{"id":513107,"date":"2026-01-03T03:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/513107\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T03:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:25:16","slug":"cavs-hold-nuggets-to-11-fourth-quarter-points-to-escape-with-narrow-win-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/513107\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs hold Nuggets to 11 fourth-quarter points to escape with narrow win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 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

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

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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

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

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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

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

Mitchell led the way with 33 points, five assists, and four turnovers.<\/p>\n

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

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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

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

This was an ugly game, but a win is a win. The victory extends the Cavs\u2019 winning streak to three.<\/p>\n

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…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[64968,7,193,791,187,188,864,762,4442,6,1146,40491],"class_list":["post-513107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-11-points","tag-basketball","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-darius-garland","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-jamal-murray","tag-lonzo-ball","tag-nba","tag-peyton-watson","tag-winning-streak"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115829035749855665","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513107","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=513107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}