The Cleveland Cavaliers earned a blowout victory over the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday, but the team had to dig itself out of an early hole. The Cavaliers missed every one of their first seven 3-point shots. They were down by 15 points early on in the second quarter and trailed at halftime.
It took some great late-game play for the Cavaliers to create some separation and come out on top, as Cleveland outscored a mediocre Bulls team by 20 points in the final frame.
After the Cavaliers’ 11th consecutive win, star guard Donovan Mitchell offered a reality check. He said if Cleveland continues to let go of the rope early on in games, that it will come back to haunt the team.
“Unacceptable,” Mitchell said. “We have to stop doing that. We are a talented team and we are winning these games. But at some point it’s going to come back to bite us in the butt. We have to come out sharper. We have to come out and set the tone. Those things can’t happen.”
The Cavaliers have seemingly been playing catch-up quite a bit lately.
The team came back to beat the defending champion Boston Celtics on Feb. 28 but trailed 25-3 in the opening minutes of the game and was behind for an overwhelming majority of the contest.
A similar status quo carried over into the Cavaliers’ win over the Portland Trail Blazers on March 2. They got outplayed in the first half before they flipped a switch in the second half and beat Portland in overtime.
The Cavaliers will look to get off to their first strong start to a game in a little while when they take on a Miami Heat team on Wednesday that has a new look after it traded star forward Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors. The Heat will be missing numerous key players in the matchup. That game will also be a home contest for the Cavaliers at Rocket Arena.
Maybe Mitchell should play with an added level of aggression on the offensive end to help make sure that the Cavaliers avoid yet another sluggish start. He’s a gifted scorer and is leading the Cavaliers in points per game this season with 24.3.
If Mitchell and the Cavaliers can beat the Heat, they’ll extend their current winning streak to 12 games. Cleveland owns far and away the longest active winning streak of any team in the NBA.