Tony Wroten’s game-winner beats Cavs, gives 76ers first home win of season
The Philadelphia 76ers had lost 14 straight home games heading into Monday’s meeting with the Cleveland Cavaliers, a winless streak stretching all the way back to last season. But with the Cavs stumbling, having lost four of their last five and five of seven over the past two weeks, and with Cleveland stars LeBron James (knee and back ailments) and Kyrie Irving (lower back tightness) sidelined due to injury, the time seemed right for Brett Brown’s bunch to exorcise some demons and reintroduce a little hospitality to the not-so-friendly confines of the Wells Fargo Center.
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After erasing a 17-point Cleveland lead, they were able to do just that, thanks in part to inimitable southpaw spark-plug Tony Wroten.
With the Cavs holding a 92-91 lead and just under 18 seconds left, Sixers point guard Michael Carter-Williams dribbled to the center of the floor across the 3-point arc and pitched a pass back to a crossing Wroten, who angled right toward a top-of-the-key screen from big man Henry Sims:
Cleveland rookie Joe Harris came over the pick and stepped out to check the former University of Washington standout, but an undaunted Wroten drove left, slipping past the help of guard Matthew Dellavedova and slithering through the Cavs’ interior defense to the basket, where he lofted up a lefty leaner that splashed through, giving the Sixers a one-point lead and forcing a Cleveland timeout with 9.1 seconds remaining.
Without James or Irving as options, the Cavs seemed likely to look for power forward Kevin Love, who had broken loose for a game-high 28 points, including an emphatic dunk to give Cleveland a 92-90 lead with 1:09 remaining in the contest. But the final possession didn’t quite come off the way Cleveland fans (and, presumably, head coach David Blatt) might have hoped.
Inbounder Dellavedova took a handoff and pick from center Tristan Thompson before stalling as he came back to his left, where he looked for Love in the post only to find his entry-passing angle taken away by Philly forward Robert Covington. The Aussie curled around Love’s post-up to the basket, but his layup try was swallowed up by the long arms of Carter-Williams.
The ball flipped up toward the rim, and Love had a shot at a putback, but it went awry before being tapped toward the backcourt by Wroten. Covington recovered, got fouled by Harris, and went to the line to drain a pair of freebies that clinched the final margin of a 95-92 victory that gave the 76ers their first home win of the 2014-15 season (and just their fifth in 33 total outings) and that gave CSN Philadelphia color commentator Malik Rose a chance to deliver the line of the night:
(Hey, in the East, it wouldn’t be all that far-fetched.)
Even without James, Irving, lost-for-the-season center Anderson Varejao and the troika of players — shooting guard Dion Waiters and big men Alex Kirk and Lou Amundson — who were pulled before tipoff for inclusion in a three-team trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder and New York Knicks, this represents something of a dispiriting loss for a Cavaliers team that has struggled to meet lofty preseason expectations, that can’t seem to find consistent levels of energy or execution (especially on the defensive end) and that now stands at 19-16, a full 4 1/2 games out of a top-four playoff seed, heading into a five-game West Coast road trip that will bracketed by tough home meetings with the Houston Rockets and Chicago Bulls. Blatt’s crew needs to bank as many winnable games as possible, especially with Love looking like the fire of old now that the calendar’s flipped to 2015 — he’s averaging 28.3 points and 11.3 rebounds on 51.9/41.2/75.9 percent shooting splits over the last three games — and especially when they build up a 17-point second-half lead over one of the league’s very worst teams.
Give credit where it’s due, though. While cold second-half shooting (just 13-for-40 after intermission) and some untimely mistakes (like Dellavedova’s missed pair of free throws that would’ve given Cleveland a three-point lead with 20 seconds left) certainly hurt Cleveland, the Sixers did their part to pull on the thread that led the Cavs to come undone.
Carter-Williams and Wroten combined for 24 points and 13 assists against just three turnovers after halftime, steadily attacking the basket to create not only easy looks for themselves and others (Sims went a perfect 5-for-5 in the second half, doing damage with short jumpers created by dribble penetration) but also offensive rebounding opportunities, on which Philly capitalized to the tune of a 12-3 advantage in second-chance points in the third and fourth quarters.
And with the outcome in the balance, it was Wroten who grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, more than doubling up the Cavaliers by himself in the final 3:48, scoring nine of his team’s last 13 points to ice it, and finishing with a Sixer-high 20 points in just under 28 minutes off the bench in a very rare, and very sweet, victory.
Yeah, somehow, I don’t think the guy in the spotted-steer-print “Longhorn State” KD7s is all that scared of the spotlight:
I’m not sure it’s got to be the shoes, but they probably didn’t hurt, right?
Video via Sports Illustrated’s Ben Golliver.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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