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Cavs Pound Pistons in Downtown Arena Debut

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Wrap-Up -- The Pistons might (still) be leading the Central Division, but on Monday night in their new gym, the Wine & Gold showed them that, even without their two top point guards, they’re still the East’s alpha dogs.

LeBron James helped set the tone early – notching 16 of his 18 points in the first period as the Cavaliers jumped out to a big lead and never looked back – demolishing the Pistons, 116-88, at Little Caesar’s Arena in downtown Detroit.

After snapping out of a funk on a recent road trip, the Cavaliers have been clicking – winning their fifth straight. In their last two regular season matchups against the Pistons, they’ve won by an average of 30.0 points.

Aside from Jose Calderon, Cleveland’s starters got the fourth quarter off after running up a 39-point lead after the first three.

In his second start of the season, Calderon needed a game like Monday’s laugher – finally finding his rhythm after seeing his minutes cut with the emergence of Iman Shumpert at the point. Against Detroit, the 12th-year guard finished with 14 points – going 4-of-5 from the floor, including 2-of-2 from long-range and 4-for-4 from the stripe, adding four boards, a pair of assists and a steal.

Kevin Love completely took Andre Drummond out of the game – leading Cleveland with 19 points and both teams with 11 boards in just under 26 minutes of work, going 8-for-12 from the floor and adding four assists.

Jae Crowder had his best offensive output as a Cavalier – finishing with 18 points on 5-for-11 shooting to go with five boards.

LeBron did his work early and went 7-for-14 from the floor overall, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc, leading both squads with eight assists to go with two boards and a blocked shot.

Jeff Green led Cleveland’s reserves with 11 points while Channing Frye and Kyle Korver combined to hit four of the six triples they attempted.

Dwyane Wade

Balanced scoring attack leads Cavs to big road win.

Every Piston that suited up scored on Monday, but none of them scored a lot. Tobias Harris led Detroit with 11 points, with Reggie Jackson and Stanley Johnson adding 10 points apiece in the loss.

Turning Point -- Monday’s turning point might have been the moment LeBron James and Kevin Love walked out of the Cavaliers locker room.

Both All-Stars were ready to play in the Pistons’ new arena. James went 6-of-8 from the floor in the first period, including a 3-for-4 mark from long-distance. Love was just as deadly – going 5-for-7 and adding 12 points and grabbing five boards of his own. When the smoke cleared on the quarter, the Cavs were up 13 – 36-23.

It didn’t get better for Detroit from there. The Wine & Gold proceeded to lead by 27 at intermission and were up, 101-62, after three.

By the Numbers44 … combined points that the Cavaliers bench scored on Monday night. Cleveland’s second unit – which came into the contest averaging 39.5 ppg, tied for 5th-best in the league – has now topped the 40-point mark in five of their last six contests.

QuotableLeBron James, on Cleveland’s five-game win streak and Monday’s win in Motown …

”We’ve just been playing well as of late. We’re in a good groove right now and we want to continue that coming in here today. They’ve been playing extremely good basketball – coming off a good win in Minnesota last night – so we knew they’d come out and try to give us their best shot and we knew we had to be ready for that.”

Up Next -- After drubbing Detroit to win their fifth straight, the Cavaliers – now 5-1 on the road in November – would love to close out the month on a roll, starting with a pair of home games this week. On Wednesday night, the Wine & Gold host the Nets for the first time this season, followed by a visit by the Hornets on Black Friday. On Monday the 27th, the Cavs visit Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and the Sixers and return home to face Miami the following night. Cleveland wraps up the month of November next Thursday night in Atlanta.

Calls of the Game