The Cleveland Cavaliers season ended after an elimination at the hands of the Indiana Pacers.
The Indiana Pacers defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 114-105 to seal off the 4-1 series victory and eliminate the Eastern Conference No. 1 species.
Despite the horrors of his ankle injury in Game 4, Donovan Mitchell, who is resilient, chose to play it. However, his exciting 35-point production wasn’t enough to keep the Cavaliers season alive.
The man behind Cleveland’s downfall is Ty Halliburton, with the Indiana superstar finishing with 31 points and eight assists, further engraving a statement to those who call him the league’s most overrated player.
Faced with a challenging 3-1 lead from a brutal Game 4 blowout in Indiana, the Cavaliers applied a solid must-see mentality heading into Game 5.
Of all the Cavaliers who campaigned for a full-scale approach, it was Max Strath who took the key initiative.
As Jared Greenberg shares ahead of TNT’s national coverage of Game 5, Strus texted his Cavs teammates and urged the Pacers to play their best to win it.
Greenberg reported: “Yesterday, a group text message was sent to all Cavalier players at Max Strath in very similar fashion.
“Strus simply said, ‘If you don’t believe me, don’t show up for work.’ Strath said this morning he doesn’t think the group is over. ”
Strath couldn’t respond to his words. He finished with a scoreless performance with a 0-9 shooting in 26 minutes.
His defensive lapse to get a 3 away from Miles Turner left Pacer up to 114-105 for 23 seconds, serving as a claw in the Cavs’ co.
His game rating via the sofa score was 4.9/10 low, with a disastrous 0 points in 26 minutes, making a 0-9 shot from the field.
Not all Strus attempts came from range either, and his shot map showed two close mistakes from under the rim.
Despite the losses in the series, Strus was relatively reliable against the Cavs, averaging 12.2 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 30.6 minutes, not 38.6% shooting from the field.
In this game, Strus chose the wrong time to achieve the worst performance of the season. It was a contributor to their defeat, ending their persuasive 64-win regular season.
The veteran swingman will need to use Game 5 failures as a primary motivation to help the cab bounce next year, but the pain in this series will be stinging for a while.