Long-range barrage lifts Cleveland Cavaliers over Denver Nuggets

CLEVELAND – Coach Kenny Atkinson has a plan for his Cleveland Cavaliers team this National Basketball Association (NBA) season – to be the best shooting team, especially from outside the arc.

On Dec 5, Donovan Mitchell scored 28 points and the league-leading Cavs drilled a season-high 22 three-pointers in a 126-114 home victory over the Denver Nuggets.

Darius Garland added 24 points and Caris LeVert contributed 21 off the bench, as Cleveland also withstood a triple-double from NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Nikola Jokic to improve to 13-1 at home and 20-3 overall.

The Cavs’ 22 three-pointers were from 48 attempts (45.8 per cent) as Denver connected with just six of their 24 (25 per cent) at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Cleveland are currently the league’s best three-point shooting team, making 40.5 per cent of their long shots overall. They have not lost (17-0) when they make at least 35 per cent of their threes.

“It’s starting to be real, this deep into the season. You can qualify us as a super excellent shooting team,” Atkinson said.

The Nuggets made it close in the first half, trailing the Cavs 66-62 at the interval.

Jokic had 27 points with 20 rebounds and 11 assists, helping the Nuggets claw back from an 18-point second-half deficit and cut the lead to nine with less than four minutes to play.

LeVert and Mitchell answered with three-pointers and the Cavs cruised home.

“It took everybody. Jokic is MVP for a reason, he makes that team phenomenal,” Mitchell said.

“They’re a team that gets out in transition... so (we were) just trying to stay disciplined and stay locked in. It takes communication, but it takes focus for 48 minutes.”

Over at Capital One Arena, Luka Doncic posted a triple-double of 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists as the Dallas Mavericks piled more misery on the Washington Wizards with a 137-101 victory.

Dallas guard Kyrie Irving led all scorers with 25 points and the Mavs handed the Wizards a 16th consecutive defeat – matching the team’s longest-ever losing streak.

It was the second straight campaign that the Wizards (2-18) have dropped 16 straight.

The Mavericks (15-8), in contrast, have won six in a row and 10 of their last 11.

Elsewhere, Canadian guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put on a show in his hometown, scoring 30 points to lead the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder to a crushing 129-92 victory over the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena. The Thunder notched a sixth win in their last seven games to push their record to 17-5.

Over at Madison Square Garden, a big third quarter saw the New York Knicks beat the Charlotte Hornets 125-101 to push their winning streak to four.

Karl-Anthony Towns scored 27 points and grabbed 16 rebounds and O.G. Anunoby scored 15 of his 25 points in the third, when the Knicks outscored the Hornets 38-16 to take control for good.

In other news, the NBA has signed a multi-year agreement with Macau casino operator Sands China to play pre-season games in Macau.

The league plans to host two warmup games each year for the next five years at Sands’ Venetian Arena.

It will begin in October 2025, NBA’s deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said at a press conference in Macau on Dec 6, with reportedly the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns to kick things off. It marks the NBA’s return to the Chinese market since 17 NBA teams played 28 pre-season contests in China from 2004 to 2019.

Basketball is extremely popular in China, and the market was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the NBA. However, a rift was created when then Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted support of anti-government protests in Hong Kong in October 2019.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver supported personal freedom of expression and did not punish Morey. In response, lucrative sponsorships were ended and league games were not shown on CCTV, the state-sponsored broadcaster in China, for one year after Morey’s tweet.

Silver estimated in 2021 that the NBA lost US$400 million (S$535.7 million) that year.

NBA games, however, started appearing regularly on CCTV in 2022 and became available on a streaming service. AFP, REUTERS