The Cleveland Cavaliers tend to get blistering hot from three-point land. They are pummeling the division rival Detroit Pistons from three on Tuesday night.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are the best team in the Eastern Conference, but it isn’t by a wide margin. They only entered Tuesday’s home game against the Central Division rival Detroit Pistons with a two-game lead over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference.
Cleveland has actually gone under .500 in its last 10 games, going 4-6 during that stretch. Fortunately for the Cavaliers, they are a dominant team at home (26-7) and can get ridiculously hot from 3-point range. It seems that it will end up being one of those nights for the Cavaliers, as they are smoking the Pistons into the second half.
The Cavaliers took a 74-48 lead over the division rival Pistons into half time. Cleveland shot from a ridiculously high rate in that first half. The Cavs connected on 69.2 percent of their shots from the field (27-for-39) and an unbelievable 78.6 percent from three (11-for-14).
They almost shot better from 3-point land than they did from the charity stripe in that first half at 77.8 percent (7-for-9). If that doesn’t tell basketball fans that we are living in the small-ball era of the NBA, perhaps nothing will.
Leading the charge for the Cavaliers was point guard Kyrie Irving. He had 17 points in the first half on 5-of-8 shooting from the field and 3-of-3 from beyond the arc. Irving made all four of his free throw attempts.
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Only two players in the Cleveland rotation on Tuesday night shot below 50 percent from the field in the first half. Backup point guard Deron Williams connected on only 40 percent of his shots. Center Tristan Thompson missed some easy buckets on 33.3 percent shooting. If Thompson missing at the rim allows Cleveland to make 78.6 percent of its threes in the first half, so be it.