Kyrie Irving scored 31 points on the night as the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Portland Trail Blazers by the score of 93-88 on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013. With the win the Cavaliers improve to 10-31 while the Trail Blazers slip to 20-19.
View the official NBA box score here.
In addition to 31 points for Irving, he recorded five assists and four steals in Cleveland’s winning effort. Tristan Thompson stepped up his game logging 19 points and 14 rebounds while Tyler Zeller nearly saw a double-double with 11 points and nine boards.
Portland had three players with double-doubles in the game led by Nicolas Batum with 23 points and 12 rebounds, LaMarcus Aldridge with 15 points and 10 rebounds, and J.J. Hickson with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
During the post-game press conference, coach Byron Scott stated:
“We knew they were going to make a run, it was just a matter of how we handled it. I’ve seen this movie before, too, so I was wondering how we were going to do this time compared to a few of the other times. I was hoping we didn’t have another re-run, and luckily, tonight, we were able to hold off.”
Kudos go out to the Blazers who were down 53-36 at the half, but managed to battle their way back into the game in the second half. It was an impressive effort, especially playing a road game in Denver the night prior before returning home to host the visiting Cavaliers.
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