Magic-Cavaliers Preview
With much of the roster already bruised and battered, LeBron James and Kevin Love have been forced to do most of the heavy lifting for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Now Cleveland's only two healthy starters will try to extend the team's best home start in seven years Monday night without four key members of the rotation against the Orlando Magic.
All-Star Kyrie Irving (fractured left kneecap) and fellow guard Iman Shumpert (right wrist surgery) have yet to play this season. Mo Williams - who had been starting for Irving - is expected to miss his third straight game due to a sore right ankle and center Timofey Mozgov could miss the next two weeks with a strained right shoulder.
The adversity hasn't kept Cleveland (10-3) from getting off to a strong start, especially at home. Love had a season-high 25 points and 11 rebounds and James added 19 points, 11 boards and eight assists in Saturday's 109-97 win over Atlanta.
''We're missing a lot of guys right now, a lot of very, very significant players, but the other guys are stepping up and doing the job," coach David Blatt said.
James has raised his play, averaging 29.4 points while hitting 15 of 34 (44.1 percent) from 3-point range to go along with 7.3 rebounds in his last eight games. He made just 2 of 12 from 3 but averaged 10.7 assists in last season's three-game sweep of the Magic (6-7).
Love also has heated up with 25.5 points per game and 10-of-25 shooting from 3-point range over his last four. The forward also has averaged 12.3 rebounds over that stretch.
''No matter who's in the lineup, we need to play Cavs basketball the right way,'' James said. "We need to share the ball, we need to move it, play together and be aggressive defensively.''
The Cavaliers certainly did that Saturday, winning for the 27th time in the last 28 regular-season home games and extending their best home start (7-0) since opening 23-0 in 2008-09. They had 27 assists while limiting the Hawks to a season-low 37.2 percent shooting.
Cleveland hopes to continue that effort against an Orlando team that has shot 40.5 percent over its last six games. The Magic went 9 for 31 (29.0 percent) from 3-point range and had a season-low eight free-throw attempts in Saturday's 97-91 home loss to Sacramento.
''We just couldn't find a way to stabilize ourselves," coach Scott Skiles said.
Tobias Harris had 24 points while Evan Fournier contributed 17 but missed eight of 11 from beyond the arc. Nikola Vucevic and Victor Oladipo have been benched late in the last two games. Neither played in the fourth quarter Saturday, finishing with 11 points apiece.
Oladipo had 25 points, Harris added 24 and Vucevic scored 22 with 15 boards in a 123-108 home loss March 15 in the most recent matchup with Cleveland. J.R. Smith scored 25 and James added 21 points, 13 assists and eight boards for the Cavaliers.
Since losing 10 in a row in this series from 2010-12, Cleveland has turned things around by averaging 107.1 points while winning the past 10 meetings by 14.1 per game.
The Magic, though, have held seven of their last eight opponents under 100 points in regulation. They've also limited opponents to 42.0 percent shooting this season after ranking 28th in defensive field-goal percentage (46.3) in 2014-15.