Felder, Jefferson, Frye Step Up in Irving’s Absence

The Cleveland Cavaliers (26-7) came back from a 10-point deficit to defeat the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night, 90-82, thanks to a strong fourth quarter from an unlikely hero.

It was far from pretty, as the two teams shot a combined 29-for-86 to start the game, but both offenses started to get rolling in the second half.

New Orleans (14-22) led by ten midway through the third quarter, but the Cavs received timely shots from Richard Jefferson (12 points) and Channing Frye (14 points), along with LeBron James (26 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists) delivering his usual brilliance.

Kevin Love started the game, but was ill and only played 24 minutes, causing Frye to finish out the game at power forward.

However, one of the stars of the night was 5-foot-8 point guard Kay Felder, who played valuable minutes in the fourth quarter and stepped up in Kyrie Irving’s absence.

Irving could not play due to hamstring tightness and Head Coach Tyronn Lue opted to start DeAndre Liggins at point guard and Jordan McRae at shooting guard.

McRae had a rough night, scoring only four points on 1-of-5 shooting, but Felder picked up the slack and the rookie scored nine of his 12 total points in the final period of play, making it his best NBA game of his young career.

It was also a fairly new development and an encouraging sight to see Felder hitting jump shots, an area in which he has struggled all season.

Felder played a game in Canton five days prior and it was his first time being sent down to the NBA D-League. Rather than take that as a negative and sulk about it, Felder used the opportunity to get significant playing time, scoring 33 points in that game.

Since that game, Felder has scored 25 total points in his last two NBA appearances. It’s obviously a small sample size and is attributed to getting more playing time because of Irving’s hamstring issue, but this is tremendous growth for a player who struggled to get consistent playing time in the first two months of the season.

We’ll see if Felder can continue this momentum, as the Cavs host the Chicago Bulls (17-18) Wednesday night at 8.