Cavs front court, defense stun Nuggets to open road trip on a high

Cavs score second win of the season behind Tower City

After two straight losses to open the season, the Cleveland Cavaliers strung together their first winning streak after taking care of business against the Denver Nuggets, 99-87. With the hard-earned road win, the Cavs’ grueling west coast trip gets off to a good start.

Led by the Tower City frontcourt, a much-improved Cleveland team is beginning to show some promise after knocking down two playoff contenders in consecutive games. Jarrett Allen came out with another masterful performance, scoring 21 points to go with 16 boards while making all but one shot attempt.

Kevin Love also remained very engaged and appears to have embraced his new role as a primary backup. The All-Star forward led all Cavaliers with 22 points while shooting a very efficient 61 percent clip from the field, while Lauri Markkanen and Evan Mobley also finished in double figures.

The Cavs held the lead for nearly the entire game,  and for once had enough composure able to finish strong in the final period to completely pull away for good. They had no business winning this game, let alone by double digits.

The young Cavs squad is slowly building an identity

It appears that this young Cavaliers squad is beginning to learn from past errors, and that is a great sign. After crumbling late during their first two losses, the team is finally showing some maturity, and the ability to control the pace to their advantage when it matters.

The Cavs made the adjustments and held Denver to an awful three-point shooting night, allowing just nine makes out of 38 tries–though they didn’t shoot well from beyond the arc themselves, that’s another story.

Cleveland’s latest 100 million dollar man Jarrett Allen shone brightly as he successfully held his own against the league’s reigning MVP Nikola Jokic, who, while still spectacular with 24 points and 19 rebounds, was supposed to dominate that matchup.

As he continued to compete hard on both ends of the floor, Allen’s energy rubbed off on every player wearing wine and gold. And once again, it was the defense that won them the game as they limited the home team to just 17 fourth-quarter points and just 87 in total.

Oh, and Tower City also finally outrebounded their opponents for the first time in four tries. With a bevy of seven-footers and the tallest starting frontcourt in the NBA, it was about time that they figured that out. Now let us see if that holds.

The Cavs will look to extend their winning streak when they take on the LA Clippers on the 28th. The road trip continues to get harder as they are scheduled to face both the Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers this week, before visiting the recent NBA finalists Phoenix Suns.