Location:
Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH
Probable Starters:
Cleveland: (8-23)
- Collin Sexton
- Alec Burks
- Cedi Osman
- Tristan Thompson
- Larry Nance Jr
Indiana: (26-13)
- Darren Collison
- Thaddeus Young
- Domantas Sabonis
- Victor Oladipo
- Bojan Bogdanovic
Cleveland- The last time the Cavaliers won a game was December 18th. They defeated these same Indiana Pacers whom they are hosting tonight at Quicken Loans Arena. Since winning in Indiana, the Cavs have gone through a slew of injuries and lost nine straight.
Over the course of the nine game skid Cleveland has lost by 20- plus points five times, including 26 and 35 point losses the last two games. The Cavaliers are about to go on what is arguably their most difficult road trip of the season starting tomorrow night. The Cavaliers will begin their annual West-Coast trip against the New Orleans Pelicans Wednesday night, before playing four playoff teams in five games.
All six games on the road trip will be challenging for the Cavaliers, including the two opponents who aren’t current playoff teams. Cleveland once again plays the Pelicans and Utah Jazz, the two teams who embarrassed them last weekend. Following the 35-point loss Saturday night, Coach Larry Drew downplayed the losing streak, as his team tries to right the ship.
“I’m not even thinking about the losing streak to be perfectly honest. My biggest concern is just trying to get this team into some kind of rhythm and some type of organization, so we have something to build off of.”
Drew has had his hands full this season since taking over for the fired Ty Lue. The injury bug has found a nice home in Cleveland and keeps biting when the team needs it most, thus leading to 18 different starting line-ups used by Cleveland. That trend is likely to continue Tuesday night as Drew spoke about possibly changing things up in the line-up as he continues to search for something that works.
While Cleveland is struggling, the Pacers are playing some of the best basketball in the NBA. Winners in 13 of their last 16 games, the Pacers currently sit in third in the Eastern Conference playoff picture. After losing 121-105 on Sunday in Toronto, Pacer guard Victor Oladipo hoped they were able to grow from the defeat. “Hopefully this will be eye-opening for us, and we will realize we’ve got a lot of work to do if we want to where we want to be.”
Random Notes:
- Matthew Dellavedova is QUESTIONABLE tonight
- Myles Turner and Darren Collison are QUESTIONABLE
- The Cavaliers signed point-guard Cameron Payne to a 10-day contract on Sunday after waiving Patrick McCaw.
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