The Cleveland Cavaliers have become the sixth team in NBA history to win at least 13 straight games to begin a season following their 114-106 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday. Four of the five teams to start 13-0 reached the NBA Finals, but only the 93-94 Houston Rockets won the championship.
There were rumors as last offseason began that the Cavaliers could break up their core of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, but they instead stayed the course and signed three of the four players to extensions.
“We’re just sticking together,” said Garland. “Just taking it game by game. We know we’ve got a target on our back, so we’ve got to come in with that aggressiveness and that confidence that we’re going to win every game, and that’s what we’ve been doing. Even though like I said, long nights, not a lot of sleep, but we’ve got to stay together and just continue just to be great. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
The Cavaliers will have a chance to test themselves on Tuesday against the Boston Celtics when they could be 15-0.
“That’s what you want,” Mitchell said. “At the end of the day, if you want to be the best, you got to beat the best. But in order to be the best, which we’re trying to continue to be, you got to go out there every night. And it’s a mental thing. How great do you want to be? Do you want to be satisfied? We’re hunting, but it’s also November. I keep telling everybody, let’s relax. I’m saying it is November. We’re not winning a championship right now. But these are good tests.
“The fact that we’re 13-0 is great. We could be 9-2. It doesn’t really matter to me. I think the biggest thing is how do we just continue to build the habits through getting every team’s best shot on a night-by-night basis.”
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