Subscribe
Follow Us
The Orlando Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers battled on Tuesday night, and although the Cavaliers once again blew a huge lead on the way to another loss, and Ty Lue left the game after the first quarter with an apparent illness, that wasn't the biggest story to come out of this game.
The biggest story was the play of Jonathan Simmons and how he almost single-handedly took down the Cavaliers in a 116-98 Magic victory.
The Cavs' once 21-point lead has completely disappeared. The Magic head into the 4th Q up 92-89 after Jonathan Simmons scored 22 of his 27 pts in the 3rd Q. I know every game is a new, live event but I feel like I'm watching re-runs.
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) February 7, 2018
Simmons went 12-17 from the field, and 2-4 from three on his way to achieving a career-high 34 points. The 22 points that Simmons scored in the third quarter, matched the total points for the Cavaliers in the quarter.
Jonathan Simmons has been dealing with an ankle injury coming into this game and isn't 100 percent but that didn't seem to slow him down in this game. Evan Fournier also added 19 points, while big man Bismack Biyombo had 11 points to go with eight rebounds and two blocks.
Simmons this year is only averaging 13.7 points per game but the Cavaliers played little to no defense on him and that led to the big game.
For the Cavaliers, it was another disappointing game. They got out to another big lead, and then watched it evaporate, as they could not get it together on both ends of the floor in the second half.
In the fourth quarter the Cavaliers only scored nine points, and it' what ultimately did them in.
The Cavaliers scored just nine points in the fourth quarter, while giving up 24 to the Magic, LeBron James once again had a double-double putting in 25 points and ten rebounds but it wasn't enough as the guys around him continue to struggle.
