Cleveland Wins its Third Straight in Sacramento

*** Talk about ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’

Over the past 10 days, the Cavaliers came to California, made two big trades, beat the California teams they made the deals with – (after crushing one at home before the trip) – and now head for the mountains after winning three of the first four games on the West Coast roadie. 

On Saturday night, James Harden made his successful Wine & Gold debut, as Cleveland won its third straight – fighting off a feisty shorthanded Kings squad, 132-126, at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. 

In what’s hopefully the shape of things to come, Harden was deadly in the fourth quarter – drilling all four shots from the floor, including 3-of-3 from deep – scoring 15 of his 23 points in the final period, leading the Cavs with eight assists in the win. The future Hall of Famer was 7-for-13 from the floor overall, 5-of-8 from long-range, adding a pair of boards and a steal. 

Following the win, Harden gave some early impressions of his new team. “You have a combination of young guys who understand their role. You have Don, you have athletic bigs, you have shooting everywhere, you have coaching everywhere. I just have to figure out where I fit in. And that won’t be hard at all. I told the guys: ‘Just do what you do and I’ll figure it out.’”

As good as Harden was in the 1,196^th game of his decorated career, Cleveland’s All-Star shooting guard and longtime starting center were even better. 

Donovan Mitchell scored 29 of his game-high 35 points in the second half and Jarrett Allen went 11-for-12 from the floor for 29 points and a team-high 10 boards for his 12^th double-double of the season. 

And the Cavaliers needed every bit of that on Saturday night. 

For Mitchell, it was his 26^th game this season topping the 30-point plateau, adding a pair of steals and a pair of blocks in the win. Mitchell is the league’s top second-half scorer (17.1ppg) – and was lethal after intermission again on Saturday.  

Allen, who’s now averaging 22.8 points and 11.3 boards through the first four games of the trip, was asked postgame what he liked about his squad’s effort. “Resilience. We got down, I think it was 10 points in the fourth quarter, all the momentum was going towards them. But we didn’t let it rattle us. We knew we had to get a lot of stops and we got it done.”

Neither team led by more than 11 points throughout the game, but the new-look Wine & Gold closed the contest on an 18-5 run after the Kings took a seven-point edge with four minutes left to play – with Mitchell and Harden combining to score all of Cleveland’s final 16 points. 

The Cavs were again without Evan Mobley (left calf strain) and Dean Wade (left ankle sprain), but the Kings were a M*A*S*H* unit on Saturday – without Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, Malik Monk, Keegan Murray and De’Andre Hunter. 

The Kings shot better than 50 percent from the floor, drilled 16 threes and scored 41 points in the third quarter. They still had a shot to snap what’s now a 12-game losing streak, but Russell Westbrook missed three three-point attempts and committed a key miscue in the final two minutes to seal Sacramento’s fate. 

The Cavaliers got solid production up and down the bench in the victory – Cleveland’s eighth in its last nine games. 

Thomas Bryant led the second unit with 10 points on 3-of-5 shooting, drilling a pair of triples. Nae’Qwan Tomlin was 3-of-4 from the floor and Craig Porter Jr. chipped in with four assists, three boards and pair of steals. 

Facing off against their former squad, Dennis Schroder finished with seven points and four dimes and Keon Ellis added six points, canning a pair of three-pointers to go with a game-high three steals and a blocked shot. 

Rookie Nique Clifford led Sacramento with a career-high 30 points and fellow freshman Dylan Cardwell came off the bench to lead both teams with 11 rebounds to go with a dozen points. 

*** The Cavaliers look to take the final four games of their West Coast trip on Monday night in the Mile High City, traveling to take on Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets. Cleveland’s new faces make their first Rocket Arena appearance on Wednesday night – the final game before the All-Star break – when the Wizards roll in. The Cavaliers, now 32-21, will have just 27 games to go in the homestretch – beginning with a Feb. 19 home matchup with the Nets.