The Cleveland Cavaliers managed to cough up a 13-point lead against the Los Angeles Clippers in their second loss of the season on Monday night. And at the center of their struggles was star guard Darius Garland, who could not help the Cavs close out what would have been a big win over a talented Clippers team.
Garland finished the game with 19 points for the Cavs, but just three of those came in the fourth quarter, and he also committed three of Cleveland’s six turnovers down the stretch of the game. Afterwards, Garland simply tipped his cap to the Clippers, and said he will watch film of the game and figure out how to improve off of this rough performance.
“Tip our hat off to them. That’s a good team over there. I’m going to look over the film and see what we can do better.” – Darius Garland, Cleveland.com
Garland has typically played well in his return from an ugly eye injury, but he wasn’t at his best when Cleveland needed him to help them close this game out. Garland is still dealing with his eye injury to an extent, and the Cavs are working through figuring things out with him and Donovan Mitchell running the backcourt, but it would have been nice to see them close out Los Angeles in this game.
The good news is that the season is still early, and this is only the Cavaliers second loss in their first ten games of the season. Garland will have a shot to turn things around on Wednesday night when the Cavs continue their west coast road trip against the Sacramento Kings.