{"id":693250,"date":"2026-04-02T04:30:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693250\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T04:30:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:30:30","slug":"charge-season-ends-in-dissapointing-loss-to-go-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693250\/","title":{"rendered":"Charge season ends in dissapointing loss to Go-Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Charge\u2019s<\/a> magical season came to an end with a 126-123 loss to the Capital City Go-Go in the first round of the NBA G League playoffs. The Charge fought hard, but an inability to grab crucial rebounds late ultimately did them in.<\/p>\n

Point guard Darius Brown II was one of the few constants in a Charge season that was characterized by change and NBA call-ups. In many ways, he\u2019s symbolic of why this year was so successful for the team. His steady hand at the point allowed various roster configurations to work. He was doing so again against the Go-Go until his body finally gave out.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter, he bloodied his knee diving for a loose ball. In the third, he hurt his hamstring after being fouled. And midway through the fourth, he rolled his ankle while forcing an eight-second violation.<\/p>\n

By the end of the game, Brown could hardly move, but that didn\u2019t keep him from making a positive impact on the game. He hustled back to stop a fastbreak layup with a minute and a half left in a three-point game. Then, he converted a fastbreak layup of his own to cut the deficit to one.<\/p>\n

Brown wouldn\u2019t use his injuries as an excuse. \u201cEveryone is playing through something,\u201d he said. But most aren\u2019t gutting it out like he was.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just says everything about who he is,\u201d head coach Eli Kell-Abrams said. \u201cHe\u2019s been in a walking boot for a month, and the way he\u2019s been able to fight through pain, fight through adversity, fight through off-court stuff and still not make it about him, and be able to galvanize and lead the group is really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Charge had a chance to win what was a back-and-forth game late. In the last minute, they missed two crucial defensive rebounds and had two bad turnovers. The Go-Go took advantage of those miscues to put the game away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the tough things about a single-elimination tournament,\u201d Kell-Abrams said. \u201cSometimes, if you just don\u2019t have it, you don\u2019t have it. I think defensively we weren\u2019t able to guard the ball and rebound, which we knew were going to be big keys to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleveland didn\u2019t have an answer for Alondes Williams. He poured in 39 points and four assists while going 12-21 from the field. This included contributing 24 in the second half to help the Go-Go erase a seven-point deficit at the break. Former Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> two-way player Chris Livingston also supplied 27 points and nine rebounds in the Go-Go victory.<\/p>\n

Brown led the Charge with 25 points on 8-15 shooting to go along with 10 assists and seven boards. Cavs two-way player Olivier Sarr finished with 22 points on 8-10 shooting with four rebounds and a block.<\/p>\n

Even though this wasn\u2019t how the Charge wanted this to end, they aren\u2019t going to remember this season for what happened on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple missed helps, a couple tough switches, and a couple of offensive rebounds shouldn\u2019t define what\u2019s been one of the most successful years in Charge history,\u201d Kell-Abrams said. \u201cWith the development we\u2019ve had, headlined by Tristan Enaruna<\/a>. \u2026 We knocked the development part out of the park.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Charge did knock that out of the park. They had six call-ups (seven if you want to count Nae\u2019Qwan Tomlin, who didn\u2019t play with the Charge, but started on a two-way deal). That includes losing Killian Hayes, who was having an MVP-caliber season, before he was signed by the Sacramento Kings.<\/p>\n

Kell-Abrams attributes Brown for being a big reason why they were able to keep things on the rails and attract more talent \u2014 like Riley Minix, Malaki Branham, and Sarr \u2014 to replace the guys they lost to call-ups.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The G League] encourages you to be selfish,\u201d Kell-Abrams said. \u201cYou think points will get you called up. You think, \u2018How many shots am I getting?\u2019 And D.B. says, \u2018You know what, I\u2019m going to pass the ball. I\u2019m going to pass the ball in a league that doesn\u2019t want to.\u2019 And that\u2019s why everybody wants to come play with him. That\u2019s why we were able to get Riley Minix here to play with him. That\u2019s why we were able to get Malaki Branham\u2026Olivier Sarr. Like, these guys want to come be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many will remember this season for the on-court success that the Charge had, Brown will take away how close this group was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stuff I remember most is always the stuff off the court,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI\u2019ll just remember things from after team dinners, going out to Top Golf or doing stuff like that with the staff and everybody. That\u2019s the stuff I\u2019ll remember more than anything we did on the court, although that was very successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the season, Kell-Abrams laid out two goals: \u201cWe want to develop these guys, and we want to win,\u201d he said at media day. The Charge did both. They had their second-best winning percentage for a regular season in their history and had numerous players called up. This was a successful season, despite the ending on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cForty-eight minutes of not our best basketball doesn\u2019t define us,\u201d Kell-Abrams said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Charge\u2019s magical season came to an end with a 126-123 loss to the Capital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,32186,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-693250","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-cleveland-charge","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116333237278273022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693250","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=693250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}