Cleveland Cavaliers win after 26 attempts: Memorable games of the 2010-11 regular NBA season – Pt-1
The 2010-11 NBA season proved to be one of the most memorable and widely viewed basketball extravaganza of the last decade. The season which was dominated by the hype surrounding LeBron James and the Miami Heat, eventually ended
with the South Beach franchise making all the headlines. However, in the regular season, there were games which were of utmost significance. One of the most significant among those was the match-up between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Cavs had lost 26 games in a row prior to that and were on the cusp of making American Sports history. Here is how it all happened on 11th Feb 2011.
Maybe it was Mo Williams returning to the rotation. Maybe it was the emotional outburst of their coach Byron Scott in the last loss or maybe it was the intensity and the zeal of a sell out crowd which infused life in the Cleveland
Cavaliers ranks.
Whatever it was, it worked as the Cavaliers finally snapped the NBA’s all-time longest losing streak in dramatic fashion. The overtime extravaganza that featured the game going into a deadlock 16 times and the lead changing hands
22 times finally provided a befitting end for the Cavs, as they pulled past the Los Angeles Clippers in overtime, 126-119.
For the past 36 games, the Cavaliers were a team that couldn’t find a way to win, but nearly two months after the ordeal started, the Cavalier finally got the monkey off their back. In a topsy-turvy match, that had all the ingredients
of a thriller from the very start, the Cavs just refused to cave in - turning in the grittiest performance of the season.
The Cavs, whose losing skein had become a national joke, were on the brink of surpassing the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the worst losing streak ever among the four major American sports as they entered
the night.
After slipping to the depth of NBA futility during the wretched 55 day spurt, this was one embarrassment the Cavs weren’t willing to embrace, and they played like it.
It was the night for Antawn Jamison. The dynamic forward who has been the lone bright spot in an extremely thin Cleveland offense finally managed to spark them to win. The 13th year pro scored a game-high 35 points,
connecting on 11-of-20 shots from the field, including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. He also wrapped it with 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.
His biggest contribution of the night though was a game-breaking triple pointer with 22 seconds left in the overtime – a scorcher that finally put away the game for good.
In addition to matching his season high score, Jamison achieved another milestone on the night as well. When the dazzling forward canned a 17-footer with 9:14minutes remaining in the third, it marked his 18,000th point as a pro
rendering him as one of just nine active players in the league to pass that plateau.
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