{"id":513217,"date":"2026-01-03T04:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/513217\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T04:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:36:12","slug":"13-stats-to-explain-cavs-112-108-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/513217\/","title":{"rendered":"13 stats to explain Cavs 112-108 Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> picked up an ugly 112-108<\/a> win over a short-handed Denver Nuggets team<\/a> that was without four members of their opening night starting lineup.<\/p>\n

The stats in the table below are from Cleaning the Glass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Effective Field Goal Percentage<\/p>\n

Offensive Rebounding Percentage<\/p>\n

Offensive Turnover Percentage<\/p>\n

Free Throw Rate<\/p>\n

Cavs<\/p>\n

59.3%, 77th percentile<\/p>\n

31.9%, 65th percentile<\/p>\n

17.7%, 24th percentile<\/p>\n

12.8, 10th percentile<\/p>\n

Nuggets<\/p>\n

51.1%, 30th percentile<\/p>\n

21.8%, 17th percentile<\/p>\n

10.4%, 87th percentile<\/p>\n

11.8, 8th percentile<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s dive into some of the stats.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Cavs held the Nuggets to just 11 points in the fourth quarter. Cleveland entered the fourth quarter down nine points and was able to erase that deficit despite scoring just 24 points of their own. Denver\u2019s 11 fourth-quarter points are the fewest they\u2019ve scored in any quarter this season. Defense is just as important as offense if you\u2019re trying to make a fourth-quarter comeback.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets went 4-20 from the field in the fourth and 1-12 from three. You aren\u2019t going to close out many games if your offense goes that cold in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Jamal Murray registered just six second-half points on 2-12 shooting after pouring in 28 points in the first half. The Cavs did everything they could to force the ball out of Murray\u2019s hands by sending double teams his way and trapping him throughout the second half. The rest of the Nuggets were able to make them pay for this strategy in the third quarter. They weren\u2019t in the fourth.<\/p>\n

Cleveland had nine second-chance points in the fourth quarter by grabbing five offensive rebounds. The Cavs did to the Nuggets down the stretch what the New York Knicks<\/a> did to them on Christmas. Denver struggled to rebound without their top two centers. This led to the Cavaliers having a 23-14 second-chance points advantage.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets committed nine turnovers to the Cavs\u2019 16. This was about as lopsided as you\u2019re going to get in the takeaway battle. Denver turned it over on just 10.4%<\/a> of their possessions (87th percentile<\/a>) while Cleveland coughed it up on 17.7%<\/a> of theirs (24th percentile<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s guards were the main culprits as Darius Garland turned it over six times while Donovan Mitchell gave it up four times. Having your two starting guards be this careless with the ball is one of the easiest ways to even the playing field against a depleted Nuggets team.<\/p>\n

Denver outscored Cleveland 18-12 in points off turnovers. The Cavs shot considerably better from the floor, but weren\u2019t able to capitalize due to the damage consistently turning the ball over did.<\/p>\n

Donovan Mitchell notched 33 or more points for the 11th time this season. The Cavaliers are now 10-3 when he does so.<\/p>\n

Mitchell did most of his damage inside, going 9-10 on shots in the paint. This included completing 7-8 in the restricted area.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers connected on 73.1% (68th percentile<\/a>) of their looks at the rim. They did this while taking 34%<\/a> of their shots at the basket(64th percentile<\/a>). Getting inside opened up the outside shot as they went 16-38 from three (42.1%). Despite how good an outside shooting team the Cavs can be, their outside shot is predicated on their ability to get inside.<\/p>\n

Conversely, the Nuggets finished just 55.6%<\/a> of their shots in the restricted area (14th percentile<\/a>). As much as the game has changed, the team that controls the paint to this level will usually win the game. Cleveland outscored Denver 50-34 in the paint.<\/p>\n

Evan Mobley was a team-worst -10. Single game plus\/minus can be a little wonky. So, make of this what you will. However, this wasn\u2019t a great Mobley game. He failed to make a free throw despite having five attempts and wasn\u2019t able to take advantage of Denver\u2019s thin front court as completely as you\u2019d like.<\/p>\n

Lonzo Ball was a +10. Ball was behind on Jarrett Allen (+12) in team plus\/minus. Still, this was arguably Ball\u2019s best game as a Cavalier. He knocked down a pair of triples, made a noticeable impact on defense with his two blocks, and did a great job of keeping the ball moving on offense. This game was a good example of why it\u2019s difficult to give up on Ball, even though performances like this have been few and far between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers picked up an ugly 112-108 win over a short-handed Denver Nuggets team that was without…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,791,187,864,576,762,1178,4442,6,191,70610,2484],"class_list":{"0":"post-513217","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-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-darius-garland","14":"tag-denver-nuggets","15":"tag-donovan-mitchell","16":"tag-evan-mobley","17":"tag-jamal-murray","18":"tag-jarrett-allen","19":"tag-lonzo-ball","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-new-york-knicks","22":"tag-th-percentile","23":"tag-the-cavaliers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115829315041896368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513217","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=513217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}