Durant and Irving rained 3 points, rejecting the career-high 46 points of young talent Darius Garland
The earliest match and also considered the focus of today's matchday (December 27) took place between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Brooklyn Nets. Before entering this match, the two teams were ranked 3rd and 4th respectively in the Eastern rankings.
Brooklyn Nets marched to Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse with a streak of 8 consecutive victories. As for the Cleveland Cavaliers, they just stumbled against the Toronto Raptors at home.
To soon forget the defeat, Donovan Mitchell and his teammates desperately need a victory and at the same time help consolidate the top position in the rankings.
All the players in the main squads of the two teams today are in the best shape, each team is only missing a few extra doubles. Therefore, experts consider this to be a fairly evenly matched match.
Entering the first half, the visitors were the better players with a 10-0 streak in 5 minutes, forcing the host Cavaliers to call a timeout. Particularly in this first half, Kevin Durant pocketed 13 points to put the Brooklyn Nets ahead with a 12 point difference.
Cleveland took the lead in the second half and shortened the lead to 1 point (44-43), but the effort received another cold water when Kyrie Irving and T.J. Warren makes a 13-0 run. The first two innings ended with a score of 65-49 in favor of the Brooklyn Nets.
After the break, the new home throwers started to wake up. The most outstanding of these is the young talent born in 2000 Darius Garland. At one point, he scored 10 points in more than 3 minutes, helping the Cavaliers stay in pursuit.
This effort lasted until the fourth half when Garland alone scored 17 points in 10 minutes. Unfortunately, he alone, despite scoring 46 points, was still unable to keep the victory at Cleveland.
The home team played not too bad in attack today, but their defense was completely deadlocked before the excellence of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Not to be missed TJ Warren, who burst onto the scene for Brooklyn from the bench.
The match ended with a 125-117 victory for the away team, extending the Nets' unbeaten streak to 9 matches. With the Cleveland Cavaliers, they lost their second game in a row and fell out of the top 3 in the East, being surpassed in the rankings by the Brooklyn Nets themselves.
Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving lead the Brooklyn Nets, both scoring 32 points, 5 assists and having an impressive shot rate of 56.7%. It is impossible to ignore the long throw statistics of Durant and Irving when both have a total of 12 successful 3-pointers (12-19 3PT).
T.J. Warren contributed 23 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals despite coming on as a substitute. In addition, the Nets also had 3 other players with 10 points, Royce O'Neale, Nic Claxton and Asian pitcher Yuta Wantanabe.
On the Cleveland Cavaliers side, the most prominent player is none other than Darius Garland. The 22-year-old defender broke his personal record with 46 points (14-20 FG, 5-7 3PT), with 8 assists, 3 rebounds and 1 steal.
The star that is expected to shine, Donovan Mitchell, is quite "cool" today, with only 15 points with 5-16 FG and 3-9 3PT.
On December 29, the Brooklyn Nets continue their tour away from home when visiting State Farm Arena, the stadium of the Atlanta Hawks. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers get an extra day off before marching to the Indiana Pacers' field on December 30.
