{"id":553145,"date":"2026-01-22T12:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/553145\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T12:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:40:21","slug":"18-stats-to-explain-cavs-94-87-win-over-hornets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/553145\/","title":{"rendered":"18 stats to explain Cavs 94-87 win over Hornets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> held the Charlotte Hornets to 87 points<\/a> in their win on Wednesday<\/a>. Whether that\u2019s the result of good defense<\/a> or poor outside shooting from Charlotte is for you to decide.<\/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

43.7%, 5th percentile<\/p>\n

39.3%, 92nd percentile<\/p>\n

21.6%, 4th percentile<\/p>\n

20.7, 48th percentile<\/p>\n

Hornets<\/p>\n

37.8%, 0th percentile<\/p>\n

32.8%, 73rd percentile<\/p>\n

13.5%, 61st percentile<\/p>\n

13.3, 12th percentile<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s dive into the numbers.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Hornets shot 17% from three (1st percentile<\/a>). Three-point defense can be difficult to diagnose on first watch. Well-defended shots can result in makes, and giving up uncontested threes can result in misses. There\u2019s just a lot of variance there. The best defense is often done by limiting outside shots from the opponent\u2019s best three-point shooters. The Cavs didn\u2019t do that as Kon Knueppel (2-10 from three), Brandon Miller (3-11), and LaMelo Ball (0-10) all attempted more threes than their season-long averages. Based on that, this might have been a case of Cleveland benefiting from a horrendous shooting night from Charlotte.<\/p>\n

Charlotte\u2019s eight three-point makes were their fewest on the season. It was also their worst percentage as they went 8-47 (17%) from distance. Their lowest mark in a game up until this point was 25%. This was an uncharacteristically bad shooting night for a top-ten three-point shooting team.<\/p>\n

The Cavs didn\u2019t shoot much better as they went 8-40 (20%) from three (2nd percentile<\/a>). This was also Cleveland\u2019s worst shooting night of the season, and the second game in a row they only hit eight outside shots. This was the fifth time this season they\u2019ve shot 25% or worse from three, and the first time they\u2019ve won such a game.<\/p>\n

This was the second game in a row the Cavs had just 34 field-goal makes. That ties their lowest total of field goals in a game.<\/p>\n

Cleveland outscored Charlotte 25-17 on second-chance points. Both teams struggled to end defensive possessions with rebounds, but the Cavs did a better job of capitalizing on their second-chance opportunities. This was ultimately the difference in a game where both teams struggled offensively.<\/p>\n

Nae\u2019Qwan Tomlin provided a career-high seven offensive rebounds. His ability to create additional scoring opportunities for the Cavs has been incredibly helpful this season. Tomlin came into this game in the 95th percentile for offensive rebounding percentage<\/a>. As a result, the Cavs as a team have grabbed 3.8%<\/a> more of their missed shots from the field when Tomlin is on the court (86th percentile<\/a>). This was the fourth time he\u2019s had four or more offensive rebounds in a game.<\/p>\n

Evan Mobley tied a season-high with 14 rebounds. This was the third time he\u2019s reached that mark.<\/p>\n

The Cavs had three players with multiple blocks: Mobley (3), Jarrett Allen (2), and Craig Porter Jr. (2).<\/p>\n

This was the seventh time this season Porter has recorded two or more blocks in a game. Both rejections were on Ryan Kalkbrenner, who is exactly a foot taller than Porter.<\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s 18 fourth-quarter points were the first time they\u2019ve been held under 20 points in the final frame. It\u2019s also the fewest points they\u2019ve had in any quarter in a win this season.<\/p>\n

The Cavs tied a season-high with 21 turnovers. It was the second-straight game they committed 21 turnovers, and the fourth game in a row they had 16 or more.<\/p>\n

Donovan Mitchell is responsible for a season-high eight of those turnovers.<\/p>\n

Despite having eight more turnovers than Charlotte, the Cavs only lost the points off turnover battle by one point. The Cavs\u2019 ability to create offense off the Hornets\u2019 12 giveaways went a long way in making sure they won this game.<\/p>\n

This was the first time the Cavs have won this season when they\u2019ve scored 105 points or less. Cleveland is now 1-7 in such games. This was the third time they\u2019ve failed to reach the 100-point mark.<\/p>\n

The Hornets were held to just 12 points in the second quarter. That ties the fewest points they\u2019ve scored in a quarter all season.<\/p>\n

Charlotte scored 26 fast-break points. They were in the 94th percentile<\/a> for points scored in transition. Some of that is due to being able to run off of steals, but they also did a good job of getting into the open floor off defensive rebounds. This is an area the Cavs could\u2019ve done a better job in defensively.<\/p>\n

The Cavs\u2019 half-court defensive rating of 59<\/a> is their best this season by a wide margin. Their previous best for a single game coming into this was 84.6<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers held the Charlotte Hornets to 87 points in their win on Wednesday. Whether that\u2019s the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,970,684,473,3878,193,14901,188,864,576,685,1178,968,966,30021,6,972,70610],"class_list":{"0":"post-553145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brandon-miller","10":"tag-charlotte","11":"tag-charlotte-hornets","12":"tag-charlottehornets","13":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","14":"tag-craig-porter-jr","15":"tag-detroit-pistons","16":"tag-donovan-mitchell","17":"tag-evan-mobley","18":"tag-hornets","19":"tag-jarrett-allen","20":"tag-kon-knueppel","21":"tag-lamelo-ball","22":"tag-naeqwan-tomlin","23":"tag-nba","24":"tag-ryan-kalkbrenner","25":"tag-th-percentile"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115938802147043118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553145","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=553145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}