Cavaliers: Supporting cast offers little support in Game 3 loss

CLEVELAND — Somewhere on the flight back to Cleveland, a couple of key pieces got lost in the shuffle. The Cavs supporting cast, which was outstanding in their Game 2 win Thursday, went missing Saturday night as Boston promptly swiped back home-court advantage with a 106-93 win at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Boston now leads the best-of-seven series 2-1 with Game 4 in Cleveland on Monday. Aside from Donovan Mitchell, who finished with 33 points, Cleveland had little else going on offense. While the Cavs shot 33 percent from 3-point range as a team, seven belonged to Mitchell. The remainder of the team combined to shoot 5-of-24. "If you're open, you've got to shoot it," Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. "This is the NBA, these guys get paid to make shots. So if they're open, they're going to shoot it. We trust in them, we believe in them. There were a couple there we'd like to have back where we rushed a couple of them. When you get down to this team it feels so heavy, but like in any situation when you get down you just have to chip away. You just make the simple play over and over again and you'll give yourself a chance if you do that enough." While four players finished in double figures, Evan Mobley was the only one to hit the mark prior to the fourth quarter. He scored 11 points in the first half, but was shut out in the third quarter and finished with 17. Mobley added eight rebounds, but didn't have a block for the first time this postseason. Darius Garland, who signed a $193 million maximum contract in the summer of 2022, finished with just 15 points. That wasn't nearly enough to help Mitchell cancel out Boston's one-two mega punch of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who scored 33 and 28 points, respectively. "We need to do it for 48 minutes, not just in spurts for the second half or first half," Garland said. "We have to continue to do the right things at all times, play together, move the ball a little bit, that's how we get easy ones." Garland did finish the game strong, shooting 3-of-6 from the field for seven points in the fourth quarter. In Game 2, he scored nine of his 14 points during the second half as he helped spark the Cavs to take control. "We know how talented Darius is," Bickerstaff said. "We know how much he means to us. When he's that spark for us, it's a boost to the guys. Not just in the basketball sense, but in the spirit of the group as well. We'll just keep pushing him. I know how bad he wants it and he'll do the right thing for us and continue to be aggressive." Fellow starters Max Strus and Isaac Okoro combined for eight points with Okoro missing all four of his 3-point attempts. Cleveland also missed Caris LeVert's production off the bench. LeVert finished with 15 points, but eight came in the fourth quarter with the game well in hand. He was 3-of-7 from the field going into the final quarter. LeVert had 21 points off the bench for the Cavs in Game 2. "We just missed shots," LeVert said. "I know myself I missed a couple of bunnies, I've just got to do better. I think I bring another dynamic for the team scoring-wise, distributing-wise. I've just got to get better. I missed a couple of bunnies, a couple of tough bounces, but it is what it is." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.