NBA playoffs: Cavaliers open with tough-minded win over Magic in Game 1
Cleveland — Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers spent the week insisting they were better prepared for this year's playoffs.
On Saturday, they looked it.
Mitchell scored 30 points, Jarrett Allen had 18 rebounds and the Cavs looked tougher — mentally and physically — than in last year's first-round flop, beating the Orlando Magic, 97-83, in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference playoff series.
“Last year is over with,” Mitchell said. “We flushed that. This is who we are, and this is who we expect to be.”
Evan Mobley added 16 points and Darius Garland had 14 for Cleveland, which got bullied and bounced in just five games by the New York Knicks in the 2023 postseason.
That experience scarred the Cavs, who entered these playoffs more confident, deeper (at least on paper) and relatively healthy after a regular season filled with injuries.
Mitchell has been slowed for two months with a left knee bone bruise, but the All-Star guard moved well and looked much more like himself as Cleveland's only viable offensive threat for more than two quarters.
In the first half, Mitchell scooped up a loose ball and went in for a soaring dunk that served notice that he was back, and that the Cavs would be much better in his second postseason with Cleveland.
“This is who I am,” he said. “That’s kind of been my message all year. This is why I'm here. I could have had 10 points as long as we got the job done."
Orlando's Paolo Banchero scored 24 points in his playoff debut, but had nine turnovers. The Magic shot just 33% from the field — some of it attributed to bad shooting, some because of Cleveland's defense.
“We didn’t score enough,” Banchero said. "Just shots weren’t falling, but I thought we got good looks. We missed a lot of free throws (19 of 30) and didn’t make 3s (8 of 37). There were a lot of things we could have done a lot better.”
Game 2 is Monday at raucous Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, where fans didn't have much to cheer last spring as the Knicks ended the Cavaliers' run shortly after it began.
Mitchell slept only two hours Friday night as his nerves — and the 1 p.m. tip — messed with his pregame routine. But once he got to the arena and heard Phil Collins' anthemic “In The Air Tonight” blaring, he quickly got into playoff mode.
“He's ready for the moment and it’s the Game 1s,” Cavs coach J.B. Bickestaff said. “It’s the bigger games during the regular season. He has the ability and the understanding of how important the start is, whatever that may be.”
Like the Cavs a year ago, the Magic lack playoff experience and it showed.
Orlando's offense was unorganized and Banchero too often tried to force things. He went 9 of 17 from the floor in 41 minutes.
The Cavs have waited all season for a chance at redemption following last season's first-round flameout.
And while they were in control for most of the game, they had just seven field goals over an 18-minute stretch and only led 60-56 when Banchero converted a three-point play with 4:24 left in the third.
Mitchell settled things down with back-to-back buckets and Cleveland closed the third with a 13-2 run that sent the Cavs into the fourth leading by 15.
The Magic twice cut a 20-point deficit to nine in the fourth, but the Cavs responded and Mitchell's 3-pointer with 4:44 left ended any thought of an Orlando comeback.
Tempers flared between the teams in the second quarter, leading to some jawing, finger-pointing and two technical fouls being called.
Orlando's Moritz Wagner pushed an off-balance Mobley as he was falling out of bounds on the baseline and his clapping annoyed Cleveland's Isaac Okoro, who shoved Wagner and drew a technical.
Moments later, Magic guard Markelle Fultz was assessed a flagrant-1 for his foul on Georges Niang, who was driving to the basket. Niang didn't like it, walked toward Fultz and was slapped with a T for taunting as Cleveland's crowd roared.
As if the Cavs needed any reminders, Tom Petty's “I Won't Back Down” played over the arena's sound system as Fultz's foul was reviewed.
“It’s the playoffs, right?” said Niang, signed by the Cavs to improve their toughness. "You expect everything to just be amplified to a whole new level. So whatever they were planning on doing, I was expecting it to be as physical as it was, if not more physical.
“That’s just the playoffs. It’s a battle. You may have friends out there, but we’re not friends.”
More games
▶ (At) Minnesota 120, Phoenix 95: Anthony Edwards scored 18 of his 33 points in the third quarter and had nine rebounds to carry the Timberwolves in a tone-setting victory over the Suns to start the first round of the playoffs.
Karl-Anthony Towns added 19 points, Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting and Rudy Gobert locked down the lane with 14 points, 16 rebounds and constant shot-altering defense to lead the Wolves to their first Game 1 home win in the playoffs in 20 years.
Kevin Durant scored 31 points on 11-for-17 shooting to lead the Suns, whose disadvantages in depth and size were exploited. Devin Booker had 18 points on 5-for-16 shooting and Bradley Beal added 15 points, but the Suns were outrebounded 52-28 and outscored 52-34 in the paint by the Wolves.
Game 2 is in Minneapolis on Tuesday before the best-of-seven series shifts to Phoenix for Game 3.
▶(At) N.Y. Knicks 111, Philadelphia 104: Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart each scored 22 points, Deuce McBride led a huge effort by New York's backups with 21 and the Knicks won Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.
McBride outscored the 76ers by himself with 13 points in the second quarter, when Joel Embiid had to leave after appearing to reinjure his surgically repaired left knee on a dunk. He returned and rallied the 76ers into the lead in the second half, but Josh Hart hit a couple big 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to help the Knicks pull it out.
Hart also had 13 rebounds for the Knicks, who had lost Game 1 the last three times they opened a series at home. They host Game 2 on Monday.
Embiid finished with 29 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Tyrese Maxey led the 76ers with 33 points.
▶(At) Denver 114, L.A. Lakers 103: Nikola Jokic had 32 points and 12 rebounds, and the defending NBA champion Nuggets powered past LeBron James and the Lakers 114-103 in their opener.
Two other Nuggets players posted double-double – Jamal Murray (22 points, 10 assists) and Anthony Gordon (12 points, 11 rebounds) – and Michael Porter Jr. came close with 19 points and eight boards.
James had 27 points for L.A. and Anthony Davis had 32 points and 14 rebounds, but the Lakers lost to the Nuggets for the ninth consecutive time and Denver handed James just his fourth loss in 17 first-round openers.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who scored all 12 of his points after halftime, made a trio of 3-pointers in a 13-0 run the Nuggets used to seize control in the third quarter.
Porter excelled on the court, as coach Michael Malone predicted he would, after a trying week for his family that saw one younger brother, Coban Porter, sentenced to six years in jail for a fatal drunken driving crash on Friday and another, former Toronto Raptors guard Jontay Porter, banned from the NBA for betting on basketball and disclosing confidential information to other bettors.