Nuggets Flat Out Humiliate Cavaliers 113-83

Posted by Jeff Sack under Main

There have been worse losses in the LeBron James era of the Cleveland Cavaliers, but I would have to do an awful lot of searching in my memory banks(or probably just log on to the Cavaliers website) to figure out where or when. Let’s just say that this was the worst loss of an up and down season, by the reigning NBA Eastern Conference Champions. The Cavaliers were embarrassed by the Denver Nuggets in from of their home fans at the Q Sunday night as they lost 113-83, in a game that was not even as close as the final score indicates. Cleveland fell behind by 37 points. Denver was led by Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, and some nice performances from the bench. Cleveland had LBJ, Larry Hughes, and a whole bunch of nothing, as they were never really a threat in this contest.

To?be fair Cleveland has been bitten especially hard by the injury bug right now. Sasha Pavlovic, Anderson Varejao, Drew Gooden,?and Daniel Gibson, all missed the game due to injury. Cavaliers?coach Mike Brown has tried to be creative with his starters and substitutions. Some nights it works, other nights it doesn’t. This was one of the other nights. Cleveland last held the lead at 16-15 with just over 5 minutes left in the first quarter. From then on it was all Denver, all the time. The Nuggets were ahead 35-24 at the end of the first quarter, 63-45 at the end of the half. Denver was up 90-74, at the end of the third quarter, but the fun had barely begun. The Nuggets had players like Von Wafer, and Yakhouba Diawara hitting 2 at the line to put Denver up by 37 points, 113-76, with 2:55 left in the game. Mercifully somehow Cleveland scored the last 7 unanswered points, to cut the final margin to 30.?

Anthony led Denver with 27 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, in the victory. A.I. recorded a double-double with 25 points, a game high 13 assists, 2 steals, 1 rebound, J.R. Smith came off the bench and scored 18 points, 5 boards, 1 block, 1 assist. Linas Kleiza also came off the bench scoring 10 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal.

James scored a game high 30 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and did not play in the fourth quarter. Larry Hughes scored 14 points, 5 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal. They were the only two Cleveland players to reach double figures. With the win, Denver improves to a record of 31-19, Cleveland is now 28-22.

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