Donovan Mitchell scored a game-high 35 points, and the Cleveland Cavaliers outlasted the Detroit Pistons with a 116-109 home win in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Mitchell made 13 of 24 shots and added 10 rebounds and four assists, helping Cleveland shoot 58.1 percent from the field. Detroit now leads the series 2-1. James Harden added 19 points and seven rebounds, and Jarrett Allen scored 18 for Cleveland.<\/p>\n
Cade Cunningham led Detroit with a team-high 27 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, and Tobias Harris chipped in 21 points for the Pistons.<\/p>\n
Here are some takeaways with Game 4 set for Monday night in Cleveland:<\/p>\n
Harden comes alive in fourth quarter<\/p>\n
The Harden redemption game came at the right time.<\/p>\n
Now, if only he and the fellas can stay on course.<\/p>\n
Harden scored nine of his 19 points in an extremely tight fourth quarter. He fearlessly attacked the rim and airdropped soft floaters over Jalen Duren into the hoop. And, as I am sure you noticed, he barely turned the ball over. Just three giveaways against seven assists. He shot 8 of 14.<\/p>\n
Harden was in control of his own dribbling and decisions, poised in the lane, and deserves credit for putting a body on Cade Cunningham, who shot 10 of 27 and had eight turnovers.<\/p>\n
It was nice to see Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley attack the rim against Duren and Tobias Harris, with multiple facial dunks between them.<\/p>\n
It was good to see Mitchell play so hard at both ends. He seems to have found something offensively \u2014 he was beating the Pistons\u2019 double teams on Saturday \u2013 and added 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Watching a 17-point lead disappear in the third quarter had to test the Cavs\u2019 nerves given what\u2019s at stake. A commendable show of poise in the fourth quarter after blowing chances to win the previous two games \u2013 and previous four road games, if you go all the way back to the first round.<\/p>\n
Sam Merrill returned from a hamstring strain after missing just one game and delivered seven points off the bench.<\/p>\n
The Cavs, finally, joined the party in this series. Now, can they hang around a while? \u2014 Joe Vardon<\/p>\n
Pistons too loose with the ball<\/p>\n
Turnovers doomed the Pistons down the stretch. Cunningham had three consecutive turnovers that gave Cleveland just enough breathing room to halt Detroit\u2019s comeback attempt. The Cavaliers finished the game with 27 points off of 15 Pistons turnovers. Cunningham had eight of Detroit\u2019s 16 turnovers despite his 27-point triple-double.<\/p>\n
Jalen Duren followed a quiet Game 2 with an 11-point, four-rebound performance in Game 3.<\/p>\n
Despite coughing up the ball, Detroit won the possession game, taking 91 shots to Cleveland\u2019s 74. The Pistons also had 17 offensive rebounds to the Cavaliers\u2019 five. But ultimately the turnovers put Cleveland in position to create the separation it needed to hold on and take a Game 3 win that puts the series at 2-1. The loss ends the Pistons\u2019 five-game playoff winning streak while the Cavs remain undefeated (5-0) at home during these playoffs. \u2014 Hunter Patterson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donovan Mitchell scored a game-high 35 points, and the Cleveland Cavaliers outlasted the Detroit Pistons with a 116-109…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[8174,4576,355,99],"class_list":["post-633712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633712","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=633712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}