NBA: Brooklyn Nets vs Cleveland Cavaliers | 27 December, 8:00 AM (PST)

[Mary C]

 

The Brooklyn Nets won seven games in a row by defeating generally losing opponents and frequently pulling through in the clutch. But on Friday, they decisively defeated the Milwaukee Bucks by 18 points to earn their eighth straight victory. When the Nets visit the Cleveland Cavaliers, another elite club in the Eastern Conference, on Tuesday, they will be aiming for their ninth straight victory. The Nets had only two victories in the run vs teams with winning records: Atlanta and Indiana, both 17-16, before holding the lead for the last 42:56 of the 118-100 victory over the Bucks. 

The Nets limited Milwaukee to a field goal percentage of 44 and a 3-point percentage of 24.3 dominating Golden State by as much as 44 points on Wednesday. Brooklyn Player Kyrie Irving said, "This is our group; we’re just rocking, having fun playing a great brand of basketball, doing the little things, and it’s resulting in some wins. It’s a long season, but this is a nice point that we’re at right now, and we feel good, so we just want to keep it up. We don’t want to take our foot off the accelerator." Additionally, neither of Brooklyn’s most recent victories required Kevin Durant to exert a lot of effort. Although he had a lot of assistance, Durant finished with 24 points on Friday after scoring 23 on Wednesday. In the fourth quarter, when the Nets held Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo scoreless, Irving scored 14 of his 18 points. 

Cleveland has recently been almost as hot as the Nets, who are 12-1 in their last 13 games. The Cavaliers are 14-6 in their previous 20 games since their five-game losing streak from last month, but they are also aiming to avoid consecutive defeats for the first time since that run. Cleveland’s five-game winning streak was snapped on Friday when it was defeated 118-107 by Toronto Raptors. Although Cleveland made over 50% of its shots for the 15th time, it gave up a season-high 19 3-pointers to the NBA’s worst 3-point shooting team and trailed by as many as 26 points early in the third when coach J.B. his starters were benched by Bickerstaff. 

With 17 points and 15 more than Isaac Okoro, Darius Graland led the Cavaliers. Donovan Mitchell, a star who averages 28.9 points per game, was limited to 12 points on 4-of-16 shooting after scoring 36 points in the victory over Milwaukee on Wednesday. After a victory like the one we had over Milwaukee, Mitchell stated, "You can say you have nights like that, but it was kind of frustrating to come out the way we did as a group, especially the starter. I put it on the starting five. We’ll be better; we’ll learn from it, and we’ll go on, but it’s difficult to come out as a group the way we did. "