Hornets at Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers’ season of inconsistency recently came off its highest high and is now trying to avoid a long low. The Cavaliers will try to pull out of a two-game slide when they host the Charlotte Hornets on Monday. Cleveland looked like it was headed for the top of the Eastern Conference during an eight-game winning streak but back-to-back road losses exposed some holes in the defense.
The Hornets pulled out of a 10-game slide with back-to-back wins but have since started another skid with two straight setbacks. Charlotte had its defense shredded from the outside in a 114-87 home loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday, letting the Nets go off at 16-of-23 from 3-point range. The Cavaliers are in the middle of the pack in both 3-pointers made and 3-point percentage but have several players capable of getting hot from beyond the arc, most notably Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.
ABOUT THE HORNETS (6-17): Charlotte is trying to find a balance between guarding the perimeter and packing the paint on the defensive end. “Last year we were an elite defensive team (overall), but a poor 3-point defensive team,” Hornets coach Steve Clifford told reporters. “We’ve gone back to protecting the paint. If we’re going to be good defensively, then we can’t be middle-of-the-road at everything. You’ve got to be good at something.” Charlotte’s starting five was held to 37 points on 14-of-38 shooting in Saturday’s loss.
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (13-9): Cleveland’s rebuilt roster got off to a 5-7 start before dominating opponents with an average margin of victory of 14.5 points during the eight-game winning streak. LeBron James (knee) sat out a 103-94 loss on Thursday at Oklahoma City but was back in the lineup on Friday, when the Cavaliers gave up 119 points to a New Orleans Pelicans team that was missing Anthony Davis most of the game. “We really didn’t do, on an individual level, an acceptable job of defending anyone,” Cleveland coach David Blatt told reporters. “We did not control the ball, we did not close out well on the 3-point line, we didn’t defend drivers, we didn’t have any aggressiveness or physicality to speak of and their output was the result.”
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Charlotte owns the worst road record in the NBA at 1-9 and has dropped five in a row away from home.
2. Cleveland Gs Dion Waiters and Matthew Dellavedova (illness) stayed overnight in the hospital in New Orleans on Friday and are both day-to-day.
3. Irving is 4-of-18 from 3-point range over the last five games.