Highlights
- Max Strus hits a half-court game-winner for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Dallas Mavericks.
- Cavaliers end Mavericks’ seven-game win streak with Strus’s heroics.
- Strus steps up in the clutch moment, and credits Donovan Mitchell’s absence as the key factor.
Fans are chanting Max Strus’s name up and down the Cuyahoga River, as the Cleveland Cavaliers bested Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night, 121-119.
Strus hit a half-court game-winner as the horn sounded to seal the deal for the Cavaliers, winning their second game since the All-Star Break. The Mavericks had a seven-game win streak snapped in Ohio.
Struss hit the shot over superstar Luka Doncic, who walked off in disbelief after the shot swished through the net.
Cleveland Rocks!
The Cavaliers are 2nd in the Eastern Conference
Doncic scored 45 points for Dallas and Kyrie Irving added a cool 30 points, but it was not enough for Donovan Mitchell’s 31 points and Strus’s heroics. Strus added 21 points for good measure, but he can’t be blamed if he only remembers the final basket, which is the shot players dream of hitting.
Stus hit the shot after demanding that the ball he just inbounded come right back to him. With no timeouts remaining, Cleveland needed a bucket in a do-or-die situation, and Strus stepped up and called game. Nothing but net.
While the halfcourt heave is not a shot regularly practiced, Strus is having a solid year for Cleveland, averaging a career-high 12.1 points per game despite a slight dip in shooting.
|
Max Strus’s Shooting Percentages |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Category |
This Season |
Career |
|
PPG |
12.1 |
10.5 |
|
FG% |
41.5% |
42.4% |
|
3PA |
7.0 |
6.3 |
|
3PT% |
33.3% |
36.1% |
Strus credits Mitchell being on the bench with him even getting a chance to end the game, suggesting that if Mitchell were on the court, the ball would have gone to him.
“Don was out of the game, so somebody else had to step up! I got lucky Don was out, because he would have shot that one! That was awesome, great win. We needed it…We won the game!”
Strus’s shot was the second-longest game-winner of the three-point era, and the only the second one longer than 50 feet in the last ten years.
The Cavaliers are second in the Eastern Conference behind only the Boston Celtics. Both Cleveland and Dallas have title aspirations, so stepping up in the clutch against an excellent team bodes well for the Cavaliers.
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The Detroit Pistons guard had some choice words for about former team following the wild finish.
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