When it was all over and the dust settled, coach Byron Scott was thrilled with the fight his team showed in a 102-94 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Monday in Philips Arena.
From Marreese Speights tying his season high with 23 points to Daniel Gibson’s second-quarter ejection to Luke Walton’s fourth-quarter shove of Ivan Johnson and Tristan Thompson returning for the second half after needing three stitches near his left eye to close a cut opened in the first half, the short-handed Cavs did not back down from the tough, physical, playoff-bound Hawks.
“That’s how we’ve got to fight,” Scott said after the Cavs fell to 22-51 with their season-high ninth straight loss. “That’s how we’ve got to play. We’ve got to fight with that type of passion. If we do that, then we’ll be OK.
“I’ve been waiting for that all season long. That was good to see. It took a lot longer than I wanted. But I think that also can put to rest the questions about these guys giving up or quitting, whatever you want to say. Like I told them, they played as hard as they could play tonight. They played with that fire, they were physical. If we fight like that every night, we’ll be OK.”
The Cavs started the game against knowing they’d be without Kyrie Irving, who returned after missing eight games with a sprained left shoulder on Sunday at New Orleans but is not playing in back-to-backs for now. They lost C.J. Miles at tipoff with a sore right foot, suffered at New Orleans. Then they lost Gibson with 7:07 left in the second quarter after he received two technical fouls, one for arguing with the referee about not calling a foul on a shot and then one for jawing with old Cavs nemesis DeShawn Stevenson, who also received a technical foul for his part in the incident.
It was the second ejection of Gibson’s career. He was tossed once his rookie season for launching his mouthpiece into the stands.
“I shouldn’t have let my emotions get the best of me and take me out of the ballgame,” he said, adding he had no ill will toward Stevenson. “I could have helped.”
Actually, he did. By someone finally boiling over, there seemed to be a renewed spirit on the floor and in the locker room after the game.
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