Cavaliers win with defense, escape with 100-99 victory over Hornets; three takeaways

1. Defense really does win games

The Cavs’ defense held the Hornets to opponent season-low shooting from the field. Charlotte shot just 36-of-94 (38.3 percent) from the field, and just 5-of-23 in the fourth quarter alone.

Cleveland held onto a 100-99 lead with 11.1 seconds left after LeBron James missed a 3-pointer that would have turned it into a two-possession game. On the opposite end of the floor, the Cavs forced Charlotte to take a bad 3-point shot from Jeremy Lamb after James played some stellar one-on-one defense against Kemba Walker.

“My job was to get over the pick and roll and get back in front of (Walker),” James said. “He changed directions, went to the left side, I was able to cut him off. Once he gave it up to Lamb I just wanted to try and deny him and not let him get the ball back.

“Lamb threw up a three, Marvin Williams got his hand on it and kind of tipped it out to half-court. I looked up at the time and there was still like one second left, so I went to try and get another contest and was able to get the stop we needed.”

LeBron walks through the Cavs’ final defensive stop that won them the game. pic.twitter.com/TO6txZz72A

— Ashley Bastock (@AshleyBastock42) November 25, 2017

In a game with 15 lead changes and six ties, where the largest lead on either side was eight points, it speaks volumes about the progress Cleveland has made during their win streak on that end of the floor. James said it is a product of the Cavs sticking to a consistent game plan on the defensive end, which has a lot to do with steady rotations that they’ve maintained despite injury.

“We’re more consistent, we know what we’re gonna do every possession, we’re not switching things up,” James said. “We have a game plan every game. We’ve been kind of similar throughout the streak, and that’s helped us. That’s helped us a lot defensively.”

After the game, head coach Tyronn Lue also detailed what adjustments they have made throughout the last few weeks, and similar to James, he cited a consistency with personnel that has led to consistency with their blitzes in particular.

“I think the guys understand what we’re doing and what we want,” he said. “It’s pretty simple. In the second half, we held them to 42 points, which was great. … I thought we got better in the second half contesting 3s and getting out to the 3-point shot. They made three 3s in the second half, so our defense was really good.”

Lue says the Cavs defense was better in the second half, emphasized the fact that CHA only had 3 3s pic.twitter.com/eJQ1YA9IPZ

— Ashley Bastock (@AshleyBastock42) November 25, 2017

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