The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Cavaliers win fifth straight
Donovan Mitchell and the surging Cavaliers arrived in a city where they hadn’t won in a decade and demonstrated why Cleveland was among just three teams that held off on making any deals at this week’s NBA trade deadline.
Mitchell scored 30 points and Cleveland maintained a double-digit lead most of the way for a 118-107 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Feb. 10 that extended the Cavaliers’ winning streak to five games.
“We just kept making the right play over and over again,” Mitchell said. “You’re starting to see us get more familiar with each other, get more comfortable and now you’re starting to see what that team looks like and the team we want to be ultimately.
“We believe in ourselves,” Mitchell added. “We believe in what we have.”
Evan Mobley had 28 points and 13 rebounds, while Jarrett Allen added
20 points and 11 rebounds for Cleveland, which snapped the Pelicans’ three-game winning streak and won in New Orleans for the first time since March 2010.
“Chemistry’s at an alltime high right now,” Mobley said. “Everyone’s clicking on offense. Everyone’s hitting shots, playing their role and on defense, we’re doing the same thing, getting to our spots and just running our system very well.”
Cleveland shot 56.5% (48 of 85), outscored New Orleans 70-58 in the paint and outrebounded the Pelicans 41-34.
“Offensively we were just completely selfless,” Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “It was one of our best games, I believe, in picking apart an opponent by the way they were playing us. We were able to get open layups on the back side, open 3s.”
The Pelicans’ Brandon Ingram scored 25 points, his fourth straight game with at least that many. Trey Murphy added 17 points and CJ McCollum 12 for New Orleans.
Cleveland went in front for good in the first quarter and opened up a 22-point, first-half lead.