The Cavaliers lost a crazy one to the Heat, but the big story is Darius Garland re-injuring his toe

The Cavaliers lost a crazy one to the Heat, but the big story is Darius Garland re-injuring his toe

We do have a big show, a lot of sports to get to, and let’s start with the Cavaliers after a quick word from the Home Builders Association. Gift big this year with a home for the holidays raffle. You have a chance to win a beautiful new custom home or cash prize this holiday season and help make wishes come true for Make A Wish kids with critical illnesses. Raffle proceeds benefit Make A Wish OKI, which has granted over 22,000 wishes to children facing critical illnesses across Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana since 19. 83 This year’s house is a custom-built ranch by Petro’s Homes and has three bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and a three-car garage. It also includes amazing features like a great room with vaulted ceilings, an unbelievable kitchen, and a mud room with open lockers. One lucky winner will be announced on December 24th. So get your $100 ticket now. Just visit a homeorheholidays.org to buy your tickets. That’s a homeorheholidays.org. Terms and conditions apply. Guys, it was a crazy Cavs game last night, and there’s a Darius Garland injury update we’re still waiting on. We’ll get to the DG part of this in a second, but in case anyone missed it, I want to walk you guys through the final 5 seconds of the game. The Cavs were down by 3, and then this happened. Steve, you want to take the video here? Donovan Mitchell is going to get the rebound off a Sam Merrill miss, dribble out to the corner himself, and while falling down, turning. An incredible shot. — Can I ask you
— a question about that play? Was that a bad shot by, by, uh, um, Merrill Merrill? No, — they drew it
— up. He’s like that play was drawn up exactly. They needed a 3 to tie. — And
— did Donovan step out of bounds? You’re asking a lot of questions. I’m sure they reviewed it, but they did review it. They said he didn’t. That’s an amazing shot by, incredible. Sam Merrill, by the way, had made 4 3s in the second half. He was on fire in the second half. They drew this play up for him specifically. Donovan had 15 rebounds in this game. That’s gotta be his career high, right? Uh, I’ll double, I’m not positive on that, but his rebounding, when I make his season stats went up 2 whole rebounds in one game, which doesn’t happen. So this is what we should have been talking about to start today’s show. Should have been the start, except 408. Then, Steve, take 408, please. No, that’s 385, Steve. 408, please. Then this happened. Well, I could have let you take the Darius Garland injury instead of the Andrew Wiggins game-winning alley-oop. Some terrible defense here by the Cavs, some miscommunication. I’ll give you guys my thoughts in a sec, but Bull, when you watch, yeah, Mike did a good breakdown on this. Yeah, he broke it out on Twitter. He broke it down for us in studio too. Uh, in, I mean, how, whoever you want to blame, it’s inexcusable to allow a guy to be wide open for a dunk to end the game after you, after Donovan Mitchell just hit. You know, an all-time shot. I mean, why is somebody not just standing under the basket like, well, that’s what Anthony said. He, Anthony’s, I don’t understand it to catch and shoot here would be so difficult. — You got to protect
— against, so Evan Mobley’s in the corner. Who’s he in the corner with? Evan Jaime Haquez, who’s a decent shooter. Jaime can’t leave him just wide open. — How
— many, how long does it take to get a shot off? You have 0.4 seconds, which is exactly how much time was on the clock. So they technically could have and shoot. No, if it’s under 0.4, you can’t catch and shoot. At 0.4 you can catch and shoot. All right, — so
— one, — you could say should have Mobley have gone to the corner
— with a shot, but here’s the, here’s the first mistake. Why, why is it, do we have no, no other big guys we could put in the game? No, Jason, uh, sorry, Dustin, that’s where I’m going. Donovan Mitchell, with all due respect to Donovan, who’s the Cavs’ best player, should not be on the ball there. You have Jared Allen and Thomas Bryant both on your bench. Nikola Jovich, who’s inbounding the ball, is 6’8, 69, depending on which one you get an easy look. — Donovan can do all the jumping and waving and
— you have to put a 7-footer in front of him there. You have to. That’s the first, in my opinion, that’s the biggest mistake out of any of this is you don’t have, you don’t need Donovan on the floor there. You don’t need Merrill on the floor there. Like you, you need, — you need long guys who are 7 ft
— tall. Well, I said the same thing on Merrill. Mike’s, Mike did say that Merrill is good at like chasing guys. Merrill’s really good at chasing guys over screen. So, but the thing, but. If there’s more time, guys, — but
— there’s
— the point. Jarred Allen, Jared Allen should have been out there. They should have brought him in to guard the inbounder. But here’s the thing. Watch, uh, Sam Merrill. Can we run that play again? He’ll put it back on Sam Merrill got completely lost. He didn’t, he didn’t stay with the, with the screener, and he didn’t go after, the guy who took advantage of the screen, which was Wiggins. Like either once Hunter can’t get through, he’s gotta, he’s gotta go with Wiggins. — I also think
— Hunter’s effort there is pretty weak, and, and you gotta know that the back screen is coming. Like, I mean, where can you get where I can live with somebody catching the ball doing a crazy turnaround 3 with 4.4, but I am not OK with you getting back screen and you not understanding where it’s coming. Nothing is switch. yeah, — Dean Wade
— guarding guarding half court. — What the hell is he
— doing? Yeah, good point. Why are you? He’s guarding the logo. It, it awareness is a thing that we just wait, why are you wait out there? I mean, jeezus, — protect the
— basket. I’m gonna lie to y’all. That’s a great play. It is a great play and Spoelstra clearly outcoached drew that up. And as Mike said, he’s a good point. Kenny Atkinson got tossed for the game. He wasn’t there in that moment, and that’s part of the reason they got screwed up. Yeah, it’s. It’s just a miscommunication. Like in that situation, Sam Merrill, so two things. The way Dean Wade guards the guy who’s coming through the elevator screen tells me that they said don’t switch, or else they would have naturally switched after the game. If you’re not going to switch, then Sam Merrill has to be in a situation to where he’s not getting kind of caught in no man’s land. And he gets caught in no man’s land where he’s not sure what he thinks Daveon Mitchell is going to do. Should I go and make sure he doesn’t flash to the ball and catch easy? Do I stay back? Mitchell sets a good screen on Hunter, but the one thing you cannot under any circumstance give up in that situation is a wide-open lob to the rim. And this is as open. And easy of a game winner as you will ever see in the national basketball. — That
— that’s probably the only way they’re gonna score. Nobody, nobody’s catching and shooting there. It’s unlikely. Um, I think Anthony actually is fair that maybe Mobley should have just stayed under the basket, but obviously that he wasn’t told to do that. But here’s the thing, you said DeAndre Hunter didn’t seem like he gave great effort off that pick, and, and that might be fair. I also feel like if you look at the play, it seems like Hunter didn’t know the pick was coming. Like, is it Merrill’s job to tell him, pick, pick? Like isn’t that part of your job? Look at, — look at
— bull basketball knowledge, — of course you’re supposed to know
— that. I mean, at, at that point in time, you gotta be communicating everything, right? Look at, run the play again because it looks to me like Hunter did not see. That pick coming, which I, I don’t know, but he had to assume, at least in that situation you have to, yeah, I’m guarding the paint by any means necessary. If they make the shot, they make the shot. We have 5 guys on the court and not 1 guy is in the paint. That’s what I’m saying. Like just no way. — And the only way
— they win the game is to get in the paint. If they hit the shot, they hit the shot, — but I’m not giving them no
— dunk. Like they have. Hunter’s at the top of the key. Merrill’s. You know, just above the free throw line, everybody else is not even close to the paint. So bad. Can, can I get in here real quick? My whole logic behind it was, why wouldn’t you want them taking the lower percentage lob? They’re not gonna get a full second to set and shoot. — They’re gonna probably miss
— that. Yeah, I mean, in, in the end, if Jaime, whatever his name is, makes a 3 from the buzzer, shake his hand, you know, what are you gonna do? — He doesn’t
— have time for a full catch and shoot. Like it’s, it’s, — he catches it and it’s got to
— go. Yeah, people panic in them situations. Like it’s not your actual jump shot. It’s like get it off as fast as possible. — You have no
— time to. Can I give you a devil’s advocate real quick? Let’s say he didn’t chase Hakez, stayed right under the rim. They threw it to Hakez 12 ft from the basket, and he caught it the easiest wide open. Now it wouldn’t have been more open than that. We would have came in and said, what the hell is Mobley doing? Like it’s, I think Mobley’s in a no win. — I look at the issues on this play in particular at the
— two guys. That may be a criticism that’s easy to. it’s over. Let me ask you this, Mike. In that scenario, is Andrew Wiggins going to the cup or that, and he just so happened to not throw it to him and he throws it to Jaime? If that’s the case, I ain’t going to say nothing. If, if in your scenario where you say that Evan Mobley is wrong in either way, which he does, if he stayed in the paint and Wiggins was coming for the lob, but they said forget that and threw it to the other guy in the corner, is that the scenario? Yeah, that would, you know, that’s the scenario. I’m not gonna say nothing to Mobley. He did the right thing. He took away the high percentage shot, right? In hindsight it’s easy to say 20/20. It is you can argue that every Cavs player on the court screwed up. Yes, the reality, — and except
— for maybe Mitchell, I guess if you really want to get even like deep, deep into this. Dean Wade follows Norm Powell through the elevator screen. Watch when he go. Dean Wade, look where Dean Wade is at play. What are you doing? If we want to say, and once again, it’s, I don’t think it’s Dean’s fault. I’m just pointing, but everybody who is it that went through Norm Powell? Once Norm Powell, Powell is once Powell’s like a couple of steps past the top of the key, fly back into the paint. I don’t think he was gonna get there, but still. What are you doing? I think you could look at every single Cav other than Donovan, who shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. I mean, Don’s given full effort. You can only just, you can’t be taller than you are, right? — Can’t
— Donovan say to, who’s the assistant coach, Johnny Davis, Johnny Bryant, Johnny Bryant, why isn’t Donovan, like, you’re the leader, you know, like why don’t you say, hey, — we gotta get Jarrett
— Allen and watch, and watch this. You know what, you know what I think, um. Y’all shouldn’t even have been at that point. Like, you go back and look at the rest of the game. Miami pretty much outplayed them the whole first half, but I love the way that they, we played in that fourth quarter, man. Like that first half, I don’t really put a lot of stock into it in the NBA. The way we was, man, we was hitting some shots in the 4th. I’m talking about Dean Wade didn’t hit 2 M. And came up and hit 4. They was hooping if you, if you are a Miami Heat fan and you’re listening to this, they’re gonna say, bro, you just hit a, a miraculous turnaround backwards throw up shot from Donovan Mitchell off a rebound off a rebound like that’s the way it bounced. So, so I can’t, I can’t get mad like, oh my gosh, you came back and. That that was lucky to even be in that position. You was lucky to even be there. — They
— raced a 16 point 4th quarter down. So they, they forced overtime. But the big story, — the
— loss is what November, by the way, yeah, the loss is what it is. Like, obviously a bad loss. The big story is Darius Garland’s getting an X-ray on his big toe again, and this is the play where it happened. It happened in the first half. It’s nothing that stands out, but you could see after he falls on this play, he’s gonna pound the floor in frustration. He went out of the game, went back to the locker room. He got cleared by the medical staff. Kenny said in his postgame presser, our trainers cleared him. Darry said he wanted to go back and play, so we let him come in. He then reaggravated again in the second half. And now it’s another toe injury for a guy who just spent the last 5 months recovering from a toe injury. We’ll see the severity of it later today, but the loss is the loss. This is a much more significant loss in the big picture for Cleveland. That was a nothing play. I mean, it, for him to reinjure it on that tells me that that it wasn’t ready, and, and it’s concerning. We talked about this bull this morning, like the fact that he did have surgery. To repair that toe and the, you know, the ligament, it’s like, man, that’s concerning because you rushed him back and now. We’re talking about this is speculation 100%. I get it. Uh, we don’t know what’s going on, but you’re thinking if that, if that happens just now, are we, we looking at another surgery to, to re repair it? I just think that it’s November. He could have waited till late December. It was no rush. — We don’t need him until
— 20. Why was he already back, Mike? Originally he was supposed to be out months. No, he was right on, right on time. — He
— was. I thought he was gonna. Supposed to be out longer than that, — but you should go
— they said could miss up to the 1st 10 games. What was the rush to bring him back? Our, our offense, that’s the 4th. Now he’s been, he’s hurt that toe 3 times in 6 months. I don’t think it was a rush to bring him back. Cut it off. Let me tell you this. Hey, I want to go I want to point out, can I see that play again? He got hurt on that play, but that was an absolute dime. He just dropped that dropped on this play. I don’t know if it was a foul or what, but that was a dime. ended up calling a foul. I, — I’m gonna
— tell you, I’m gonna tell you this. So you know, think, I unfortunately I didn’t, I didn’t have surgery on my big toe. I didn’t, uh, yeah, I had a pin put in it. Uh, I didn’t had, uh, with, with I had turf toe and it was, it was level, you know, basically people say turf toe, but basically you, you tear ligaments in your toe. Yeah, I mean there’s, there’s ligaments around that toe are, are, they get inflamed and you can tear them. And you basically can’t put any pressure. You can’t push off your foot. — You
— can’t do nothing. So, so in this case, this is the problem that I’ll be having. It’s not, it’s not the fact that Darius Garland rushed back. It’s the fact that I’d be trying to warn people. Sometimes you can have injuries. And it ain’t right no more. Like people say, when you go under the knife, you come out, you like, oh, he’s better than ever, bro. You go under the knife, you can have a 5% chance that you, you 95% from now on. Or you can come back in and be like, Yeah, I’m good, but I really don’t got the feeling and level. And the thing about toes and feet is they’re notoriously hard to get blood flow to. It’s. Notorious. So even if you do heal it right and you have surgery, you gotta worry about the fact that is it really all the way healed if you re-injure it, how long do you gotta stay off of it? And for a small guard who is predicated on quickness, change of direction, uh, speed, agility, he’s, when you put that much torque and pressure on your, your feet. You can do it like this, and you could just, it, it just, it, so to me it, it’s scary because knowing who he is, um, and knowing what his game is and having that injury, you don’t know when it’s gonna heal or how well it’s gonna heal moving — forward or
— will he ever be the same player again? It could be a chronic deal, you know, where it’s not, he’ll never have that ability to push off that toe and You know, obviously you got, you have to have that. It’s concerning, um, but we don’t need him right now. Now, how long do we think, I mean, he’s got, he’s gotta be out a while, Mike. I, I mean, obviously waiting to get more information here, but they can’t, he can’t come back anytime soon. I would, I would if I was in the Cavs situation regardless of what the X-rays come back today. I’m being whatever there’s the cautious, then there’s the abundantly cautious. Then there’s the wrapman Saran like, yeah, I, I’m not until I have the utmost confidence that he is literally back to 100%. I assume another couple of weeks. I assume they did that this time and you know, the Cavs have a great training staff. They work with university hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic. Well, the Cavs at the clinic, Browns at the university hospitals, like they have elite medical staff, so. If they said he was ready, I’m taking their word that he was ready. I’m worried that this is a, a dust dimension, possibly a chronic thing. Well, I mean, think about it. He, he first injured it last, uh, against the Heat in the playoffs. No, no, no, he injured it before that. Yeah, he came back and then. — And he can’t remember he
— missed a couple of — games like in February or March or
— something. Yes, he hurt his toe, then he hurt it again, obviously, right? And then he hurt it again, had to have the surgery. Now he heard it again. They sent him back in the game and then he hurt it again. So I know it’s the same injury yesterday, but it’s like 33 times, and after surgery and then hurt it again a few months later. — That’s
— concerning. Yeah, it’s, that’s why I always, you know, people think sometimes I’ll be like, man, you, you’re such a pessimist, and I’m like, listen, man, I’m just giving you the real, bro. Like people be talking about windows. All the time and how this window is open and this guy coming back and you’re like, well, I remember JLK was the coldest linebacker we had and then or David Bell or Jedrick Wills like these dudes is all finished because of injuries and when you got a person that you, he’s a max player and you see how the offense is looking, I, I, I told people that the most, that the biggest improvement from what I saw the first couple of games was the fact that Darius Garland was back, so the ball was moving and spacing was there. If they don’t got him, they ain’t winning on, they ain’t win no championship at all. That’s a wrap, you know, the way OKC’s playing anyways it’s gonna be tough anyway, but I hear what you’re saying. — You
— see what I’m saying. I think that yes, the ball definitely flow different. I think that it will be some growing pains, but I have faith that they could figure something out by the time they get to the postseason. It’s not like they weren’t winning games without Darius. It just — Looked a little more
— challenging, yeah, but the, they’re gonna need all hands on. They need, they need all that win a champion. They need all that, yeah, yeah, like there is, you know, when you play against teams like New York, the problem is New York got about 7 dudes that, that can be like, oh, he had 30. Brunson had 30, as critical as we’ve all been at times on, on him. Darius, who the Oh wait, everybody but you has been critical at times, especially G. Bush and I. Yes, that was me. We still know he’s at worst their 3rd best player. Oh, look, I offensively he’s their 2nd best. Offensively he’s their 2nd best player. You’re not winning a championship, you know, unless you have LeBron. You’re not winning a championship without one of your top 3 players. And, and, and Oklahoma City Thunder ain’t even, uh, uh, uh, uh, Jalen Williams ain’t even playing, — and
— he was their 2nd best player, right? Last year I don’t know. — That’s
— crazy. What? — What they doing this and they best
— defenders. They’re gonna be a dynasty, right? And they got, and they got 1000 picks too. They got 1000 number ones. How you get, — you got 1,0001 number one picks
— just chilling. One trade that changes the entire trajectory of your franchise. What was the trade again? Paul George for SGA and 6 1st round picks. Oh my God. And SGA is 1000 times better than Paul. — 100
— million, uh, whatchacallit, greatest fleeing of all time. Fleece, you see what Mcallit about to get fired today. Uh, Harrison, Nico Harrison, — the now
— Mavs, yeah, I know, it’s so funny. They don’t fire him after he trades, uh, Luca. — Now they’re gonna
— fire him. No, they was like, yeah, we got, we got some pieces now. Get out. We used you. We used you for you. How are the Mavs doing? — I haven’t paying any
— attention to that. They’re, they’re not good, but at least they’re interesting, so they could be. They, they got Cooper Flagg. — Is
— he good? Is he playing well? Uh, Kyrie’s out till March. Cooper Flagg’s been OK, — but the Mavs are 3 and 8 and 2nd last in the Western
— Conference. Who’s been the best rookie so far? The guy in Philly, uh, Edgecombe’s been the best. Uh, yeah, he’s been the best rookie so far. They’re like, oh yeah, you’re still gonna pay for that trade, even though you got us up out of it low key, bye. Damn, peace out, homie. Well, they didn’t get him out of it. They got lucky. They got, yeah. They got lucky, right? Like, so they was like, yeah, — we’re gonna come
— today. You got lucky. You don’t get it. You don’t get any points for. — You don’t
— get no points for that, that lottery ball, like, you know what I’m saying? Get out of here. Uh, I did an ultimate Cav show this morning, did a little more in-depth on the game. Also had, uh, Eli Kelly Abrams, the head coach of the Charge on. So go check out that interview. They got their home opener on Friday. They’re also a sponsor of UCSS. They start tomorrow, so we’re big Charge fans moving forward. Their first game is tomorrow. Uh, no, they’re in Detroit tomorrow. First home games Friday. First home games Friday on my birthday. Yeah, yeah. So maybe will see at, uh, what are you doing for your birthday? Uh, I, I’m going to, uh, uh, uh, uh, Rosie has an immigration here to be a, a permanent settlement. Oh nice. That’s awesome. Yeah, he thought I was laughing. See, he thought I was joking. I wasn’t joking. I do say a lot of jokes about immigration, but you know, uh, you know, we can, we can afford to get our feet on the wood at the Charge game. We could do that. I can, I can make that happen. — Feet on
— the wood is unbelievable. Like, please do not put feet on the wood in your, in your search box. That’s not gonna turn out well. That’s not work safe. we’ll make that happen.

Andrew Wiggins made an alley-oop dunk at the buzzer in overtime, and the Miami Heat beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 140-138 in a wild back-and-forth game Monday night.

Norman Powell scored 33 points, Jaime Jaquez Jr. had 22 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists off the bench for the Heat. Wiggins scored 23 for Miami, which got a 14-point, 20-rebound game from Kel’el Ware.

Donovan Mitchell had 28 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists for Cleveland, including a 3-pointer to tie the game with 0.4 seconds left in overtime — before Wiggins caught a pass from Nikola Jovic for the game-winner.

Cleveland got 23 from De’Andre Hunter and a 21-point, 10-rebound effort from Evan Mobley.

The Heat are 5-0 at home for the third time in franchise history, joining 2012-13 (when Miami won the NBA title) and 2019-20 (when Miami lost in the NBA Finals).

It was the first meeting between the teams since Game 4 of their Eastern Conference first-round series last season — when Cleveland won 138-83 to finish off a four-game sweep with a total victory margin of 122 points. It was the most lopsided postseason series, in terms of margin, in NBA history.

“It was very humbling,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It was embarrassing.” | https://www.espn.com/nba/recap/_/gameId/401810056

Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!
BILT
Turn your rent into rewards and start earning points around your neighborhood by going to https://joinbilt.com/lockedonnfl.
Supply House
Join the free TradeMaster program today and score serious perks like priority shipping, lower prices, and a dedicated support line. Visit https://SupplyHouse.com to sign up for free and use promo code SHNFL5 for 5% off your first order.
Peloton
Let yourself run, lift, flex, and push forward. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread+ today at https://www.onepeloton.com.
PrizePicks
Download the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.
Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNFL
Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.
FanDuel
Right now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app.
FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

Subscribe and ring the bell for the latest talk about the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Guardians, Cleveland Cavaliers and Ohio State Buckeyes: https://bit.ly/ucss_subscribe

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ultclesports

Watch live on YouTube 11 a.m.-1 p.m. weekdays on YouTube and WKYC+ on your Roku and Fire TV apps!

The Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show is your daily source of the best conversation about the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Guardians, Cleveland Cavaliers and Ohio State Buckeyes, as well as sports throughout Northeast Ohio. Produced by Mike Lucas, Anthony Antonelli, and Earl Mauldin. Hosted by Jay Crawford, Adam the Bull, G Bush, Jason Lloyd, and Tyvis Powell.