Cup of Cavs

Cup of Cavs: Cleveland Cavaliers News and Links for Friday, October 21

A closer look at the Cavs upcoming opponents.

By Jackson Flickinger@Akron_Jackson Oct 21, 2022, 6:00am CDT

The Cleveland Cavaliers take on the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Wizards this weekend. Let’s take a quick look at how both team’s faired in their first games of the season.

The first sip

The Bulls were able to pull off a 116-108 road win over the Miami Heat. Chicago was led by DeMar DeRozan who finished with 37 points on 14 of 22 shooting with 9 assists, 6 rebounds, 2 steals, a block and only 1 turnover.

It’s easy to forget about the Bulls when talking about the hierarchy of the Eastern Conference. They’re often viewed as the odd team out of the playoffs this season, but they are returning most of their team that sat atop the conference for a good portion of last season. They just need to get healthy.

The Wizards also opened up their season with a road win as they took down the Indiana Pacers 114-107 on Wednesday night. Washington was led by Bradley Beal, who contributed 23 points, and Cavalier killer Kyle Kuzma who added in 22 points and 13 boards.

I’m not entirely sure what the Wizards’ goals are for this season. They don’t appear to have a good enough team to compete with the top nine or so teams in the conference, but they currently have too much talent to completely bottom out in the race for Victor Wembanyama.

Coincidentally, the Wizards and Bulls play each other tonight at 7.

The second sip

Bleacher Report released a list of the 20 greatest LeBron James plays to celebrate his 20th season in the league. My favorite LeBron play is either his “no regard for human life” dunk over Kevin Garnett or his game winning shot against the Orlando Magic in 2009.

13 - Dunk over KG and the Celtics#LeBron20for20 pic.twitter.com/lp3OgIDAo5
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 21, 2022

6 - Magic buzzer-beater#LeBron20for20 pic.twitter.com/DU1Svbr8HV
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 21, 2022

My favorite moment however would be Game 5 against the Detroit Pistons in 2007. There was nothing anyone on the court could do to stop him despite everyone knowing only James was shooting. It felt like the script of a movie considering everything that came before it the previous year and even games 1 and 2 of that series.