Takeaways from the Cavaliers’ 117-94 win over the Wizards

Mar 18, 2023 - 2:04 AM

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With their 117-94 win over the Washington Wizards on Friday, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat last season’s win total with nine games to play.

Easy win

Here’s a few numbers that explain how uncompetitive this game was:

• The Cavs’ starters finished 1-13 from three and still won. Darius Garland made the starters’ first three of the game with 8:24 left to play.
• As a team, the Cavs shot 21.1% from three and won. Cleveland is 10-9 in games this year where they have shot under 30% from three.
• Mitchell was 6-16 from the field and 0-6 from three. Weirdly, the Cavs are now 3-0 on the year when he doesn’t make a three.

In short: the Wizards are not very good. Good work in March in you can get it in the lead up to the playoffs.

Evan Mobley, making plays

He does something like this once a game.

What Mobley does is make the spectacular play on defense look routine. This play really absurd when you break it down step-by-step:

• Kyle Kuzma drives, getting into the lane past Mobley and Caris LeVert
• Mobley uses his length to stride back into position. He gets back in time that he’s even with Kuzma and in position to cut him off with a second of Kuzma getting into the lane
• Mobley BEATS Kuzma up and is just lording over him as Kuzma goes up. He doesn’t even have to block the shot hard to sent Kuzma down the baseline.

End result: LeVert scores on the other end. This is defensive player of the year type stuff.8-15 from the field, 4-6 from the line, 3 assists.

Mobley was good on offense too: 20 points, 8-15 from the field, 4-6 from the line, 3 assists.

Mamadi Diakite, in the rotation

Diakite, on a two-way contract with the Cavs, played in his second-straight game on Friday. This again put him ahead of Robin Lopez and Dean Wade in Cleveland’s big man rotation with Jarrett Allen still out.

Does this mean anything? Probably not. Diakite is signed to a two-way deal, so he’s not playoff eligible. It’s possible they could waive someone and put him on the 15-man roster, but there’s no indication that’s imminent.

Still: Interesting he played 12 minutes ahead of two players who are playoff eligible.

Up next: The Cavs are off until next Tuesday when they travel to Brooklyn to play the Nets. Their next two games are both in Brooklyn. Tipoff on Tuesday is at 7:30 p.m.