{"id":522800,"date":"2026-01-07T15:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/522800\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:50:11","slug":"cavaliers-rally-late-for-120-116-win-against-pacers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/522800\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers rally late for 120-116 win against Pacers"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014\u00a0Darius Garland<\/a>\u00a0scored 14 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, fueling a late 13-point run that sent the Cleveland Cavaliers past the struggling Indiana Pacers 120-116 on Tuesday for their fourth win in five games.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Indiana, the defending Eastern Conference champs, lost its 13th straight to set a franchise record in its NBA era
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Coach Kenny Atkinson gave All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell a day off just hours after team officials announced Max Strus was expected to miss at least another month because of a left foot injury
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Indiana still had a chance to force overtime in the waning seconds, but couldn’t tie the score\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indiana, the defending Eastern Conference champs, lost its 13th straight to set a franchise record in its NBA era. The Pacers are now a league-worst 6-31 and are one loss away from matching the Washington Wizards\u2019 14-game skid for the league\u2019s longest skid this season.<\/p>\n

The Cavs weren\u2019t even at full strength in this one.<\/p>\n

Coach Kenny Atkinson gave All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell a day off just hours after team officials announced Max Strus was expected to miss at least another month because of a left foot injury. Atkinson said that the updated timeline was not because Strus had suffered a setback. Cleveland also lost forward Dean Wade in the first half with a bruised left knee.<\/p>\n

And yet, Cleveland managed to erase the nine-point deficit they faced entering the fourth quarter. Evan Mobley had 20 points, while Jarrett Allen and Sam Merrill each scored 19. Merrill went 6 of 10 on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

Pascal Siakam led the Pacers with 22 points, and\u00a0Jay Huff tied his season high with 20 points,<\/a>\u00a0going 7 of 10 from the field and 4 of 7 on 3s. Andrew Nembhard had 15 points and 11 assists. Indiana played without center Isaiah Jackson, swingman Bennedict Mathurin, forward Obi Toppin and All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton because of injuries.<\/p>\n

Indiana still had a chance to force overtime in the waning seconds, but couldn\u2019t tie the score as the game turned into a free-throw contest.<\/p>\n

The loss also delayed coach Rick Carlisle\u2019s 1,000th win for yet two more days.<\/p>\n

Up next\n<\/p>\n

Cavaliers: Visit Minnesota on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Pacers: Travel to Charlotte on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014\u00a0Darius Garland\u00a0scored 14 of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, fueling a late 13-point run that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1970,1977,2097,7,305,6,67,16,8424,8757,66,1974],"class_list":{"0":"post-522800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-ohio","16":"tag-ohio-cleveland-cavaliers","17":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115854614641200746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522800","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=522800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}