CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Max Strus scored 29 points, Evan Mobley had 23 and Jarrett Allen came back from injury to add 18, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 149-128 win over the Miami Heat on Friday night in the second matchup between the teams in three days.<\/p>\n
Strus made six of his eight 3-pointers in a 22-point first half as the Cavs bolted to a 35-point lead. He made one just ahead of the halftime horn to put Cleveland ahead 81-46 and cap the team\u2019s highest scoring half this season.<\/p>\n
The Cavs bounced back from a 120-103 loss to the Heat on Wednesday with a strong performance and matched the team record for points in a regulation game.<\/p>\n
Allen\u2019s return provided a major spark. He missed 10 games with tendinitis in his knee. The 27-year-old\u2019s absence especially hurt on defense and deprived him time to build chemistry with star guard James Harden, whose acquisition at the trade deadline has raised title hopes.<\/p>\n
Harden finished with 17 points and 14 assists, his most with Cleveland. Donovan Mitchell scored just six on 1 of 10 shooting.<\/p>\n
Down by 36, the Heat fought back and got within 101-82 on a 3-pointer by Jamie Jaquez Jr. But Cleveland regrouped and Keon Ellis drilled a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Cavaliers a comfortable 109-87 lead entering the fourth.<\/p>\n
Jaquez scored 20 points to pace the Heat. Bam Adebayo added 14 and 16 rebounds.<\/p>\n
The loss dropped Miami from a three-way tie for the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference into 10th, behind Orlando and Charlotte, which were idle.<\/p>\n
Strus, who was playing in just his sixth game after foot surgery, made an immediate impact by making four 3-pointers in the last 4:37 of the first quarter to help the Cavs open a double-digit lead. <\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Heat: At Indiana Pacers on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Cavaliers: At Utah Jazz on Monday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n
Tom Withers, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Max Strus scored 29 points, Evan Mobley had 23 and Jarrett Allen came back from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-565666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}