There was also the Orlando Magic series in 2009, but there wasn\u2019t one painful loss. It was a slow, miserable march to the finish line. Game 6 against the Boston Celtics in 2010 was also rough, although the game itself wasn\u2019t what was bad. LeBron James ripping off his jersey while leaving the court is what actually hurt.<\/p>\n
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No, this was different. It was the game of basketball that hurt us today.<\/p>\n
The Cavs blew a seven-point lead with less than a minute left. We don\u2019t need to go into a blow-by-blow of what happened. The Cavs turned it over twice. Once in the backcourt. Once from not getting it inbounds. They allowed two offensive rebounds off missed free throws. And the Pacers capitalized.<\/p>\n
Tyrese Haliburton ripped the hearts out of all 19,432 that were on hand to see it.<\/p>\n
It was also a shot he should\u2019ve never had an opportunity to take.<\/p>\n
The Cavs practice out-of-bounds plays \u201cdaily\u201d according to Jarrett Allen. You wouldn\u2019t have known it from watching Game 2. They couldn\u2019t get the ball in cleanly after a timeout when they needed to do so.<\/p>\n
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As unfortunate as some of the bounces were, you don\u2019t deserve to win a game if you can\u2019t execute the simple things you practice daily.<\/p>\n
Donovan Mitchell delivered one of the best games in Cavaliers history. He was the only reason this one was close. The Cavs needed someone to step up with Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and De\u2019Andre Hunter out of the lineup, and he did.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t even need to qualify it by saying \u2018it was one of the best, not including LeBron.\u2019<\/p>\n
No, this was just one of the best in team history. And the Cavs wasted it by throwing it away in the 48th minute.<\/p>\n
Indiana doesn\u2019t have an answer for Mitchell inside. He continually drove through Indiana\u2019s defense, took the contact, and converted at the rim.<\/p>\n
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Mitchell finished the game shooting 9-16 in the restricted area and 14-21 in the paint. That\u2019s remarkable considering that\u2019s the shot that Indiana is trying to take away with their drop coverage.<\/p>\n
![\"Donovan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/3d487261a7f955711693c88f1ad1fa5d.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Donovan Mitchell\u2019s shot chart vs. Pacers Game 2<\/p>\n
This continues the trend from Game 1. Mitchell is now 17-28 in the restricted area. The 60.7% shooting is slightly below league average (66.2%), but the fact that he\u2019s able to continually get there with little to no other ball-handling help remains impressive.<\/p>\n
Imagine how good Mitchell\u2019s performance would\u2019ve been if he had his outside shot going. He went 1-7 from deep in Game 2 and is now 2-18 from distance in the series. Mitchell was nearly perfect from everywhere else on the floor.<\/p>\n
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Mitchell had forty-eight points despite having a calf strain. He was seen grabbing at his leg during these two games, and it was reported on the TNT broadcast that he does indeed have a calf strain.<\/p>\n
Afterward, Mitchell dodged questions asking him to confirm the injury. He also wouldn\u2019t answer if he needed an IV to rehydrate postgame. But he did admit that he was hurting, especially in the final minute after taking a hard fall late.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t move man,\u201d Mitchell said when asked about what went wrong in those late inbound plays. \u201cBut, that\u2019s what it is. We\u2019ll be ready for Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether or not some of his injured teammates can return by then could determine whether or not Cleveland can extend the series back home for Game 5.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m banged up, we all are,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIt is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cavs needed something from Ty Jerome. He couldn\u2019t have picked a more inopportune time to turn in his worst performance of the season. Jerome went 1-14 from the field and that somehow doesn\u2019t capture how bad he was.<\/p>\n
Jerome was responsible for the inbound turnover late, he surrendered the offensive rebound to Haliburton, and he also gave him the space to hit the game-winning three despite knowing the only thing he couldn\u2019t do in that situation was give up a triple.<\/p>\n
Jarrett Allen and Max Strus showed up on both ends. The Cavaliers will need their two relatively healthy regular starters to continue playing that way if they want to get back into the series.<\/p>\n
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Indiana kept shooting the three-ball well. They once again shot above their season-long average (35.8%) from distance. Their 39.3% three-point shooting in Game 2 was well within the expected outcomes, but it\u2019s still worth pointing out.<\/p>\n
Cleveland, conversely, couldn\u2019t hit anything. They failed to crack the 30% threshold for the second game in a row. That\u2019s something they only did ten times in the regular season.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter who you\u2019re playing, you have to shoot the ball better from three.<\/p>\n
The bad shooting has overshadowed how well the Cavs are playing elsewhere. They once again had an advantage in turnovers, points in the paint, second-chance points, and got to the rim more frequently.<\/p>\n
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Normally, that would be enough to get you a win. But for that to happen, you have to actually hit a few outside shots.<\/p>\n
Did the Cavs find something in the loss? It\u2019s tough to say that now given the fact that they just suffered arguably their most soul-crushing loss of the last three decades, but Allen thinks they might have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we outplayed them for the majority of the game,\u201d Allen said. \u201cAnd then towards the end, we had our mental lapses, but we found the system that works. We found the style of play for us that is able to win against a team like this. So now, it\u2019s just will we be able to replicate it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to get two in Indy,\u201d Mitchell said. Whether or not it\u2019s possible to move on from a defeat like this remains to be seen. They have the skill to win four out of five games when they\u2019re at their best and healthy. Whether or not they can be healthy, or whatever qualifies as healthy in the playoffs, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
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But if they are, they still have a shot, even if it doesn\u2019t feel that way in the aftermath of this collapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt everyone in that locker room will be ready on Friday,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
More from fearthesword.com:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 It\u2019s been more than four hours since Game 2 ended. I\u2019m still not sure how exactly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,75,193,791,864,576,113,126,3866,1178,967,185,872,6,76,114,1201,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-15605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","11":"tag-darius-garland","12":"tag-donovan-mitchell","13":"tag-evan-mobley","14":"tag-indiana","15":"tag-indiana-pacers","16":"tag-indianapacers","17":"tag-jarrett-allen","18":"tag-kyrie-irving","19":"tag-lebron-james","20":"tag-max-strus","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-orlando-magic","23":"tag-pacers","24":"tag-ty-jerome","25":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114465767705099502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}