{"id":376977,"date":"2025-12-28T23:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T23:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/376977\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T23:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T23:12:07","slug":"atkinson-slams-cavs-after-loss-to-rockets-game-over-in-1st-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/376977\/","title":{"rendered":"Atkinson slams Cavs after loss to Rockets: Game ‘over in 1st quarter’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson didn’t pull any punches when assessing his team’s performance in Saturday’s 117-100 road loss to the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n

“I rarely say this, but I thought the game was over in the first quarter,” Atkinson told<\/a> reporters postgame.<\/p>\n

The Rockets led 32-24 after the first quarter and took a 60-46 advantage into halftime. The Cavaliers committed eight turnovers in the opening quarter.<\/p>\n

The Cavs were also outrebounded 51-42, and the team’s starting five combined to grab just 13 boards. According to Atkinson, Cleveland’s lack of physical fortitude was a massive factor in the disparity.<\/p>\n

“Their physicality, we weren’t ready for the fight tonight,” Atkinson added. “I don’t know how else to say it.”<\/p>\n

Jaylon Tyson led the Cavaliers with 23 points on 10-of-20 shooting off the bench. Donovan Mitchell recorded 16 points in 30 minutes, the All-Star guard’s second-lowest output of the season.<\/p>\n

It’s been a mercurial campaign for the Cavaliers, who’ve failed to gain momentum despite a pair of recent wins over the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans that was followed by a narrow defeat to the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n

“(I was) encouraged after the Knicks game, because we were ready for the fight,” Atkinson admitted. “It wasn’t the same team that played the other night against the Knicks.”<\/p>\n

The loss in Houston was Cleveland’s second in a row and fifth in its last seven outings. A year removed from finishing with the top record in the East, the Cavs have now fallen to eighth in the conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson didn’t pull any punches when assessing his team’s performance in Saturday’s 117-100…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-376977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}