{"id":615100,"date":"2026-02-21T04:21:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T04:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/615100\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T04:21:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T04:21:49","slug":"13-stats-to-explain-the-cavs-118-113-victory-over-the-hornets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/615100\/","title":{"rendered":"13 Stats to explain the Cavs 118-113 victory over the Hornets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> did enough to outscore<\/a> the Charlotte Hornets 118-113<\/a> to win their seventh game in a row.<\/p>\n

The stats in the table below are taken 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

59.7%, 79th percentile<\/p>\n

33.3%, 70th percentile<\/p>\n

13.2%, 63rd percentile<\/p>\n

33.8, 93rd percentile<\/p>\n

Hornets<\/p>\n

50%, 24th percentile<\/p>\n

44.6%, 97th percentile<\/p>\n

15.6%, 39th percentile<\/p>\n

22.8, 61st percentile<\/p>\n

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

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Both the Cavs (129.7 offensive rating<\/a>) and the Hornets (125.6 offensive rating<\/a>) finished with single-game offensive ratings that were in the 80th percentile<\/a> or above. How both teams got there was very different. Charlotte did this by controlling the offensive glass and generating second-chance points. Cleveland did so by shooting great from the field and by getting to the free-throw line repeatedly.<\/p>\n

Charlotte registered 37 second-chance points. They did so by grabbing 23 offensive rebounds, many of which were due to not being able to track down long rebounds from missed threes. Additionally, being without Evan Mobley made this problem worse. Still, it\u2019s frustrating when the Cavs are beaten this handily on the offensive glass.<\/p>\n

The Cavs registered 18 second-chance points of their own. This would be a solid output on most days. For example, the team that leads in second-chance points per game \u2014 the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> \u2014 does so with 18.5 per contest<\/a>. Even though this is much lower than Charlotte\u2019s 37, being able to get these helped soften the blow. Jarrett Allen grabbed seven of Cleveland\u2019s 10 offensive rebounds.<\/p>\n

Cleveland is now 18-2 when Allen scores more than 15 points and 10-0 when he scores 20 or more. Allen put up 26 points on an efficient 11-15 shooting. He was arguably the team\u2019s best player again \u2014 which has become a common occurrence over the past three or so weeks.<\/p>\n

Additionally, they\u2019re 14-0 when Allen attempts 10 or more shots. He took 15 in the win over Charlotte.<\/p>\n

The Cavs took 42%<\/a> of their shots at the rim (90th percentile<\/a>). This has been a recent trend. They\u2019ve registered over 40% of their shots in the restricted area during their last three games. Allen\u2019s good play, and how the offense has shifted after adding James Harden to the mix, play a large role in that.<\/p>\n

The Hornets converted just 43.5%<\/a> of their shots in the restricted area (1st percentile<\/a>). The Cavs didn\u2019t necessarily do a great job of defending the three-point line. They struggled with their rotations out to shooters, especially in some of the Hornets\u2019 guard-to-guard screens, but they made up for it by controlling the paint. The easiest way to have a good defense is by defending the rim. The Cavs did that at a high level. Getting to the basket is still the most efficient way to score.<\/p>\n

The Cavs took their fewest three-pointers of a game this season (21) despite shooting 47.6% from deep (92nd percentile<\/a>). The offense did a great job of generating clean outside shots while getting the ball inside when those looks weren\u2019t there. They\u2019ve come a long way from the side-to-side action that led to the contested, standstill threes that we saw at the beginning of the season.<\/p>\n

Cleveland posted a great 109 half-court offensive rating<\/a> (81st percentile<\/a>). Having two dynamic guards in Donovan Mitchell and Harden, who are this effective in the pick-and-roll, will lead to an elite half-court offense. There\u2019s a reason why they\u2019ve been so good in this area in the five games Harden has been with the team.<\/p>\n

The Cavs are now 21-8 when Mitchell scores 30 or more points and 18-4 when he scores 32 or more. These numbers don\u2019t correlate to winning as Allen\u2019s scoring totals do, but generally speaking, this team has typically won when Mitchell is scoring at a high level. That happened again here as he poured in 32 points in the victory.<\/p>\n

This was Mitchell\u2019s 100th 30-point game with the Cavs. He\u2019s cementing himself as one of the best players in franchise history. Here\u2019s to a few hundred more.<\/p>\n

Keon Ellis led the team in plus\/minus by being a +19. He\u2019s played six games with the Cavs and was a +17 or better in three of those games. So far, the Cavs have played some of their best basketball with him on the floor. The defensive energy he brings fits in well with this group.<\/p>\n

The Cavs registered a 143.5 offensive rating<\/a> with Harden on the court. That was the second-best number for a Cavalier behind only Allen (147.4<\/a>). Coming into this game, the Cavs had an outrageous 129.4 offensive rating<\/a> when Harden is playing (100th percentile<\/a>). Simply put, the offense has been unstoppable with Harden through five games. This is exactly what he was brought in to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers did enough to outscore the Charlotte Hornets 118-113 to win their seventh game in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,684,473,3878,193,864,576,685,560,1178,3211,6,8557,471,70610],"class_list":{"0":"post-615100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charlotte","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-charlottehornets","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-donovan-mitchell","14":"tag-evan-mobley","15":"tag-hornets","16":"tag-james-harden","17":"tag-jarrett-allen","18":"tag-keon-ellis","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-offensive-rating","21":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","22":"tag-th-percentile"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116106714658836650","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615100","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=615100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}