The Cleveland Cavaliers improved to 14-0, the longest winning streak in franchise history at any point in a season, with Friday’s 144-126 home victory over the Chicago Bulls. The Cavs are well over the halfway mark of the best start in NBA history, which belongs to the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors who won their first 24 games.
Friday’s final score was deceptive. This was a four-point game with under three minutes to play, but the Cavaliers closed on a 21-7 flurry, making it look a lot lopsided on paper.
Cleveland’s fourteen consecutive season-opening victories are tied with the 2002-03 Dallas Mavericks and the 1957-58 Boston Celtics for third on the all-time list. The Cavaliers can match the second-best start in history, which belongs to the 1993-94 Houston Rockets — who went on to win the championship — if they can beat the Charlotte Hornets for the 15th straight time on Sunday.
After that, it will become a lot more difficult to keep the streak alive when the Cavs travel to Boston for an NBA Cup game on Tuesday. If they can somehow get through that game, their schedule will immediately resume with games against the hobbled Pelicans and Raptors, followed by a home-and-home with the Hawks. Cleveland could be one win over the Celtics by taking this thing to twenty.
At that time they will play Boston again. If they beat the Celtics twice in two weeks and bring their record to 21-0, they earn the record. But the truth is, when you’re this deep into a run like this, any opponent can trip you up.
This is a one-game-at-a-time situation, and the Cavs should be commended for entering each game with full focus and energy. They have the second-best point differential in the league at plus-12.1, but they have had to win a lot of tight cases. Friday was actually their seventh win, meaning the game was within five points with less than five minutes to play.
Both Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell were exceptional in these few minutes, with the Cavs winning by a significant 6.6 points per game.
Only Nikola Jokic, DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Durant have scored more clutch points than the 32 so far by Garland, who has made 12 of his 15 shots in those situations. On Friday, it was Mitchell with nine points in a one-minute span to close the game, including a pair of three-pointers. The dagger:
Cleveland got past Chicago without the services of Evan Mobley, who was absent due to an illness. No problem. All Jarrett Allen did was 24 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks on 11-of-15 shooting.
Combine that with 66 combined points from Mitchell (37) and Garland (29) on 11 of 20 3-point shooting, plus 22 points and four more 3-pointers off the bench for Caris LeVert, and Cleveland had plenty of offense to go around. Chicago was led by Coby White (29 points and six 3-pointers) and Nikola Vucevic, who continued his stellar start to the season with 25 points on 11-for-16 shooting.