The Cleveland Cavaliers improved to 14-0, the longest winning streak in franchise history at any point in a season, with Friday's 144-126 home win over the Chicago Bulls. The Cavs are well over halfway to the best start in NBA history, which belongs to the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors who won their first 24 games.
The final score on Friday was deceiving. This was a four-point game with under three minutes to play, but the Cavaliers closed on a 21-7 flurry to make it look a lot more lopsided on paper.
Cleveland's 14 straight wins to open the season matches the 2002-03 Dallas Mavericks and the 1957-58 Boston Celtics for third on the all-time list. The Cavaliers can match the second-best start in history, which belongs to the 1993-94 Houston Rockets -- who went on to win the championship -- if they can beat the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday for a 15th consecutive win.
After that, keeping the streak alive will get a lot tougher as the Cavs travel to Boston on Tuesday for an NBA Cup matchup. If they could somehow get through that game, their schedule immediately opens back up with games versus the hobbled Pelicans and Raptors followed by a home-and-home with the Hawks. Cleveland might be one victory over the Celtics from running this thing to 20.
At that point, they play Boston again. If they beat the Celtics two times in two weeks to run their record to 21-0, they deserve the record. But the truth is, when you're this deep into a run like this, any opponent can trip you up.
This is a one-game-at-a-time situation, and the Cavs are to be applauded for coming into every matchup with full focus and energy. They own the second-best point differential in the league at plus-12.1, but they have had to win plenty of tight affairs. Friday, in fact, was their seventh clutch win, meaning the game was within five points with under five minutes to play.
Both Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell have been extraordinary in these clutch minutes, which the Cavs are winning by a significant 6.6 points per game.
Only Nikola Jokic, DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Durant have scored more clutch points that the 32 put up so far by Garland, who has made 12 of his 15 shots in those situations. On Friday, it was Mitchell with nine points over a one-minute stretch to close the game, including a pair of 3-pointers. The dagger:
Cleveland got past Chicago without the services of Evan Mobley, who was out with an illness. No big deal. All fellow big man Jarrett Allen did was put up 24 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks on 11-of-15 shooting.
Pair that with 66 combined points from Mitchell (37) and Garland (29) on 11-of-20 3-point shooting, plus 22 points and four more 3-pointers off the bench for Caris LeVert, and Cleveland had plenty of offense to go around. Chicago was led by Coby White (29 points and six 3-pointers) and Nikola Vucevic, who continued his splendid start to the season with 25 points on 11-of-16 shooting.