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The Cleveland Cavaliers did just enough to get past the tanking Utah Jazz 122-113, thanks to 34-point performances from both Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell.
How much can you actually take from this game? Tanking has been a part of the NBA for decades, but few teams have been as shameless about it as the Jazz.
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Utah has taken the art of tanking to a new extreme. Last month, they weren’t closing games with their best players, which resulted in a $500,000 fine. Then, the league seemingly didn’t believe them when they tried to shut Lauri Markkanen down with a hip injury, and were rumored to be sending an independent doctor to verify the diagnosis before deciding not to. And, they’re one of the teams at the center of the league’s initiative to end tanking.
Despite Adam Silver’s best efforts, the Jazz have kept losing. They came into this game on a five-game losing streak and had dropped nine of their last 10.
Unsurprisingly, they were also down several key players in Monday’s matchup as they were without Markkanen (hip), Jaren Jackson Jr. (knee), Walker Kessler (shoulder), Jusuf Nurkic (nose), Keyonte George (hamstring), and Isaiah Collier (hamstring). Few teams are going to be competitive if they’re missing that many rotation players. That’s especially true for ones that aren’t built to be competitive in the first place.
The Cavs knew this all as well. They also chose to rest two key players, Max Strus and Jarrett Allen, before their showdown with the red-hot Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night. That makes it a tough game to get up for. It also makes it foolish to react too strongly to anything that happened on the court.
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That preamble out of the way, let’s see if we can glean at least some things from this one.
The Cavaliers are now 14-2 when Donovan Mitchell scores 34 or more points and 20-9 when he scores 30 or more.
The team has gone as Mitchell has this season. That was on display again, as Mitchell’s former team couldn’t keep him from getting to the basket whenever he wanted. This resulted in Mitchell going 7-9 in the paint and 11-12 from the charity stripe.
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/10-takeaways-cavs-narrow-122-100000235.html
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Publish date : 2026-03-31 10:00:00
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