{"id":513084,"date":"2026-01-03T03:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/513084\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T03:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:09:11","slug":"cavs-hold-nuggets-to-11-fourth-quarter-points-to-escape-with-narrow-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/513084\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs hold Nuggets to 11 fourth-quarter points to escape with narrow win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/fearthesword.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> extended their winning streak to three games, but it wasn\u2019t pretty. They needed 33 points from Donovan Mitchell to narrowly escape with a 113-108 win over a Denver Nuggets team that was playing without four of their five opening night starters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Jamal Murray kept the Nuggets in this game. He was lights out in the first half as he poured in 28 of his 34 points during the opening two quarters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Cleveland made it a point to take the ball out of his hands in the second half. They double-teamed and trapped him anytime they had the opportunity to do so. While this kept Murray off the scoreboard, it also allowed his teammates to find a rhythm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Murray did a good job of getting the ball out of his hand and finding the open hand. This resulted in the Nuggets dominating the third quarter. They won that frame 38-26 by shooting 7-13 from three and 14-26 from the floor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Cleveland responded well in the fourth. They erased a nine-point deficit by playing to their advantage. They beat up a thin Denver front-court up on the glass as they grabbed five offensive rebounds in the fourth and turned those into nine second-chance points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Cavs also turned up the screws defensively. They held the Nuggets to just 11 points in the fourth quarter on 4-20 shooting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Mitchell led the way with 33 points, five assists, and four turnovers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Like Mitchell, Darius Garland struggled to take care of the ball. He turned it over an uncharacteristic six times. He finished with 18 points and eight assists in the victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">De\u2019Andre Hunter and Lonzo Ball had productive games off the bench. Hunter provided 16 points on 5-12 shooting with five rebounds and four assists. Ball added six points, three rebounds, and two assists in a performance that looked much better than the statsheet would lead you to believe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Murray had a game-high 34 points on 12-28 shooting with seven assists for Denver. Peyton Watson supplied 21 points and four rebounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This was an ugly game, but a win is a win. The victory extends the Cavs\u2019 winning streak to three.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Cleveland will have a tough test on Sunday. They\u2019ll host the conference-leading Detroit Pistons. Tip-off is at 2 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers extended their winning streak to three games, but it wasn\u2019t pretty. They needed 33 points&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,52699,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-513084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cavs-scores","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115828972980696895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513084","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=513084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}