Cleveland Cavaliers open Second Half with a dud in New Orleans, get crushed by the Pelicans 116-82 – cleveland.com

NEW ORLEANS — Well, guess the All-Star break came at a bad time, huh?

The Cleveland Cavaliers were hoping to pick up where they left off at the end of the season’s First Half, going into the midseason pause with plenty of momentum and confidence after winning four of the final five games. They were also expecting a healthy jolt Friday night, getting Kevin Love and Larry Nance Jr. back from injury.

Instead, the Cavs opened the Second Half with a lethargic and rusty dud, getting crushed by the angry New Orleans Pelicans, 116-82.

Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff spoke about building on the foundation from late February and early March. The five games before the break were a picture of who the Cavs could be. The healthy bodies were only supposed to make that picture more clear. Quite the opposite Friday night.

Without starting point guard Darius Garland, who Bickerstaff has called the team “unifier,” the Cavs looked discombobulated on offense, shooting just 34.1% from the field and 21.9% from 3-point range. They had 13 assists on 30 made shots — an unacceptable number for a group that’s talked team play and ball movement for months.

“Our ball movement can be better, how we diversify our offense can be better, how we include more people offensively can be better,” Bickerstaff admitted following the loss. “We have big guys who are extremely talented playmakers and passers and can make other people better. So we can get them more involved as well. A lot of rust, and we got to knock that off. We’ll go to Atlanta tomorrow, we’ll practice, we’ll get better. And we’ll go out and fight on Sunday.”

Garland watched from the bench because of a strained left groin suffered on March 3. The Cavs are 3-6 without Garland this season. Over the last 67 minutes, going back to when he limped off the floor in Cleveland’s First Half finale, the team has been outscored 170-116.

That doesn’t justify Friday’s performance. It’s not the only reason for the sleepy showing. But it highlights Garland’s importance on a team that didn’t have a natural backup point guard until Friday, when Quinn Cook, who inked a 10-day contract, landed in New Orleans around 4 p.m. local time to give Cleveland another needed ball-handler. Cook poured in 13 points in 17 minutes.

As bad as the first half and a 69-48 hammering looked, the third quarter was an even more terrifying horror show. Cleveland scored nine points, one for each day off during a week-plus that completely zapped its rhythm.

Outscored 24-9 during those dreadful 12 minutes, the Cavs trailed by 36 at one point, their biggest deficit until the Pelicans boosted that a touch more early in the fourth quarter.

“It wasn’t very pretty,” Bickerstaff said. “But, we’ll learn from all of them. I think that’s the most important thing is that we continue to learn through the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. It was obviously not the result or how we wanted to play, but this was necessary. We needed game-like action versus another opponent, an opponent who, frankly, had something to prove.”

Love played his first game since Dec. 27 — a 33-game absence caused by a high-grade calf strain. On a 10-minute restriction, Love finished with four points on 1-of-4 shooting and 1-of-3 from beyond the arc to go with one rebound and two fouls. Nance had missed the previous 12 games following surgery on his fractured left hand. Playing with a black protective pad, Nance tallied 11 points on 4-of-8 from the field and 2-of-4 from deep in 28 minutes.

“Those are two really good players that are gonna help us, and we just need to get them on the floor, let them play a little bit, knock some of that rust off,” Bickerstaff said of Love and Nance.

New Orleans, coming off a 30-point embarrassment to Minnesota the night before, looked motivated to erase those negative thoughts. Zion Williamson bullied Cleveland’s feeble defense, scoring 23 points in just 18 minutes. Brandon Ingram added 28 points, hitting 11-of-14 from the floor.

Nine days off. One practice. No Friday shootaround because of the timing of COVID-19 testing protocols. New bodies to re-integrate. Another new starting lineup. No point guard.

It all created one unappetizing bowl of jambalaya in New Orleans.

Up next

The Cavs will continue their three-game road trip with a matchup against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.