans down from Seattle to watch, stole the show in the first quarter with 15 points. After missing the first game against Portland in Cleveland with his broken finger, his much-anticipated matchup with leading rookie of the year candidate Damian Lillard pretty much fizzled, as Lillard had just two points in the first period while being defended by Alonzo Gee.
Cleveland led by 19 points in the second quarter and was up at the half, 53-36. The 36 points were one off the Cavaliers’ opponent season low set by Philadelphia on Nov. 21.
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