Kenny Atkinson credits Magic defense for ending Cavs’ winning streak: ‘This league is humbling’

The Cleveland Cavaliers saw their longest winning streak in franchise history get snapped on Sunday. Cleveland lost to an Orlando Magic team that was its opponent in the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs by a final score of 108-103 and picked up just its 11th loss of the 2024-25 season.

The game was ultimately a tale of two halves for the Cavaliers. Cleveland dropped 60 points in the first half but then mustered just 43 points across the final two frames.

After the Cavaliers suffered their fifth loss of the campaign at Rocket Arena, head coach Kenny Atkinson credited Orlando’s play on the defensive end of the floor for snapping his team’s winning streak.

“We did not have our normal ball movement tonight — got iso-heavy,” Atkinson said of the Cavaliers. “And they kept us out of transition. So I think they — again, huge credit to them. That’s their identity. But this league is humbling, and if you think you’re like — you’ve won 16 in a row, whatever, right around the corner is — obviously, this is a playoff team and a tough team to play.”

Atkinson spoke on what the Magic did defensively to stymie the Cavaliers’ ball movement.

“I don’t know,” Atkinson said. “They’re a well-coached defensive team. They stay at home on your drives. A lot of teams help in on the penetration because they’re in a drop, and they got the big back there. So, and I felt like in the first half — or first quarter especially — we were cutting, we were moving. And then we just kind of got stagnant. Even off the ball, right? I felt like in the second half we didn’t get any cuts. They took away our cut game and again, they kind of played the pick-and-roll two-on-two instead of helping, and that really slowed us down.”

The number of assists the Cavaliers finished the game with tells the story of the team’s struggles in terms of playmaking. On the season, Cleveland averages 28.4 assists per game as a team, yet the Cavaliers totaled just 21 against Orlando.

Additionally, 15 of those assists came in the first half, meaning the Cavaliers racked up just six dimes in the final 24 minutes of action.

Guard Darius Garland has been the team’s best playmaker this season, as he’s leading the Cavaliers in assists per game. But he was off his game from a passing standpoint on Sunday, as he finished with more turnovers (five) than assists (four).

Cleveland scored the third-fewest points in a game this season in its loss to star Paolo Banchero and company. The only times the Cavaliers have scored fewer points since the start of the season came when they scored 101 in a loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Nov. 29 and 93 in a loss to the Indiana Pacers on Jan. 12.

The Cavaliers had quite a lackluster performance offensively on Sunday, but folks should expect the team to bounce back on that end of the floor when they play the next game on their schedule against the Los Angeles Clippers on March 18. The Clippers have won each of their last two contests and own the No. 8 seed in the West with a solid 37-30 record.