Ramon Sessions shines as Cleveland Cavaliers beat Los Angeles Clippers 99-92: NBA Recap
The game at Quicken Loans Arena was physical and tense, a lot of shoves were exchanged and players were knocked to the ground, as 17,100 fans gathered around to witness the dramatic victory of Cleveland Cavaliers over Los Angeles
Clippers, 99-92.
The enticement to witness Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving, two exciting point guards against each other was however shattered as Irving couldn’t play due to a concussion.
However Ramon Sessions, who replaced Irving, was on fire last night as he recorded his season’s highest point tally, 24, with 13 assists. Along with him, Antawn Jamison netted 27 and had 8 rebounds to lead Cavs to their 5th
home win.
Daniel Gibson had 17 and Anderson Varejao, who was about the most physical player on the night, was also in the mix with a double-double scoring 15 points and 11 rebounds.
The Clippers took an early lead of 11-6 in the opening segment which they maintained throughout the 1st quarter. By the end of this segment the visitors had scored 24 in comparison to 19 by the Cavs.
Cleveland started to eat away the deficit in the next quarter, and with 05:02 in hand, they took the lead at 29-28. Afterwards, both sides kept on scoring simultaneously and the score was tied 40 apiece at halftime.
In third quarter, things started to warm up for Cleveland who raced away to a 17-4 spurt. The Clippers tried hard to mount a comeback and finished off the segment on a Kenyon Martin alley-oop Dunk shot, to make it 70-64.
The game took certain dramatic shifts in the last 12 minutes. With 07:46 left in the game, the Clippers tied the score at 73 each. The game kept on shifting momentum and with 02:10 to go, the game was still in a deadlock at 87
apiece.
Daniel Gibson knocked down a shot from downtown at that point and Varejao dropped a jumper right after that as the Cavaliers started to pull away, 94-89. Courtesy a hoop and harm, Blake Griffin brought the Clips within two on
the next possession as the clock ran down.
With time running out the Clippers committed a foul that placed Gibson on the charity stripe. He netted two free throws and as time expired the hapless visitors were defeated by 7 points.
The Cavs proved to be one tough nut to crack
"We're a resilient bunch, man," Gibson said. "Coach Scott has instilled that in us. We have a lot of guys in a lot of different roles, so any time a guy is down the next guy has to step up. We've done that all season and we'll
continue to do that."
Los Angeles Clippers are 3rd in the Western Conference despite the fact that they recently lost Chauncey Billups, a key point guard, to injury. They missed his presence on the floor tonight as the game slipped away from
them.
Blake Griffin’s 25 points and 15 rebounds was the highest tally of any Clipper in the game and Caron Butler had 21 while Chris Paul and Randy Foye had 16 and 15 points respectively.
Clippers will be facing Philadelphia 76ers on this Friday.
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