Final Score: Cavs reserves fall 99-93 vs. Hawks

On Monday night against the Atlanta Hawks, the Cleveland Cavaliers rested LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. Tristan Thompson sat out due foot soreness and Richard Jefferson, Iman Shumpert Chris Andersen and Channing Frye all got the night off.

As one might expect, the Cavs’ overall quality of play dipped just a bit with basically every rotation player taking the night off. In Monday night’s game, the Cavs fell to the Hawks 99-93 in preseason action. With the loss, Cleveland is now 2-1 in the preseason.

Atlanta center Dwight Howard led all scorers with 26 points, as he dominated James Jones, Cory Jefferson and Jonathan Holmes inside. Rookie Kay Felder co-ed the Cavs with 15 as their starting point guard and Holmes added 15 off the bench. Jordan McRae finished with 12 points, but did most his work at the free throw line as he finished 1-14 from the field and 0-4 from three.

Cleveland actually came back from 16-2 deficit to make the game competitive. Additionally, the Hawks kept their active rotation players - Paul Millsap and Tiago Splitter did not play - until the middle of the third quarter.

The Cavs next play on Thursday at 8 p.m. against the Toronto Raptors. Tipoff is at 8 p.m. at Quicken Loans Arena.