Cavs Sink Hawks for Season's First Win

Only three games into the season, but facing a brutal West Coast swing the following week, Saturday’s matchup with the Hawks was a game the Wine & Gold really needed to get.

They got it.

Behind excellent efforts from Ricky Rubio and rookie Evan Mobley, the Cavaliers got their first victory of the 2021-22 season – using a 21-0 stretch that spanned the first and second halves and holding Atlanta off down the stretch to take the 101-95 win at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

One night after taking the blame for a tough loss in the home opener in which he committed three key turnovers in the fourth quarter, Rubio was sensational on Saturday – leading Cleveland with 23 points on 9-for-15 shooting, including 3-of-7 from beyond the arc, adding a team-high eight assists, six boards and a steal.

His back-to-back bombs before half turned the game’s momentum and he committed just a single turnover after intermission – taking over for Darius Garland, who missed his second straight game with a sprained left ankle.

Mobley was almost as impressive – registering his first career double-double with 17 points and 11 boards, going 7-of-12 from the floor while tallying a game-high four blocks.

Jarrett Allen also doubled-up on the night, chipping in with 11 points and a team-best 14 rebounds, adding a pair of steals in the win.

Collin Sexton, Lauri Markkanen and Kevin Love each added 12 points on Saturday night.

Sexton battled through foul trouble most of the night, finishing 5-of-14 from the floor to go with five assists. Markkanen struggled from the floor, but still scored seven of his 12 points in the final quarter. Love did his work off the bench, adding six boards and three assists in 24 minutes of work.

The Cavaliers held Atlanta to just 38 percent shooting on the night, took a dozen more free throws and scored a dozen more points in the paint. The Hawks were led by Trae Young, who finished with 24 points, but it took him 22 shots to get there.

Miss any of the action? Find all the highlights and photos in the Game Tracker.

Ricky Rubio finds Jarrett Allen running the floor who throws down a strong one-handed jam in transition.

The Hawks were in almost complete control throughout the first half, then proceeded to take a 12-point edge on Trae Young’s floater with just over three minutes to play in the second quarter.

Atlanta held an 11-point lead with 1:32 to play when the Cavs made their move – with Isaac Okoro and Collin Sexton hitting buckets to close the gap and Ricky Rubio drilling back-to-back triples just before intermission, cutting the Hawks lead to just four at half.

The third quarter belonged to Cleveland – grabbing the lead a minute into the second stanza and grabbing a double-digit advantage on Evan Mobley’s and-1 at the 8:50 mark.

By the Numbers - 6,331 … points that Kevin Love has now scored as a member of the Cavaliers, moving him past World B. Free (6,329) and into 11th place on the Cavaliers all-time scoring list. To reach the top 10, he’ll have to catch Campy Russell, who sits at 6,588 points.

Love needs just a single defensive rebound to tie Hot Rod Williams for 5th on the franchise’s all-time list.

Kevin Love, on rookie Evan Mobley …

”He’s got a huge future in front of him. He’s going to make, in my mind, a number of All-Defensive teams in his career. He’s just getting started and once he goes through a league a couple times, like any rookie, and once he figures out how good he is, he’s gonna be a guy who gets a double-double every night.”

Enjoy the best broadcast calls of the night from Cavaliers Radio Network's Tim Alcorn and Rafa Hernandez-Brito from Power 89.1.

With the weekend back-to-back – and their first victory of the season – in the rearview mirror, the Cavaliers hit the road for an unusually early trip out West – taking on four of the Conference’s heavyweights before wrapping up next Monday on Tobacco Road.

On Monday night, the Wine & Gold face off against the reigning MVP, Nikola Jokic, and the Nuggets before heading to Tinseltown for a pair – facing off against Tyronn Lue’s Clippers on Wednesday night before taking on LeBron and the Lakers on Friday. The following night, it’s a matchup against the Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns to wrap up the month of October.

The Cavs wrap up the trip on Monday night in Charlotte before returning home, where they’ll play five of the next seven.