Postgame Wrap: Spurs start slow, recover to defeat Cavs

On Thursday night two of them will be playing each other, as the Cleveland Cavaliers take on the San Antonio Spurs.

Cleveland Cavaliers at Houston Rockets (+2, 205)The Houston Rockets are playing their best basketball of the season and put a season-best five-game winning streak on the line when they host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday.

The third quarter was more of the same, as San Antonio slowly chipped into the lead. “They (his players) did the same stuff. “(Cleveland) did the same stuff, but we just played it more aggressively and did a better job, both execution-wise and competitively. “That’s what it’s all about”.

Irving was limited to 16 points on 6-for-16 shooting this time, but the game was just as intense.

Cleveland point guard Kyrie Irving scored a career-high 57 points in last year’s game in San Antonio, but was held to 16 Thursday night.

DeMar DeRozan had 13 points and 11 rebounds to help the Raptors win their fourth straight game.

San Antonio sits atop the Southwest Division and No. 2 in the West at 34-6, 2.5 games back of the conference-leading Warriors. “Credit to this organization for helping me get there”. “They were being more physical than us”.

James didn’t try and do too much, taking just 14 of them. So in the second quarter, I felt like our energy was better.

The Rockets missed six shots and had a turnover in that stretch to help Cleveland pad the lead. “So it was positive going into the third quarter”.

The Cavs scored 32 points in the first quarter, but just 63 the rest of the night.

James shot 9 for 17 and attempted only four free throws. San Antonio is holding teams to a league lowest 89.8 points per game.

The three turnovers in the first three minutes of play led to seven Rockets points, and the home team used the mistakes to build an 11-4 lead over the Cavaliers before Cleveland coach David Blatt burned a timeout to calm the troops and refocus the players.

The Cavs struggled with ball movement offensively after the fast start.

The Rockets offense still runs through All-Star shooting guard, James Harden, who leads the team with an average of 28.0 points per game. When guarded by other Spurs, James’s usage percentage increased to 62 percent. “I’ve got a long way to go”. The two teams have yet to play this season but have four meetings lined up, beginning with January 25 at Golden State.

MVP sleeper Kawhi Leonard stuck with LeBron James all night and still finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds.

While Houston cut Cleveland’s lead down to five points, the Cavaliers pushed the advantage back out to eight on a three-pointer from Irving, who followed it up with a fade-away jumper on the next possession. “It is not easy to do and he still was aggressive offensively”, said Popovich. Kawhi made LeBron work for everything he had. “We were not guarding the pick-and-roll very aggressively so we are lucky that that happened in the first quarter. It worked out pretty good for us; we got some wide-open 3s”.

West had 13 points as the Spurs’ bench outscored the Cavaliers’ reserves 35-12.

San Antonio accomplished the mission.

James upfaked, drawing a foul on Manu Ginobili off a made layup, and completed a three-point play. “They gave us so many mismatches”, Ginobili said.