{"id":573054,"date":"2026-04-09T03:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T03:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573054\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T03:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T03:08:10","slug":"cavaliers-122-116-hawks-apr-8-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573054\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers 122-116 Hawks (Apr 8, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND — \u2014 Donovan Mitchell<\/a> scored 31 points, Evan Mobley<\/a> had 22 points and tied a career high with 19 rebounds, and the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> defeated the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> 122-116 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

James Harden<\/a> added 21 points for the Cavaliers, who have won four straight and seven of eight. Cleveland (51-29) can finish no lower than fourth place in the Eastern Conference and is 1\/2 game behind New York for the third seed.<\/p>\n

Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a> scored 25 points and Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> had 24 off the bench as Atlanta was unable to clinch a playoff berth with the loss. The Hawks (45-35) have dropped their last two after winning four straight. They are one game ahead of Toronto for the fifth seed but only 1 1\/2 in front of Orlando to avoid being in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n

It was Mitchell’s 200th regular-season game with at least 20 points in four years with the Cavaliers. He is the fifth player in franchise history to reach that milestone.<\/p>\n

Mitchell had his 14th game this season with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Atlanta took a 67-56 lead on a dunk by Dyson Daniels<\/a> with 57 seconds remaining in the first half before Cleveland went on a 17-3 run over the final minute of the second quarter and first three minutes of the third.<\/p>\n

Cleveland outscored Atlanta 44-20 in the third to take a 104-87 advantage into the final 12 minutes. A 3-point play by Dennis Schroder<\/a> put the Cavaliers up 110-92 before the Hawks answered back with an 18-2 run where Alexander-Walker had seven points.<\/p>\n

Kuminga’s dunk got Atlanta within 118-116 and had a chance to tie after Sam Merrill<\/a> missed a 3-pointer. But Alexander-Walker lost possession of the ball in the paint before Jarrett Allen<\/a> got the steal. Mitchell then made a pair of free throws to put the Cavaliers up by more than one possession.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

The two teams meet Friday in Atlanta for the fourth and final time in the regular season.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND — \u2014 Donovan Mitchell scored 31 points, Evan Mobley had 22 points and tied a career high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-573054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}