Cavs three-point shooting goes cold, drop Game 1

Cleveland gives up home-court advantage in the second round.

CLEVELAND — Three-point variance comes for everyone eventually. The Cleveland Cavaliers picked an inopportune time for it to come from them. They couldn’t make a shot while the Indiana Pacers seemingly couldn’t miss. This added up to a 121-112 win for the Pacers and a 1-0 series lead.

If you were to draw up the perfect formula for the Pacers to win a game, this would be it. They hit their threes (53%), Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam both played like All-Stars, their role players played way above their heads, and the Cavs uncharacteristically couldn’t hit anything from deep (24%). Oh, and Cleveland was without their All-Star point guard Darius Garland.

How repeatable that formula is remains to be seen. At the very least, it isn’t an easy one to replicate three out of the next six games.

Evan Mobley opened the scoring with five points in the first two possessions with a turnaround fadeaway and then a three-pointer to get the hometown crowd going.

The Pacers responded in a big way. They connected on 6-9 threes in the first quarter to go along with shooting 66.7% from the field (14-21). This, combined with a slow start from Cleveland’s shooters, was good enough to come away with an 11-point advantage at the end of the first.

The Cavaliers cut into their lead in the second to make it a 64-58 game at the break.

Indiana came out strong in the third quarter. They extended their lead to 12 before Cleveland finally made its move. A move that was led entirely by Donovan Mitchell.

Mitchell’s energy allowed the Cavs and their crowd to get back into the game. He scored 12 points in the third quarter. Most of which were the result of relentlessly attacking the basket.

They turned a 12-point deficit into a four-point lead in just a few minutes. Indiana rallied to take a two-point lead into the fourth.

It was back and forth at the beginning of the final quarter. Five quick points from Mobley briefly gave Cleveland a lead midway through the quarter, but the Pacers wouldn’t go away. A three from Tyrese Haliburton and then two more from Andrew Nembhard helped make it an eight-point lead with just under three minutes to play.

Indiana’s defense held firm from there. Fruitless drives from Ty Jerome and Mitchell inside the paint and an airball three from Max Strus late in the fourth did them in.

The Cavaliers simply couldn’t keep up with Indiana’s offense.

The Pacers were led by phenomenal games from their best players. Nembhard had a team-high 23 points on 5-6 shooting from three. Haliburton provided 22 points on 7-10 shooting to go along with six assists. Pascal Siakam added 17 points in the win.

Mitchell did his best to keep the Cavs in this one, but his game-high 33 points on 13-30 shooting weren’t enough. It also didn’t help that he went just 1-11 from deep.

Mobley had a strong game, providing 20 points and 10 rebounds in the loss. Jerome finished with 21 points off the bench on 8-20 shooting with eight assists.

The Cavs have a talent advantage in this series. That showed through even on a night they couldn’t get anything to fall from three, and the Pacers couldn’t miss. The Cavs still had plenty of chances to win this one in a game the boxscore says shouldn’t have been competitive.

That said, you never want to surrender home-court advantage in Game 1. The Cavs will head into a near-must-win Game 2 on Tuesday evening.