The San Antonio Spurs, in their third city in four nights, couldn’t withstand the feisty Cleveland Cavaliers. The teams played evenly for the first half, but the Spurs transition defense was weaker than normal and Cleveland got everything they wanted in the lane en route to a massive third quarter that put the visitors away.
Devin Vassell was scorching in the first quarter, nailing four 3-pointers, getting to the line, and blocking Evan Mobley at the rim. The Spurs also got extra help from Cleveland’s poor ball security, plus Keldon Johnson and Jeremy Sochan kindled the bench mob. Yet they only had a five-point lead going into the second quarter.
The defense had a rough time getting stops, particularly against Mobley. Naturally, the Cavs played to the crowd, never letting the Spurs race off with a large enough lead. However the bench kept delivering, De’Aaron Fox did his thing and Vassell added three more treys, pushing his output to 25 points on 63.6 percent shooting, which carried them to intermission ahead by eight.
The Cavaliers caught the Spurs napping and only took two minutes to pull ahead. Four more lead changes followed in the third, but the Spurs’ ball movement all but came to a halt. the one-on-one play resulted in an 8-0 run that put them behind double figures, forcing coach Mitch Johnson to call multiple time outs to stop the bleeding. Whether it was Mitch or Keldon Johnson trying to inspire the team during breaks, it didn’t make much of a difference as their deficit swelled to 17 points going into the fourth.
In spite of diving for loose balls and some of the offensive flow retuning, Cleveland kept getting to the heart of the defense for close-range shots and kick outs. Johnson waved the white flag with two minutes left.