{"id":614967,"date":"2026-02-21T02:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614967\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T02:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:45:15","slug":"cavs-fend-off-hornets-118-113-for-seventh-straight-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614967\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs fend off Hornets 118-113 for seventh-straight victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> pulled out an impressive 118-113 victory over a surging Charlotte Hornets team on the second night of a back-to-back. It wasnt pretty for the entire 48 minutes. Cleveland struggled to defend the three-point line and clear defensive possessions, but they executed well enough offensively to get the win. That\u2019s all that matters in a game like this.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers controlled most of the first half. They won the first quarter by 10, pushed the lead to 14, and then settled for a six-point advantage going into the break.<\/p>\n

Charlotte roared back in the second half. They retook the lead in the third quarter due to shooting 8-15 from beyond the arc in that frame. They pushed their advantage to four before the Cavs reasserted control.<\/p>\n

Cleveland wasn\u2019t able to create much separation in the fourth, but they also never let Charlotte off the mat. The offense continued to generate clean looks in the half-court thanks to their dynamic backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and James Harden. Combine that with an energized Jarrett Allen, and you have the makings of an elite offense.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Hornets weren\u2019t able to get their outside shots to carry them in the fourth as they did in the third quarter. This led to the Cavs winning the final frame 28-24.<\/p>\n

Allen continued his string of impressive play. He set the tone early by scoring 11 of his 26 points in the opening quarter. Even though he wasn\u2019t scoring as much over the final three quarters, his activity never wavered, which led to him finishing with 14 rebounds and a block.<\/p>\n

Mitchell and Harden once again worked well together in crunch time. Harden had the reins as the play initiator, while Mitchell was able to find opportunities to score when the ball came his way. This led to Mitchell scoring 13 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter. Harden finished the evening with 18 points on 6-14 shooting to go along with eight assists.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t a perfect game by any stretch. The Cavs once again struggled to clear defensive possessions. This led to the Hornets compiling 37 second-chance points and gathering 43%<\/a> of their missed shots (95th percentile<\/a>). Many of these were due to the Cavs not being able to corral long rebounds. And, this is also an area where Evan Mobley\u2019s absence (injury management) was sorely missed.<\/p>\n

With the win, the Cavs have won their seventh in a row and 12 of their last 13. They were playing well before the trades, but have taken that to a new level since.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers will look to keep that going. They head to Oklahoma City to take on a shorthanded Thunder team on Sunday afternoon. Tip-off is at 1 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers pulled out an impressive 118-113 victory over a surging Charlotte Hornets team on the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,52699,684,473,3878,685,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-614967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavs-scores","10":"tag-charlotte","11":"tag-charlotte-hornets","12":"tag-charlottehornets","13":"tag-hornets","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116106331712846025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614967","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=614967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}