Pacers try to close out Cavs, then Game 5 of Thunder-Nuggets
Digest more
The Cleveland Cavaliers are set to fight for their season on Tuesday night in Game 5 against the Indiana Pacers. Facing potential elimination, Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, and company will need to bring their best game of the series.
The Indiana Pacers emphatically pushed the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers to the brink of playoff elimination with a dominant 129-109 win to take a 3-1 series lead.
23hon MSN
It's been 40 years since the first NBA draft lottery. The New York Knicks won it back in 1985 and got to draft Patrick Ewing.
Teams that lead a seven-game series by a 3-1 margin have a 280-13 record of closing it out. That means 13 teams did it, including the 2016 Cavs with LeBron James. That was in the NBA Finals, the only team ever to come back from 3-1 and win a title.
For the Cavaliers, the past year has been memorable. For just the third time in the history of the franchise, Cleveland won 60-plus games, tallying 64 wins and landing the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. Star guard Donovan Mitchell, though he sacrificed some individual statistics, was the driving force.