Cavaliers at Pistons
The Cleveland Cavaliers have had a couple of days to stew about their double-overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday and are ready to get back to winning. The Cavaliers will attempt to do just that when they visit the stumbling Detroit Pistons on Tuesday.
Cleveland was upset about an inadvertent whistle that stopped play with offense moving in transition and the game tied with 7.4 seconds left in the first overtime on Saturday. "They kind of relaxed, and I was headed up the left side of the floor with a head of steam," LeBron James told reporters. "That's not why we lost the game, but it's something you wish you could have back." The Pistons wished they could have a lot of situations back from their last four games and hit bottom with a 97-85 loss at the lowly Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday. “I thought we battled,” Detroit coach Stan Van Gundy told reporters after the loss. “Just offensively we are a little bit of a mess right now and we just are not making any shots.”
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, FSN Ohio (Cleveland), FSN Detroit
ABOUT THE PISTONS (5-5): Detroit began its six-game road trip with wins at Phoenix and Portland to move to 5-1 but dropped the next four while failing to reach 100 points in any of the losses. Point guard Reggie Jackson shot 38.3 percent in the four games and totaled 17 turnovers before being benched in the fourth quarter on Sunday. “Look, he just had a really bad night,” Van Gundy told reporters. “The guy has had a heavy work load on this trip. The two wins we got were largely him taking over late in the game and I think he is a little worn down.”
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (8-2): Cleveland had been playing with fire while trailing late in the previous two games before pulling out wins, and it finally got burned on Saturday. "We give a half-ass effort sometimes and expect that we can just make a run at the end," James told reporters. "We're not good enough to do that right now." James posted his third straight 30-point effort with 37 points to go along with 12 rebounds on Saturday but also committed seven of the team’s 21 turnovers and is averaging five miscues in the last three contests.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. The Cavaliers took the final three of four meetings with the Pistons last season.
2. Detroit F Marcus Morris is 3-of-20 from 3-point range over the last five games.
3. Cleveland G Mo Williams scored a season-low four points on 2-of-8 shooting Saturday after scoring at least 20 in back-to-back games.