Cleveland Cavaliers forward Max Strus supposedly had a feeling that his last-second shot from over 50 feet away against the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday was going through the net.
“I did,” Strus said when asked if he knew his shot was going in. “I don’t even know what happened next.”
Strus also broke down his mentality when he had the ball in his hands with seconds remaining in the game.
“Get it up,” Strus said. “I had space, I don’t know. I just shot it.”
Finally, Strus reflected on a similar game-winner he had when he played college basketball at Lewis University.
“At my Division II (college), I made a three-quarter-court shot to win the game,” he said. “I think it was No. 1 on ESPN.”
MAX STRUS WINS IT FROM BEHIND HALF COURT OMG pic.twitter.com/qYiqn1iiWE
— Cavaliers Nation (@WeAreCavsNation) February 28, 2024
The 27-year-old is in his first season with the Cavaliers organization after spending time playing for the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. He has played in every one of the Cavaliers’ 57 regular-season games thus far and is averaging 12.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game while shooting 41.8 percent from the field and 34.3 percent from deep.
Strus ended up with 21 points, four rebounds, four assists and two blocks while shooting 7-of-12 from the field and 7-of-10 from deep against the Mavericks. He finished with the second-most points of any player on the Cavaliers, behind only Donovan Mitchell, who totaled 31 points on 11-of-20 shooting from the floor and 7-of-11 from 3-point range to go along with seven rebounds, six assists and one block.
But Mavericks star Luka Doncic led all scorers with 45 points on 29 shots from the field.
The Cavaliers beat Dallas by two points to improve their record to 38-19, which is the second-best record of any team in the Eastern Conference. The Boston Celtics own the best record in the conference and NBA at 46-12 and are riding a nine-game winning streak, the longest active winning streak in the league.
Strus and the Cavaliers can extend their current winning streak to three games with a win over the Bulls on Wednesday night. Chicago is fresh off perhaps one of its worst losses of the 2023-24 regular season to this point, as the team fell to the Detroit Pistons — who are in a tie with the Washington Wizards for the worst record in the NBA at 9-49 — by 10 points on Tuesday.
