Those were the words of Cleveland Cavaliers Head Coach David Blatt, after his team fell to the San Antonio Spurs 99-95 Thursday, on a night where Cleveland had led by as many as 15 points in the first half.
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James led the Cavaliers (27-10) with 22 points, while center Tristan Thompson added a season-high 18 points and 14 rebounds. Cleveland actually faced off against San Antonio on Thursday night and kept it close, losing to the Spurs by four.
Turns out, that would the last time the Spurs suffered a loss on their home floor in a regular season game, going 31-0 coming into Thursday’s contest against the Cavs.
“We just played better defense”, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
It was the first game Wade missed this season due to injury.
Cavaliers 91, Rockets 77: Kyrie Irving scored 23 points, LeBron James added 19 and Cleveland capped a 5-1 trip with an easy win over Houston.
Kyrie Irving was limited to just 16 points on 6-for-16 shooting from the floor, but the game was as intense as we all knew it would be going in. No trade rumors about him, but we might hear more and more of them around mid February. Forward David West (13) and guard Manu Ginobili (10) were the only other San Antonio players in double figures. “Of course, when you have a guy like LeBron, the whole team plays different”. “But no matter how bad we struggled, especially in the first three quarters, we locked in and we got stops when we needed to and we just scored”.
The Cavs, at this stage of the season, don’t have many roadblocks in the Eastern Conference, and the Spurs have held pace with the Warriors all season, trailing by only two games in the Western Conference. Cleveland shot just 39 percent, 23 percent from 3, but grabbed 17 offensive rebounds.
Leonard not only shined on the defensive side of the ball, he added 20 points and 10 rebounds in the win and this put-back slam that got the fans on their feet.
Getting Howard more involved has been a point of emphasis for Harden and the Rockets, because he had expressed his discontentment with his touches.
Pelicans 109, Hornets 107: Ryan Anderson hit six 3-pointers as part of a season-high 32-point performance, Anthony Davis dunked Jrue Holiday’s alley-oop lob with 2 seconds left, and New Orleans defeated Charlotte.
“The first half, we were just flat offensively, so I was just trying to create and make stuff happen”, Parker said. So we went at them nearly every single time in the third quarter.
Point guard Tony Parker scored 18 of his 24 points in the first half, helping the Spurs stay afloat in the face of a strong Cleveland start.
“Kawhi made LeBron work for everything he had”, Popovich said. “He’s working his butt off on Kyrie Irving, who is a great player. So, Tony was great at both ends”.
The game was tight most of the second half, before the Spurs used a 13-2 run in the fourth quarter and forced the Cavs to play catch-up. Spurs bench outscored Cavaliers 35-12. With that being said, the Spurs have now won 17 of their last 18 games and should once again be a force in the playoffs. Jordan had played in 360 consecutive games before missing Wednesday night’s home victory over Miami. The Spurs have won 10 straight overall and 32 in a row at home, dating back to last season.
He also noted that those 54 seconds came in the first 54 seconds of a fourth quarter against the Clippers.
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Isaiah Thomas weighed in with 19 points in Boston Celtics’ 117-103 triumph over Phoenix Suns and in the final game of the evening John Wall led Washington Wizards to a 118-104 win over Indiana Pacers with 28 points. San Antonio has scored over 100 points in all nine games and given up under 100 points in eight of nine, although four of the last five opponents have reached 98.
